Metro is THE place to go for imported food products. They have just about every kind of foreign food you could want: cheese, wine, liquor (big selection), maple syrup, cereal, good chocolate. Basically all the difficult-to-find items can be found here in one convenient stop. However, because METRO is a wholesaler, you must have a membership card in order to shop there. There is no fee to join, but apparently new members are supposed to be affiliated with a company. The exact rules are a bit unclear, but most foreigners seem to be able get a membership with just a business card from their place of employment. Language teachers should try to bring a business card with the name of your school. It's probably not worth the bother for those on a short stay in Shenyang. However, the membership is quite worthwhile for those living in Shenyang, as a better selection and value of foreign goods cannot be found anywhere else in Shenyang. 

  

The newly remodeled Wu Ai (“Five Loves”) Market is well known in Shenyang and surrounding cities for its massive selection of bargain goods. The primary products here are clothes, shoes, and apparel, but you can also find other miscellaneous items such as Christmas and other holiday decorations, furniture and home furnishings, small electronics, souvenirs, books, and media.
 

 

How to get there: The market is near the center of the city about 2 km south of Middle Street. All taxi drivers will know it, otherwise take one of the following buses: 326, 800, 134, 334, 133, 260, 227, 212, 222, 224, 333, 270, 125, 223, 266, 227, 503, 297, 273, 132, 274, 117, 246

 

Note: The market opens early in the morning and closes down at 3:00pm, so plan on shopping early.     

Middle Street is similar to Taiyuan Street, except even more crowded. There are massive shopping malls as far as the eye can see, and the air is filled with deafening music blaring from cheap speakers outside shops. Shenyang has a population of over 7 million people, and some days it feels like at least half of them are here.

 

Like Taiyuan Street, you can find just about everything you could possibly want to buy here, as long as you’re willing to brave the crowds. 

 

Notable: Middle Street is home to a famous dumpling restaurant called Laobian Dumplings (老边饺子馆, laobian jiaozi guan). Laobian is now a nationwide chain, but this Shenyang location is supposedly the original. The place gets mixed reviews. The dumplings are good, but overpriced.  Laobian does feature “tea shooters,” which are servers accurately pouring tea from long distances using an extra long spouted teapot. If you have a large enough group for a private room and you can understand Chinese (or have a translator), the restaurant staff will give you a  presentation about the history of the restaurant, as well as a demonstration of traditional "lucky dumplings."