Boo! Halloween is around the corner and you’ve left costume shopping until the last minute. But fret not. A cluster of well-stocked costume rental shops near Red House Theater in Ximending will save you from being reduced to wearing a sheet over your head.
The stores on Hanzhong Street (漢中街) between Chengdu Road (成都路) and Zhangsha Street (長沙街) carry similar selections of merchandise, including cheerleading outfits, ballet tutus, Chinese opera costumes, baroque gowns that would not look out of place in a school production of Shakespeare, and plush costumes for the furries among us.
Rental prices vary little in the neighborhood and are reasonable — most costumes are between NT$400 to NT$800 per day. Some stores, however, stand out for the upkeep of their merchandise and their service. These include the newly-opened Quanguo (全國) at 168 Hanzhong St (漢中街168號), tel: (02) 2388-7198, and Qinglong (青龍) at 137 Hanzhong St (漢中街137號), tel: (02) 2331-4989, across the street. Quanguo’s two floors of costumes are neatly hung on easily accessibly racks and there are dressing rooms in the back with a decent amount of privacy. The service staff is friendly and attentive, while the outfits themselves are clean and well maintained. Standouts include a cream-colored evening gown made out of layers of chiffon that looked ready to waltz into an episode of Mad Men, several Korean hanboks in shimmery pastel hues and a goofy plush ear of corn.
Qinglong’s costume selection is similar, but the store’s showroom is less well stocked than Quanguo’s (most of the costume shops on Hanzhong Street have binders full of photos that you select costumes from), making browsing a little less pleasurable. Qinglong seems especially popular with families (giddy children were tearing up and down the aisles last Sunday) and has a notable selection of mascot costumes, including Doraemon, Hello Kitty, a penguin and a somewhat creepy looking dolphin.
Xinfeng (薪豐) at 146 Hanzhong St (漢中街146號), tel: (02) 2389-4680, is tiny, but differentiates itself from its neighbors with beautiful hanfu and other traditional Chinese clothing. A short and simple brocade qipao is just NT$350 to rent. Lianfong’s fancier items, including a gorgeous silk robe with lush embroidery, are NT$850 and up.
Bour Dance (寶琦華) at 130 Hanzhong St (漢中街130號), tel: (02) 2312-1910, is another standout on the block. The spacious, well-appointed dancewear store sells high-quality leotards, tights, dance skirts and footwear for ballet, ballroom and flamenco dancers, as well as Chacott stage makeup. Smaller dance stores on the block include Xinchao (欣潮) at 167 Hanzhong St (漢中街167號), tel: (02) 2382-5454; its neighbor Youyang Shenghuo (有氧生活) at 169 Hanzhong St (漢中街169號), tel: (02) 2312-1123; and Ting Ting (婷婷) at 158 Hanzhong St (漢中街158號), tel: (02) 2388-2993.
Want to impress other revelers with a realistic, oozing gash on your neck or drench yourself in stage blood? Then walk a few blocks over to Ben Nye Taiwan (花莉) at 40, Hankou St, Sec 2 (漢口街二段40號), tel: (02) 2381-3220 (call 0963-007-211 for English service), which has sold stage makeup for more than 30 years. As the name implies, the store specializes in Ben Nye cosmetics from the US, but it also sells a variety of other special effects makeup. Halloween kits (including vampire, cat and old age makeup) are NT$700 each. Other ghoulish staples include wax for building up your nose or creating scars, spirit gum and crepe wool hair.
FYI: Most costume stores on Hanzhong Street are open from 9:30am to 8pm on weekdays. Dancewear stores close an hour earlier. Quanguo is closed on Sundays.
The breakwater stretches out to sea from the sprawling Kaohsiung port in southern Taiwan. Normally, it’s crowded with massive tankers ferrying liquefied natural gas from Qatar to be stored in the bulbous white tanks that dot the shoreline. These are not normal times, though, and not a single shipment from Qatar has docked at the Yongan terminal since early March after the Strait of Hormuz was shuttered. The suspension has provided a realistic preview of a potential Chinese blockade, a move that would throttle an economy anchored by the world’s most advanced and power-hungry semiconductor industry. It is a stark reminder of
May 11 to May 17 Traversing the southern slopes of the Yushan Range in 1931, Japanese naturalist Tadao Kano knew he was approaching the last swath of Taiwan still beyond colonial control. The “vast, unknown territory,” protected by the “fierce” Bunun headman Dahu Ali, was “filled with an utterly endless jungle that choked the mountains and valleys,” Kano wrote. He noted how the group had “refused to submit to the measures of our authorities and entrenched themselves deep in these mountains … living a free existence spent chasing deer in the morning and seeking serow in the evening,” even describing them as
The last couple of weeks spectators in Taiwan and abroad have been treated to a remarkable display of infighting in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) over the supplementary defense budget. The party has split into two camps, one supporting an NT$800 billion special defense budget and one supporting an NT$380 billion budget with additional funding contingent on receiving letters of acceptance (LOA) from the US. Recent media reports have said that the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) is leaning toward the latter position. President William Lai (賴清德) has proposed NT$1.25 trillion for purchases of US arms and for development of domestic weapons
As a different column was being written, the big news dropped that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) announced that negotiations within his caucus, with legislative speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT, party Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chair Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) had produced a compromise special military budget proposal. On Thursday morning, prior to meeting with Cheng over a lunch of beef noodles, Lu reiterated her support for a budget of NT$800 or NT$900 billion — but refused to comment after the meeting. Right after Fu’s
RSS