fat, originally uploaded by frogwasteland.

sad

batman_window, originally uploaded by frogwasteland.

So if the Dark Knight doesn’t do well…

Hong Kong exclusive, Shark Fin flavored crackers. Do they taste like real shark fin? I don’t know, we were too cheap to pay the US$40 a bowl to try the real thing. So what do they taste like? Artificial flavoring chemicals.

Bambi caramels!

Peking Duck flavored chips. Also weird and chemical tasting.

Lemon Ritz. Pretty good. Sort of like a lemon tart. We didn’t get to try the custard Ritz.

Crispy M&M’s , mint and cherry. Both are like rice crispies with flavored chocolate, also pretty good.

How odd. I thought all these stores were shut down years ago. Imagine my surprise as I walked through the streets of Macau and saw this:

After some googling, apparently a company in Macau has a license to run these stores. The store is very small, but I did find the postacrds below. I guess images of your historic areas with Looney Tunes characters on it are what people want?

On our 2nd to last day, we took the ferry out to Macau. Macau is basically the Vegas of China. Lots of casinos and gambling. We didn’t make it over to the big American casinos (MGM, Wynn etc.) But the traditional casinos reminded us of something out of a James Bond movie. People are very well dressed and are there to play baccarat. No shorts and sandals with a theme restaurant and screaming children like Las Vegas. It was like gambling from a bygone era. We went to the slot machines downstairs and lost $2.

The water at the dock was very choppy, and I was very worried about a rough seasick ride out there. But once the boat got going (with its jet engines!) it was just like a mildly bumpy plane ride, and was no big deal.

We went mainly to the old Portugese side of town:

We were wandering around the old town, and found ourselves 4 stories underground in “The Daiso” Imagine a 99 cent store selling cool Japanese stuff that is clean, bright, and well lit. As opposed to the ones here that sell expired mustard and are a mess. We get home and find out there are 6 of them in Northern California, oh well.

Multiple stores up and down the street were selling every kind of jerky you could ever imagine: pork, beef, boar, piglet, chicken, duck. The vendors would stand out in street with a jerky sheet and tongs in one hand, and scissors in the other. They would snip off pieces for passers-by. It was pretty good, but slightly greasy.

And out of nowhere was this little toy store packed in every square inch with stuff. We could barely move around inside. What’s weird is that they had a ton of American DC Direct stuff for super cheap. Which I assume is because they were made in the region.

Church ruins:

To counter the Shenzen copy-medicine:

An Astro Boy credit card at the bank:

Apparently this place has a reputation. Hundreds of shops selling copy-watches and copy-handbags. We also got to shop at the factory next door. We are led down a hallway of stalls, all with their metal shutters down. One of them is open a crack, we are quickly shuttled in, and then the door is closed behind us. Inside is wall to wall fakes of expensive brand name status items. The factory does not keep any items in stock. You look at which fake knockoff you want, then the person in the store says your order over a cell phone. A few minutes later there is a knock on the metal shutter. The shutter rises up a few inches, and a handbag comes flying under the door. This way the police aren’t able to raid a store full of fakes, since only a few demo items are actually “in stock”.

We were bored with the other tourists comparing their real Louis Vuitton bags with the fake ones, so we went to the mall next door. Imagine walking down an aisle, and having people shout at you and grab you in every direction saying “Copy-watch! Copy-bag! Dvd, what you want!?” We bought one copy bag. To get the bag, the woman running the store sends a small girl up all the way to the top shelf. She then proceeds to push up the drop-ceiling tile, and crawl up inside the ceiling to get the bag from their stock. We then realize that the walls and ceilings of this mall are STUFFED with fake clothes and bags. This mall will explode in a toxic ball of flame if there is ever a fire.

This got very tiring after about an hour of being harassed, touched, and yelled at. So we went outside, ate a red bean paste bun, and sat on a bench until it was time to leave.

Copy Kinder eggs. Where Warner Brothers and Disney have a new spirit of cooperation. The Dwarves enjoy playing yo-yo, while Elmer and Bugs hatch from the same egg at Christmas time:

Things we learned about Australia from the Australian woman sitting next to us on the tour: It is the worst place in the world to live because they never put clothes on sale. Even things that are 3 seasons old!

I always thought entering a communist country was like in the movies. Giant walls with barbed wire, fierce guard dogs, soldiers with M16s, searchlights. The reality was just a boring airport-terminal like area.  It took less time in line getting in and out of China than going through US customs (where 3/4 of the lines are closed all the time. Sort of like shopping at Frys).

The tour went to this “painting village”, where you can buy copy-paintings. Then boing boing does a post on it days later, weird coincidence.

No need to leave China, a miniature version of the world theme park is here too.

Wal-mart conquers the world:

Housing that looks like it was made out of Legos:

Shipping container houses:

The Konka factory! This was a big deal at Disney in 1999. We all ran out to Fry’s to get Konka DVD players, since it was the first time players were down to $100 or so. It broke 2 weeks later.

The mysterious durian. We’ve heard so much about this strange spikey-football looking fruit. I mean even Andrew Zimmern couldn’t eat it. He spit it out. We happened to walk into a supermarket while waiting for the travel agency woman to return, and the official durian guy was there with his gloves and facemask breaking them open and serving them, fresh. An opportunity you can’t pass up. So here is the truth. Yes it smells like rotten garbage. No it doesn’t taste that bad. Its kind of like a sweet onion that went stale. Not great by any means, but I’m glad I tried it.

(HK$16.80 = US$2.18)