Even though I had a China Visa, the process still took about 30 mins to clear both countries exit and entry counters. Once you come through the China side, it's mere steps to the Lo Wu Commercial Centre, which is a 5 storey mall filled with fake purses, shoes, and clothes. Being my first time to the Shenzhen mall , I didn't know what to expect in terms of bootleg toys. So disappointingly, I was only able to find 3 or 4 stalls that sold knockoff brand Lego. There was only one stall that carried the set I was looking for, the Lepin 15039 Roller Coaster, which is the knock-off of Lego Roller Coaster set 10261.
So then the fun begins ....
I entered the store and asked the clerk/owner for the price of the Roller Coaster set. What's funny is that I didn't even hear what her first price was, it might have been about 1000 RMB, but as soon as she quoted her price, I immediately took out my phone and flashed her a screenshot from Taobao for the Lepin Roller Coaster. I had grabbed it earlier in the morning to use as ammunition for bargaining.
The price from Taobao was 540 RMB, which I fully expected her not to match, but I threw it out there anyways. She told me off saying she had to pay rent and salaries, etc, etc. When I asked her for best price, she'd only move lower by 10 or 20 RMB. I'd tell her she'd have to do better, she'd asked me what I wanted to pay. From there it was a matter of her making offers and me making counter offers, she said 900, then 800, I said 560, she said 700, I said 580, she said 650, and I started to walk out the store.
She told me to come back in and asking me to give her 650, I said no 580, she said no. I got the impression we were at a stalemate so then I so I upped my offer to 600, then she said 630, so I started walking slowly out the store but a little more slowly to give her time to reset her price. Just as I was barely within earshot, I could hear her say 610. I really did want the set for 600 but since I came all that way, I didn't want to lose the set over 10 RMB. Deal done at 610 RMB.
FYI: 610 RMB = $89 USD, $120 CDN. ymmv based on current exchange rates.
I asked to open the box to check the contents, and she didn't resist. There were 2 inner boxes and both looked half empty, and I lamented as such. She said if there were any missing parts to circle them on the instruction manual and come back to her and she'd order the missing parts for me. As she was packing it up for me to go, she mentioned that this set was really popular with the foreigners, lol.
As soon as I got back to Hong Kong, I cracked open all the boxes and took and inventory of the bags, just for peace of mind. Here's the unboxing pics!
This is how I lugged this monstrosity onto the train back from Shenzhen.
I got the box but in reality, when I return to Canada, I'll probably leave the box here in HK, just no room in my suitcase for it.
Here's the back of the box.
Top and side view.
Side view.
Bottom view.
When you open up the main box, you get 2 separate inner boxes labelled A and B.
Here's what kinda freaked me out. The boxes are huge but not full at all. Kind of like when you open your box of cereal only to find the box is only half full because the contents have settled.
I emptied all the bags from both inner boxes and sorted them all to make sure I had all the bags.
My Lepin Roller Coaster set contained 86 numbered bags, 1 un-numbered bag containing some spare parts, 2 bags of red track, and a stack of green baseplates.
The instruction manual is a thick booklet with a bunch of separate addendum pages inserted throughout. Here's my numbered bag inventory:
Set 1: bags 1-8
Set 2: bags 9-15
Set 3: bags 16-22
Set 4: bags 23-29
Set 5: bags 30-39
Set 6: bags 40-47
Set 7: bags 48-55
Set 8: bags 56-61
Set 9: bags 62-70
Set 10: bags 71-79
Set 11: bags 80-86
It looks like all the parts are there, so that's a bit of a relief.
I won't be building the Lepin roller coaster until I return to Canada in the new year, but I'll definitely do a write-up from my build then. See you then!
