Sham Shui Po

After work I hopped on a train and headed up to Sham Shui Po. Barely fifteen minutes from all the expense and glitz of Central is a street selling vast amounts of intellectual-property-infringing gadgets, and stuff for photography.

Actually, just stuff, in some cases. There was one street stall with the electic offering of two airsoft rifles, a JVC camcorder, some saucepans and a wicked sharp knife, and after a few minutes in Sham Shui Po that seemed quite ordinary. There's shop after shop selling things, flung together higgeldy-piggeldy, without discernable theme. Well, I suppose you might sell LED lights, knock-off Dysonesque bladeless fans and bicycle saddles in the same shop, it just seems a little bit odd to do so.

Actually, it's unfair to characterise it as chaos. There's four or five stalls that all sell lights of various sizes, so that's me sorted for the next time I want to ride my bike at night. There's also two or three shops that sell all the photographic paraphernalia you could ever need (except for a camera and a lens): light boxes, lights, light stands, snoots, reflectors, umbrellas, radio flash controls, more lights, complex lumps of metal for making your SLR move like a video camera, more lights, more and more lights.

This was paradise, but I was chagrined to realise how much stuff I'd bought in Wan Chai and Central in the last few years that would have come cheaper if I'd gone to the other side of the harbour. Never mind. I'll write a few pages of script for the rabbit extravaganza, save some cash and then go back and buy some cut-price toys.

(Speaking of toys: solar powered electric locusts, anyone?)

Since tonight I only wanted bike lights and not a meat cleaver or a bright orange jumpsuit (what a fancy dress outfit that will be...) I put 500 dollars of lights in my backpack and went for a burger. If only Sham Shui Po had ripped that off too, I'd be full of dinner already...