Tipping It At The Scales Shops

In a one block section of Chinatown in Alor Setar, you can find at least three scales shops. Not hardware stores that have a section of scales, full blown shops that sell and repair nothing but scales. If you go to that neighborhood looking for a scale and leave empty-handed, you didn't weigh your decision correctly.

Come in, check your balance.

You can get old school analogue or go all hi-tech digital.

James asked this vendor to look at the lens. He should keep his day job.

How does the snow plow driver get to the snow plow? How do you check scale accuracy? Bring on the dead lead. One shop tipped its hat a bit to scale selling history, with a section of a case devoted to some of the stuff it sold many, many years ago.

Beyond the neighborhood, a scale spotted in action.

Getting Printed In Malaysia

A peek at a small printing shop, located in Alor Setar. It's a second generation Chinese family operation. Invoices, flyers, you need to put your ideas, needs to paper, see the printer.

The presses. A machine in the back is an old warhorse left from the previous generation. More recent presses were sourced from Germany and Japan.

Inspecting and sorting.  Tool basket that keeps the printers going. 

Portrait of a printer.

Shrines. The photograph is the printer's mother. On the right, a shrine to the Indian guru Sai Baba. Why the Chinese owner had such a shrine, he couldn't really explain.

Ready to add to the to-do sheets.

Selling, Eating And Waiting In Istanbul

There's nothing like seeing the daily beat of a city to get a good sense of how the place ticks. Istanbul offers many glimpses of the populace in its usual rhythms.

Cheese vendor.

Dry goods for sale and a waiting shopkeeper.

Two shopkeepers, passing the time.

Lunch for office workers and ladies lunching.

Another shop, another set of vendors passing the time.

Big items in Istanbul, shoe shine kits and rope.

The edge of an outdoor cafe next to a shop.

The Small Taipei Store Owner

Taipei is definitely a modern megalopolis with huge buildings and sprawling shopping malls. But small neighborhoods still predominate, complete with mom and pop stores. Here are a few examples.

The freshest fowl around (yea, chickens in the cages).

A group of stoic store owners. Somehow these incredibly fake-looking meat/ham/fish samples are supposed to tempt customers.
The proud dry goods merchant.

Flower man, staying busy the modern way.