Buzzed around a few costume shops, trying to slap something half-assed together for tomorrow night. Checked out the usual suspects. It's mostly ho-hum out there for costumes off-the-rack, but I suppose using your imagination is what Halloween is all about right? I don't have any imagination. Too much Super Nofriendo. Need something off the rack. Anyways, if you barfed all over your real costume last weekend and are just looking to get something passable for a party or something on Wednesday night, here's what's out there. Click on the links for the hours of these venues -- mostly work hours so you've pretty much just got daytime on Wednesday to make it happen! You can do it!

Tianyi Market

Tianyi, really more a gifts market, is almost already in full-on Christmas mode, but there's still lots of stalls dealing in Halloween-ish things. It's mostly stuff for if you're hosting a house party, but still enough costumes and things if you're in a bind. Mask, full outfits, hats, wigs, all that stuff. Behold. HALLOWEEN CRAPOLA. Masks, masks, masks. Hats and wigs... Candles... Some kinda neat looking finger candles… Tianyi Market is ground zero for gifts, accesories, and assorted shit for a lot of vendors in the city. The stuff you find in boutique shops around the city comes from here. Vendors roll up here, buy it for cheap, and cart it all off to sell in different locations at slightly higher prices, like my man right here. So hitting it up right at the source saves you a few RMBs. Little stuff is 15-30rmb. Full costumes are 75rmb. Honestly speaking, this location has the widest selection of stuff we could find for materials to make costumes… but pressing on.

Vantone Market

Vantone is just a short distance from Tianyi Market and also has a bunch of Halloween stuff on the second floor. Mostly just cheap lanterns, plastic accessories, and masks. Lots of overlap here but it's slightly less traffic, so if you just want to get-it-get-out with a mask or something, it does the job. Especially if that mask is a Shrek mask… 12rmb for the small one, 18rmb for the large one. Shrek! Dressing up like 2003 -- can't miss.

Walmart

Then we went to Walmart which was having a special on Halloween items and CRIPPLING, AGONIZING DEPRESSION. I don't know, man. We didn't make it that far in to the store. It was Walmart. There is some Halloween shit there. There's stuff. Masks. Wigs. Decorations for parties. Candies. They're doing the anthropomorphic M&M guys still. Leaving Walmart, right about here is where is when we began to apply alcohol liberally to this shopping trip and things got really poignant. Behold. I call this piece "Shackled Innocence" (Digital Film, 2012). But we finally made it over to our last stop, which was…

Wangfujing Pedestrian Street

…in the hopes of finding something tacky and culturally insensitive -- "Raiden from Mortal Kombat" anyone? BUT weaving our way through the tourists we found some nice masks. Like these… ...and some grotesque ones like these… So that's an option to if you want to go as, you know, whatever the hell these things are supposed to be. *** Blah! Happy Halloween everyone! Just go to that first one! Or the second and be Shrek! Or this last one! Journalism! Hey-OH!