Lego In Vietnam Information

The Lego Store in Hanoi picture taken by josemarques on 19 Aug 2010.
A Lego store in Hanoi? Not sure if this is the official lego store.

Was planning to buy lego from Vietnam Ho Chi Minh City with my existing contacts. Having been to Hanoi in 2006 and HCM 2007, Vietnam is a massive trading hub, importing goods mainly from China (lego after all was mass produced from China factory), there are certain products which can be really cheap, because of their close promixity with China.

On 28th March, Mandy J Waston's post on his twitter:
I found a LEGO store in Hanoi, Vietnam. Prices are same as, to much worse than, South African prices. 20110328 http://twitpic.com/4e9r5s 5:01 AM Mar 28th via Twitpic

Searching for information on Vietnam lego, this is the first picture i came across. A Lego Store in Hanoi, this picture was taken in 2005 by ebifry who had shared on his flickr photostream. With boxes of lego stacked up inside the shop, it looks like the store was opening soon.

Currently, there are 2 Lego stores in Hanoi as reported, lego was available in some of the supermarkets, info can be found here:
Hanoi Lego store address

for more pictures check Vietnam Lego Club on Facebook
Vietnam Lego Club Facebook

LEGO FanWelt 2011 in Cologne,Tournament MOC

Received this update yesterday afternoon, i spend a whole 10 minutes looking at the detailed moc, thousands of bricks being used, more than a hundred interesting minifigures, what a massive project. This MOC by German AFOL is simply magical for castle fans.


Burg Stolzenstein Tournament - built by Annette and myself for FanWelt 2010 in Cologne - Pictures from SteinCHenwelt 2011 in Switzerland.

After we finished our Fantasy Era style castle "Burg Stolzenstein" my companion Annette and myself decided to continue with this MOC. So we built a tournament for the AFOLs event LEGO FanWelt 2010 in Cologne, Germany.

We already plan part #3! :)

we certainly look forward to part 3

Jesters providing entertainment at the fun fair! the dwarves were there too!

the market place

more pictures here (28 Mar):

Brickshelf

mocpages

8804 Minifigures Series 4 has hit Singapore Shores

The minifigures series 4 has arrived in Singapore. Lego store will be the first to receive them, follow by Metro, Toys R Us, also avaliable at ToysHunt, BrickStation, Secret Chamber. So, happy hunting! Be it forming a soccer/hockey team, collecting the 3 musketeers, crazy scientist or viking army. Retail price at S$3.90 each.

I'm waiting for my friend, who will pass me a full set shortly. More updates coming up next.

Check the barcode here:
Minifigures Series 4 barcode

Lego M.A.S.K Moc

Orion Pax had created M.A.S.K stuff using lego he uploaded the pictures on flickr, 2 days ago, his boulder hill & rhino caught my attention.



In the 80s M.A.S.K was one of my favourite cartoon series, however the toys are quite expensive during that time. Back then, my brother's birthday present was Kenner M.A.S.K Raven, the only vehicle we had and we shared the toy. A few years ago, I bought M.A.S.K Switchblade with Miles Mayhem figure (the airplane/helicopter) on ebay.

Check his creation here (transfomers, he-man and other movies stuff), the Ghostbuster Car on page 14 is my favourite :
Orion_Pax's Photostream

Lego Modular Cafe Corner & Fire Brigade MOCs

Cafe Corner or just call it a Hotel. Reminds me of London Harrod's
picture source: modelrailroading.wordpress.com

Tonight i was checking some of the lego modulars, here are some of the interesting pictures on what AFOLs did in extending their modular buildings. (when you have more than 1 set, having time & patience sourcing for the extra bricks and importanly having the necessary storage/display space).

LEGO modular fan Groomy1978 has combined a few sets side-by-side to create this four-bay mega modular.

used at least 2.5 sets of fire brigade.

Here's a classic fire station created by markmuel on Brickshelf. A six-bay modular that can house 6 fire-engines (vehicles). Classic!



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Lego City Space Adventure Promotion Poster 2011

Received a copy of the new lego city space promotion poster last night. This is a 2 sided poster on the theme space adventure, the 12th poster for 2011. This scene is exactly the same as what we see inside the 2011 Lego catalog.

Coming up next will likely be Cars and Pirates of Caribbean promotion posters.

Lego Ninjago Promotion Posters 2011 (7 Feb)
Lego Ninjago Promotion Posters 2011

Post on Lego Promotion Posters 2011 (25 Feb)
Lego Promotion Posters for 2011

View Lego Pharaoh's Quest Promotion Poster 2011 (13 Mar)
Lego Pharaoh's Quest Promotion Posters 2011

for more information, NASA pictures & space clips visit:
legospace.com

Lego Minifigures Series 5 High Resolution Pictures

Gangster with volin like case (carrying a machine gun). The tiny monkey the zoo keeper is holding looks interesting! Finally, caveman from S1 finally gets his partner.

Series 5 (8805) will be out in Sept in UK. Likely to arrive in Singapore in Sept too. The bags for Series 5 will be purple. So this year we are having 3 Collectible Series, next year 2012 we will have at least 2 series, 6 & 7.

On 23 Mar, ugly-ducking-bricklink.blogspot posted these pictures. The original picture release was from mikado-spieleland.de, a site from Denmark.

An earlier post in Jan on Series 5
Series 5 Minifigures

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Lego Minifigures Series 4 barcode

Update 4 April:
Code is not applicable for UK & Singapore, it's kind of mirror image. Just "feel" the pack, this is still the best to spot the figures you want.

Here is the lego minifigures Series 4 barcode. Series 4 is now available in some of the TRU stores in US. The minifigures will be avaliable in Singapore on 31 Mar. I will receive them in early April.

For info, there are just 2 mad scientist in a box of 60. Hopfully the box we get in Singapore has a better breakdown, having 2 figures in a box of 60 is really sad. My interpretation is that by having less figures, it will encourage more sales, lego fans will just buy more to get the figures they want. It's worst if they don't know that there are just 2 figures in a box of 60, the probability of getting the mad scientist from retail is really close to zero (like the earlier S2 sparatan and S3 elf).

As usual, we will have the minifigures breakdown per box (Singapore) posted shortly.

This barcode is from US and similiar in parts of Europe, readers can feedback to me by posting a comment below.

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Lego stuff 23 Mar addition

Lego playing cards, nothing special.

Aayla Secura is one of the minifigures i wanted to buy, the price is above USD 20 exclude postage (easily about SGD30), I have been delaying the purchase mainly because of the high price, when the new keychain is out i just have to get one, for the minifigure, it will be later.

just interested in collecting the lady jedi knights & masters from the clone wars.

the ninja

Ninja from Ninjago set 2516

opened the small set Ninjago 2516 Ninja Training Outpost today, this is the only ninjago set i have at the moment, the other set i'm interested in is 2258 Ninja Ambush, probably get it later when there is a discount.

Dastan vs the Ninjas. who's quicker/faster?

The ninja from minifigures series 1 and Ninjago Ninja Cole, the new ninja torso is an improvement with more details. By the way what do you guys think of the red, white, blue ninja? Black is still the best for a ninja.

Lego site from South Korea

AFOL from South Korea Castle Hotel
South Korea MOCs Castle Hotel

Last few days, there's an increase of visitors from South Korea, well checking my stats i found that they had posted one of my article on their site under foreign MOCs, the modular restuarant (well this is not created by me).

Visitors might like to check this site, you get tons of information and thousands of pictures on lego MOCs (well we can just check out the pictures, even through we don't read korean), this site is like Asia Eurobricks. Here are some of the interesting pictures found from the site.

www.BrickInside.com

AFA Graded Lego?

Legoland 6030 Catapult USD 175 (exclude postage)

Legoland 6621 Fire Truck USD 145 (exlude postage) 85 NM+

Some serious toy collector likes to send some of the rare or nice item and get it graded by AFA. Others prefer to buy AFA items. I have seen lots of vintage star wars moc graded by AFA, plus all sort of action figures (mint on cards) and boxed toys. But for lego, this is the first time i came across them, currently on ebay.

The problem with AFA graded items is that in humid countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, the item might get moldy, at the end of the day there might be the need to crack open the case to protect the toy from further damage. The toy is always more precious than the case or grading itself. For me i don't go for AFA or display my collectable toys, but carefully stored them inside cupboards & dark places (not expose to sunlight).

It is expensive to posted to AFA, after grading they will send it back, the postage incurred plus service charges are costly. On display, owners will tell others they own an AFA graded item (usually cost USD 100 or more to get it graded). Kind of silly to me (you don't need someone to tell you that you own a mint item), you can save money to expand your collection or just buy a protective plastic case to protect it.

Personally, I don't think lego fans are into AFA stuff.

* NM means near mint.
there are 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, the best is probably 90 (almost direct from factory with minimum handling)

Post your comments below, like to hear some feedbacks from readers:)

lego alien ship

This is one of the most beautiful designed ship, look at the curves, pure talent. An alien mothership from another dimension, xtofcorthay just called it lego spaceship.

named Phenix, the weight is 35 kg and 3 metres long, used 30,000 pieces of lego.

phenix

check here:
xtofcorthay's photostream

Lego MOC market street & others

The current market street is too expensive, we can always MOC a market street, making use of the cow & pig, and to build a nice traffic light post. It reminds me of seeing something similar, Victoria building style in Perth. That is why he named it Vic Market Street.

Elf Stronghold. The minifig elf deserved a base

Robin Hood hideout

The Clash of the Heavyweights. Using minifigures sumo, wrestler and judo.

It is always interesting to check out some of the moc by fans, well qi_tah created a few MOCs that i liked (my favour topics).

For more moc:
qi_tah's photostream

Lego Update March

Here's an update on the my recent lego addition and a quick look at the local lego store (Mar 13 Sunday). Last Friday, 6 star wars minifigures purchased on ebay arrived they are added to my current minifigs population, with the first ewok wicket and extra Admiral Ackbar.
Check 21 Feb 2011 post on Lego Ewoks.
Lego Ewoks


Current Lego City police display at the store. Move the magnifying glass and identify the criminal. The display was kind of low (height) they are just for kids.

the lego criminals each holding an item, including carrot & fish

Pharaoh's Quest new release display, the pyramid, taking a close look, the vehicle with the attached machine gun was kind of crappy in terms of design. I'm sure they can do better than this.

new Lego Promotion Poster for Pharaoh's Quest
check 25 Feb post on new Lego Promotion Posters 2011
Lego Posters 2011

For Japanese visitors especially those affected, our thoughts are with you after the big earthquake. Take care and the world will do their best to help, Japan has always been the first to send aid to other countries when nature disasters strike, this time Japan will not be alone.