23-JUL-2005

On the last day I found it - gadget heaven on earth: Cybermart (www.cybermart.com.cn). Well over one hundred technology shops in one large shoppingcenter. A large lan party like Assembly in Helsinki came to mind. Small shops next to each other with lots of salespersons playing Counterstrike while eating noodles, empty soft drink cans everywhere and electrical and network cables covering the floor.

This is what I call a shopping experience.

On the first floor there are mostly brand stores: Apple center, Sony store, HP shop... The second floor was mostly made up of shops sellind devices: all the MP3-player brands I have ever heard off and then a few hundred more, mobile phones, scanners and so on. The third floor, however, was my favourite: components. Mainboards, CPUs, harddrives, USB powered keyboard vacuumcleaners...

Here the hard-to-find Sony PSP is not so hard to find and quite cheap too: about 160 euros. They also had spare batteries and games for the PSP - and no fakes but genuine articles.

Memory cards is something I have been looking at in every department store, and everywhere the prices have been the same or higher than in Scandinavia - but not here: finally the bargains I had expected to find in China.

Cybermart is located in the center of Shanghai not that far from People's Square, on Huaihai road and can be reached by subway line 1.