as i mentioned in the previous post, on saturday i went to kaohsiung to go to campo(note this is a long post - just scroll down if you get bored). campo is part diy market, part art event, part music event and part flea market. this was the first time i'd gone to campo outside of taipei and wasn't sure what to expect. it was also the first time i'd noticed that the government has sponsored it in part. as the webpage of information here is a government page.

when i arrived and started checking out some of the stalls all the little things i like about campo came back to me. looking at the different way people are being creative, talking to the designers, it all makes for an enjoyable event.

i didn't recognize many if any of the vendors from taipei campo, though that doesn't mean there weren't any. i mainly bought postcards:

if you click on the thumbnails they'll take you to another page with a larger image and in some cases more postcards by that same designer.

one vendor had some really cool little toys for sale. the hair, legs and arms were bendable. i have no idea what the material was, but i was digging them. unfortunately, they were selling for 450 nt(almost 15 bucks u.s.). too rich for my blood. if they'd been priced at half that i would have bought some for sure.

one vendor was selling rock and roll decorated scooter helmets. one said on the back "jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine" with pictures of patti smith stenciled on it. i don't know why, but seeing a patti smith decorated scooter helmet made me incredibly happy.

as i was leaving after buying a postcard from a vendor, i saw one of the sellers turn to his partner and exclaim "he can speak chinese!" or something like that. it's funny how often people will be surprised at any foreigner that can speak even the smallest amount of chinese. and of course i was the only foreigner i saw there that day.

one of the last things i bought was the ferris wheel postcard. the woman told me that it's from an amusement park in taipei that closed down. i told her i knew the place as i used to live in taipei. then she asked if she could take my picture with her and the postcard i bought. i said yes, so somewhere out there is a bad picture of me with the ferris wheel postcard. i then took a picture of her and her partner with my lc-a. i didn't take many pictures that day as the light wasn't very good(it was raining off and on) and lately my lc-a doesn't always register the light correctly so the shutter won't stay open as long as it should in low light situations.

one main drawback to the kaohsiung campo was that it was really more like any other diy market, the art event/flea market aspect was really missing. the space they were in wasn't that great. i'm not sure why they didn't try to do something near love river or in the art space near the ferry port. but regardless, i was happy just to have the opportunity to hang out at campo again. apparently, sometime in the next couple of months there'll be a campo here in tainan.

for those interested here's a short list of vendors i bought cards from:

ab yougurt cat
chen co-min
123 ' bu
heidi doll
bon
toour