Mulberry Street runs north to Canal Street , at all hours a crowded thoroughfare crammed with jewelry shops and kiosks hawking sunglasses, T-shirts and fake Rolexes. The Pearl River Department Store , at no. 277 (the corner of Canal and the Bowery, though scheduled to move to 477 Broadway in 2003), is the closest you'll ever get to a Shanghai bazaar without going to China. Specialties here include all sorts of embroidered slippers and silk clothing, rice cookers, pottery and beautiful lacquered paper umbrellas. Across the street at no. 308, housed in an imposing red-and-white-painted turn-of-the-nineteenth-century warehouse, are the many floors of Pearl Paint , which claims to be the largest art supply store in the world.

Take Mott or Mulberry north to Grand Street , where outdoor fruit, vegetable and live seafood stands line the curbs - offering snow peas, bean curd, fungi, oriental cabbage and dried sea cucumbers to the passersby. Ribs, whole chickens and Peking ducks glisten in the storefront windows nearby: the sight of them can put more than a vegetarian off his food. Perhaps even more fascinating are the Chinese herbalists. The roots and powders in their boxes, drawers and glass are century-old remedies, but, to those accustomed to Western medicine, may seem like voodoo potions.

Canal and Grand streets

• Canal and Grand streets

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