Have you guys ever been to Sungei Road? I went there recently for the first time... Interesting experience, to say the least!

For those who don't know, the Sungei Road area (along with Pasar Lane, Kelantan Road, and such) has street hawkers selling all kinds of stuff... A flea-market of sorts. Mostly secondhand-stuff, and some erm... Questionable, regarding the nature of their sources. I mean, I saw a Singtel coin-phone, for crying out loud. How do they sell those things? And more to the point, where the heck did they get them from?

I did see some nice stuff, though... Some old film-based Nikons, and some possibly-fake-branded shoes, amongst other things. If you know me, you would know that I don't care about brands regarding my clothes and shoes... If I saw a nice-looking fake-Levis shoes there, I might just go ahead and buy a pair. Heh. But I wasn't really looking for shoes, and really, I was just there to experience the atmosphere.

I was there at about 4 pm on Vesak day, and apparently there were less hawkers then, even if the place was still pretty crowded. There were porn peddlers too, to my slight-surprise! I mean, the buggers were rather daring, peddling porn in the daytime, in the middle of Sungei Road! Or is that normal?

The were some laptops on sale too... And I overheard one guy selling a laptop for about 400 bucks. Erm... I didn't exactly see the specifications on the laptops, but I hope the other guy wasn't cheated!

I did see a nice-from-afar tripod which I queried regarding the price. It looked sturdy, and upon checking it out, it felt sturdy too. The lady asked S$20 for it, and my dad asked for cheaper. The quick-release plate wasn't even with it. Then I saw that the bubble gauge was totally broken off, and pointed it out to her. She said that the tripod was still brand new, and pointed out that the legs were still in plastic wrapping. She tried to sell me a story about the delivery guys dropping it, and breaking the bubble gauge. I wanted to check how tall the tripod was, so I started extending the legs, and noticed that one of the leg locking clamps were broken, making the tripod utterly useless. I pointed this out to the lady, laughed and said that even if she sell it for S$10, I wouldn't buy it. She replied, "Oh... So cannot use ah?" Haha. I think she was just trying her luck. Cis.

The quick-release plate itself would cost minimum S$60? And how to fix the locking mechanism? Do shops even sell them? If the tripod was a Manfrotto, I might consider, but I didn't even recognise the brand... I don't actually need another tripod, but I would've bought it if the price was right. Heh.

Here's a short video of me looking at things there. Felt a bit like I was at a Malaysian pasar malam (night market), only if a huge percentage of the stuff being sold looked like junk. Haha.

So what did I buy in the end? A S$3 belt, and a S$17 wallet. The wallet had a "brand" named "Wolf" and came with a 1-year warranty, which I laughed at. It initially was priced at S$25 (from the "original" S$45, I was told) and I told the guy to lower the price since the warranty was useless. He gave me a spiel on how it wasn't worthless and that he cannot anyhow "create" warranties. So I asked the guy, "So, where do I go and who do I claim the warranty from?" He paused a bit, and said, "Me lah." I laughed and said, "Right, I look for you, in front of Kelantan Road? Eh, uncle, give me your name leh." He said, "Err, my name is Lee. Erm, no lah... Actually, my name is Liew."

-.-" These people were really trying to act cute.