A-WOOWOOWOO!!

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A-WOOWOOWOO!!, originally uploaded by jolinjojobeans.

Any time I travel out of Philadelphia city proper I get the thrill of ooh! going on an ADVENTURE!! *claps hands* Even the 30 minute ride out to picturesque Chestnut Hill is loaded with excitement. Never mind that a few thousand people commute this same journey every single day to work. To me, this novelty is like an expedition into the dark jungles of the Amazon… that is..an Amazon that’s more posh and has pricier boutiques.

Last weekend I coerced my friend Kate (see picture attached. she’s the one in blue. and only two legs…) to go check out Chestnut Hill with me. partly because I was getting tired of being boxed in by concrete city blocks and partly because there’s an ongoing street exhibition of painted animals (I think they were trying to replicate Cow Parade – i LOOOOVE those cows) all along germantown Avenue. Our firm had sponsored one of the painted animals (see camel above. No comment…) so out of company loyalty we went to see how it fared in the menagerie of beasts.

I’ll say this, it looks better when it’s outdoors.

*cough.cough*

A for effort?

Better to have loved and lost….

eh…. I tried.

So anyway, back to Chestnut Hill. It’s a really pretty, posh place. For the Malaysian readers out there, it’s kinda like Frasers and Camerons but populated with stores like Bangsar back in it’s glory days. there was this consignment store that we stepped into that had items from Gucci, Versace, Furla… who buys second hand shoes that are $300?????!!!!! Sure, the original prices were twice that much but still! blech!!!

I’m ALL for consignment stores and flea markets. Are you kidding, that’s where I get most of my clothes from. I found the best vintage wholesaler at the summer fleamarkets. I love that no one else will be wearing my 50’s geometric print velvet dress and bakelite earrings. Best of all, your dollar stretches extremely far ( I paid $3 for a super funky blouse. SigOther assured me that only I have the ability to pull off a picnic blanket print tunic in red, purple and blue – I take that as a compliment)

I checked out the new Club Monaco on Walnut Street the other day and what really bugged me was how people find no problem in paying $300 for a handbag or $200 for a sweater. What really irked me was that it was these two young women who definitely looked like international UPenn students. ie. their parents had worked really hard and saved so that their kids could get to the United States and get a good, heck Great education. And how do they show their gratitude? They blow their daddy’s money on $179 scarves at Anthropologie and $300 handbags at Club Monaco!!! grrr!!!

Worst of all, if you come from a poor/developing country you’re aware that $300 is not even how much your average countryman earns back home in a month. Yes, conditions like that exist. Not within my own upper middle class circle of friends but I know that most of them would not be able to justify splurging that much on something so trivial as a scarf or bag anyway.

Okay, so the counteragument of this is that by patronizing these exorbitantly priced stores these rich students are contributing money back into the economy and thus paying the wages of the poor. Yes, but we’re talking about giant corporations here who get their goods at low low cost and raise their profit margins to benefit only their own.

ugh.

It makes me sick to think that someone will think $179 is a reasonable price to pay for a scarf.

ps: note to self. Stop turning every blog entry into some socialist propaganda.