I much preferred Singapore over Penang
Ditto.
I remember buying a couple of 3D posters in Penang, look at them normally and you couldn't see any image but focus a few feet beyond the poster and a 3D image would emerge as your mind made sense out of the chaos of dots and colors. I had never seen that before. I bought a couple of fake Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts too, IIRC there was no Hard Rock cafe in Penang or Kuala Lumpur but I had the t-shirts. I bought some 22K jewelry for the women folk back home, some elephant hide bags to haul my purchases, a fake Rolex (that lasted about 6 years!) Other junk I don't remember. The elephant hide bags were illegal to bring back into the states but nobody bothered me at customs. The shopping and price negotiating was fun.
Oh yeah, KL. LOL. I bought a Rolex there. It lasted a whole 6 months. I didn't buy anything else though. Fun times!
I felt lucky that mine lasted so long, other guys I knew had a similar experience with their fake Rolex as you did. Beautiful looking replicas though. I think mine cost $20 or $25 at the time.
I remember walking down the sidewalk through the section of open air shops. You really had to pay attention to where you walked instead of gaping into the shops you passed by, every Nth cement tile forming the sidewalk had a chunk missing or was missing altogether and the open sewer ran directly under it. What a stench! I remember being worried that I would step on a cracked tile ready to pop. But the shit for sale was really cheap, as long as you weren't buying beer.
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