My new LYS

I found an actual LYS (the address translated into English: No.21-7, Jingcheng Rd., West District, Taichung City 403, Taiwan), not the hobby shop with some yarn stuff, but an actual whole store dedicated to Yarn!!! Man was I in heaven. It's not too far... close enough that i can call my LYS, and go once a week if I felt like it. Only an hour and a half by bus from where I'm starting out, but about 30 mins by my own car! Nice huh?

I discovered it thru the newspapers of course. The weekend section of the dailys is doing a special feature about Taichung Shops, and it featured this yarn shop in a short blurb. I didn't even think of visiting it... I am big and mighty in thinking that it was going to be a dinky yarn shop, not worth visiting. But my mom saw the article and mentioned that maybe i wanted to go.

well mom, if you think i should go, then i guess we can go take a look.

yesterday we had my dad's car, and got directions from my dad, and set off on this adventure. The place isn't hard to find, v. bus friendly ( you'd take the same bus as if you're going to Shinkong & Sogo in Taichung for me anyway.), and there is a parking structure about 3 blocks away. The store front is mainly an attention getter.

It has tons and tons of knitted, crochet items, in a small space. the real yarn is placed upstairs and in storage. On the second floor, two doors down, the real yarn heaven begins.

The spaceous 2nd floor, holds different Japanese yarn. i had thought that perhaps they sold Noro, since they had a noro display framed, but she didn't. she pointed me towards something that had similiar noro color stripping. I was ok with that, but i had really wanted to see if i could buy Noro in taiwan... well my quest continues on that i guess.

since in most asian places the yarn is bagged up, they have the knitted sample color cards for you to touch and look at the colors. it's all very overwhelming when you see it. I mean buying yarn for me is as much a tactile experience as anything else... so it's a little weird when i can't touch the actual yarnball.

I ended up purchasing Bacara Epoch (which i found some on ravelry in stash, so i'm glad i'm not the only who's purchased this yarn.) I bought 10 balls. I don't know what i'm going to make. each ball is $380 NTD, which at the current exchange rate for USD is $11.57. Actually now that I've done the conversion... it's actually kinda expensive. Hm...well i'm sure i pay more when i have them shipped to taiwan in shipping added...

they also had this organic cotton that i wanted to give it a try... maybe next time I visit, i'll get the organic cotton.

besides the massive yarn collection, they also have a huge notions sections on handles, safety eyes, needle felting, japanese books, needles and accessories, even ribbon yarn. apparently they also have classes...

I mean i still do not like how the sales assistant kept standing there while i looked. I even told her that i wanted to just look for myself (code for leave now!!) but she said it's ok, and kept standing. Thank goodness that after i decided to purchase some yarn, she walked away, and left me to browse... i always feel pressured to buy when they stand there.

I'm really glad I went. I'm beginning to love taiwan more and more, can you tell. I might just settle down here and never leave!!