Shopping In Asia

Contrary to what you may read in this column.... there is more to do in Asia than conquering the indigenous population (assuming I spelled "indigenous" properly) or making them manufacture Nikes for $1 a week.

Me? I like to shop. You can't afford to be isolated in this world economy. That's why i use the teleport feature of SL to go shopping in Asia a lot. Why just dress in American or French fashions? Two billion Chinese can't be wrong.

History supports this. Asia has long been a sought-after marketplace. Silks and spices drove ancient Euro/Asian trade. After a few centuries of Europeans eating cold mutton and wearing wool in the summer, a bit of silk and pepper were worth more than their weight in gold. Christopher Columbus wasn't looking for a new World.. he was looking for a quicker way to India. America is an accident that happened because Spain wanted cheap paprika.

So... with that in mind, i headed off to The Big Continent to do some Asian shopping. If Marco Polo had a sports column and cheerleader legs, his adventures would have looked

something

like

this:

But he didn't, which is why God made Stacey Cardalines.

I don't own a house or a nightclub on SL (when i need privacy, I generally use Lanai's office), so I have a lot of money to throw around on whimsical fashion items. Unless i open a SL Hong Kong Kitchen, I really have no idea what i will use this outfit pictured above for.... but I had to have it, and it wasn't that expensive. Asians are a wise people, and you won't last long there steady rippin' people off.

I actually lost the landmark to wherever I was when I took that pic (I was most likely searching "Japan"), but it was some sort of shrine. While I don't dance with the dragon myself or anything, I bet this would be a great place to kick back and smoke a fat-ass blunt in. The color scheme alone would entertain you for a half hour. Paired with my kimono in the top picture, I can now hang in Asia and look, well, tall and wide-eyed.

While I didn't find any chives for historical purposes (the only thing I found growing in my Asian travels were gardens and opium), my time was not wasted.

You can say that a day spent at Roberto's Persian Carpet Emporium is 24 hours of your life that you won't ever get back again, but you'll have to fight me first.

Carpetmaking is an integral part of Persian art and culture. The oldest surviving carpet in the world is from 5000 BC, and you already probably guessed that it was a Persian carpet. In a seriously religious country where you aren't allowed to depict the Main Deity, carpets became a principal form of artistic expression. Iran sold 420 million dollars in carpets last year. Other countries imitate, but Iran dominates.

Roberto's Persian Carpet Emporium (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sibine/118/167/73) is a fine place to go if you need to hook up your apartment or if you just want to stone out and stare at the walls. The walls rule here, trust me.

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