The thing that really sets Aberdeen Centre in Richmond apart from the rest of the malls in the world is the originality of concept when it comes to stores. Take for instance, Cube Inc. Not convinced? Now there’s also Look So Real, a store that asks, “are they real or just look so real?”

You may ask yourself why the average person would buy a plate of plastic lobster with garnish. Here’s the copy off the site:

Bring home a lobster dinner when you’re on diet or throw on a pair of ice cream cone earrings… Here we have the greatest selection of products that are great for restaurant display, movie props, television commercial, or simply enjoyment for yourself and your friends…

I don’t really know what else to add, except that they seem to sell stuff that looks so real plus lottery tickets (which I believe are actually real). I took some pictures of other stuff and, well, see for yourself…

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As I get older, I find myself being kind of…oh what’s the word…anal about researching trips. I used to just go somewhere and figure it out when I got there. Nowadays, I need to gather guides, have a marked map, read travel writing, have a plan written down in my notebook, or else it’s just upsetting. Although, maybe that’s not oldness talking. Maybe it’s just an I-need-a-hobby thing.

In any case, I’ve discovered that the good thing is that all this planning results in being able to string together related ideas from trip to trip. For instance, I wrote in a previous post about my ongoing Magazine Store Tour of North America. A future post will probably be about eating experiences around the world in the presence of taxidermy. Today, apropos of nothing, I am tallying up the similarities I’ve noted between the last two major places I’ve visited: New York and Tokyo.

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Have you always wondered what kind of place you could get for $100/month in the Lower Mainland?

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Tokyo has everything. AÿAnd I bought a lot of it and made Joe drag it back to our hotel.That’s probably all that needs to be said about on the subject of shopping and Tokyo. I’m going to ignore my own words though.

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