So I limited myself to 45 minutes
Getting there was easy: take a train to Beimen station. Look for the Tacheng Street exit and walk against the traffic for a few minutes and you'll start seeing fabric shops on both sides of the street. I'm not into tailoring type of fabrics but crafting, so I was looking out for cotton / cotton-linen prints.
If you make your way past the shophouses, you'll then reach the market proper. There are 4 levels. I don't remember the first. I just went in and there was a colourful flight of steps up to the level 2. The 3rd level is under renovation so the tenants moved to the 4th level which is only accessible by the lift.
The first shop we saw was 布哥哥的店. They have many cotton / cotton-linen precuts that I was stuck there for a while trying to limit myself to only a few pieces. A fat quarter cotton-linen cost NT50 (about S$2.50) which is really cheap considering the quality and print. Incidentally, I opened up the folded fat quarter when I got back and saw on the selvedge that they printed it themselves. I checked out their website from the sticker on the fat quarter and saw that they also ship to Singapore. Maybe I'll check them out when I'm done with sewing these.
We walked around a bit more looking for other pre-cuts and snagged a couple of laminated cotton-linen prints, canvas and liberty-type cotton prints. The largest piece was a yard of giraffes peeking out from triangle prints. Too cute :)
If you're also doing the tourist-stamping thing, stop by the visitor information centre at the junction. That's where I got the largest stamp for the whole trip. A shop further down the road also had stamps outside.
If I would go again, I'd probably limit myself to an hour and higher budget. I'd skip level 4 because I'm not into tulle or pinstripes.
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