Email Fashion Plaza

Email Fashion Plaza is an underground shopping mall near my apartment. I don't want to focus on the name, but there's no getting around that it's very strange. It's not like there's an Internet Cafe right at the hub of the shopping center. Maybe the shopping center was opened at a time when the concept of e-mail seemed high-tech and cool?

This photo shows just of part of its great location: across the street from Jing'an Temple and the foreigner grocery story next door, near a bunch of office buildings, adjoining a subway station, next to a park. On the other hand, getting there from the street involves going down a bunch of stairs. It's not a big deal, but it discourages casual street traffic.



A discovery, New York Style Pizza! I went to another branch of the same chain once, it's pretty forgettable, and only vaguely in a New York style. A bummer - when I briefly lived in NYC I was pretty down on the food, pizza was a notable exception. I'll give it another chance someday. There's also a series of booths and tables at the base of the plaza, people stop and have a soda or a snack from the outside booths. In warmer weather it can be fairly crowded, even now there's a fair number of people.



For a fashionable young woman, I get the idea this would be a very fun place to stroll the aisles. It's one little boutique store after the next, one crowded against the other, in a long series of passageways. I gather some of these are part of smaller fashion chains, and others are the retail centers for independent designers. When I took these photos, it was still Spring Festival time, and were closed for the holiday:



It's not exclusively small boutiques, a lot of stores just sold chintzy knick-knack accessories, same as anywhere else in Shanghai:



There's also a few inside stores that don't have to do with fashion. I don't think I've seen Nutcracker Men anywhere else in the city, but this place has an awesome selection!