Leading up to our trip to NYC, when asked what I wanted to do in the city I would respond jokingly (ahem, seriously) "get a knock-off coach purse!!" This bothered Adam to no end. He couldn't believe that of ALLLLLLL the things to do in the city, I would want to get a purse! No mention of the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, or a Broadway show.... no, this girl wanted a purse. (Of course I wanted to see and do all sorts of things, but it's the purse I wanted as a souvenir.)Eventually Adam came to accept the fact that I was a girl on a mission! We asked around before heading into the city and it seemed we needed to head to China Town. I wasn't sure what Chinese food had to do with purses, but I took their word for it and made it a goal.
So our first day in NYC we made sure our tour bus headed down to China Town..... specifically looking for "Canal St." Little did we know what we were in store for. We got off the bus and refueled ourselves with a "hot" (COLD, hard) pretzel and some infamous street meat (aka hot dog). Then we were off. Once we got to Canal St. it was utter chaos. People walking this way and that, stores that reminded me of Old Orchard Beach (there's a Maine shout-out!!), for those of you unfamiliar with this glorious Maine beach town, basically they were stores filled with CRAP. I walked into a couple places with purses but they definitely weren't knock-offs, they were just cheap crap. So I started asking the little chinese people if they had anything looking like coach. I kept getting NO for an answer. Oh and by the way, although there were 1.2 million people walking around these places, it was verrrrry quiet. Almost creepily quiet. One crappy hall we walked down had small "offices" of different purses. One chinese child (yes, she was a kid!) was able to show me a couple coach knock offs she had in a locked drawer, but none were THE purse. Meanwhile I hear a man on a walkie-talkie say they are going to open a secret room. Adam and I get excited and walk over to the secret room door and I asked the ladies standing around, "what's in the room?????" (maybe too loudly- because none of them would look at me.) Eventually one woman whispered, "purses." I peeked in there and they didn't look all that great.
As Adam and I continued walking down Canal St, a little chinese lady whispers to me as I'm about to pass her, "Chanel? Coach?" I respond with a quick, "yes!" and she has us follow her. She gets on her walkie-talkie and says something in Chinese that we don't understand. I look to Adam and we both start cracking up! We're definitely in the black market in New York City now!! The little lady weaves in and out of other padestrians and eventually comes to a stop at a corner. I'm looking at her questioningly-wondering what to do from here- her walkie-talkie buzzes to life, again we can't understand it. She tells me to head down the street to where there's a store with a blue shirt hanging. We go in and another chinese woman tells us to wait by the "back door." Mind you- a guy from the Sopranos is already waiting with a big black duffle bag and another couple soon joins us too. Within a couple seconds, the door is opened and a chinese man rushes us into the room... it's EMPTY! The nervous giggles start erupting out of my mouth. I look to Adam and he doesn't seem worried so I decide to go with the flow! Once the door is closed and locked, YES LOCKED (!!!), he walks across the room to another door and proceeds to unlock it. Behold the walls of Chanel and Coach purses (and the angels sing, Ahhhhh!)! I couldn't believe my eyes. It didn't look like a regular store where you'd find a purse or bag, there were shelves lining the walls from floor to ceiling, all shelves were stacked with purses. This is every woman's dream! I scanned the shelves and eventually found the Coach purses I was looking for. The colors were endless: green, black, brown, tan, pink.... I could go on! After trying on each one Adam helped me choose a chocolate brown one. I wanted to buy all of them...but didn't have enough cash! So I paid the woman the $43 bucks I had.
When we were ready to be let out of purse prison Tony Soprano was still unpacking his duffle bag of knock offs. Not sure WHAT was going on there, but since I had just purchased a purse from the black market, I probably didn't have room to ask!
Things I learned: #1. Don't talk loudly on canal st. or no one will show you their "secret locked stores."
#2. They sell more than chinese food in NYC china town!
