After completing 8061 Gateway of the Squid, I would say the overall impression is not really that good, the minifigs, which includes the Squid warrior and divers, are quite impressive, especially the very cool Squid warrior, but the squids and the temple are disappointing.

The design of tentacles in one single long piece is not ideal but still acceptable, but the squid body and claw do not appear realistic to me, same for the smaller octopus, I understand it may not be easy to design these two sea creatures, but in such forms I just feel that they look odd, the octopus looks more like a white spider to me.

The color mix of the temple is a strange contrast of gray and tan, which does not look harmonious. The mechanism to open the gates through rubber band is hard to use, wouldn't using technic parts provide a smoother movement?

I think Lego is very smart in providing the colored keys, many would be tempted to buy more Atlantis set to collect all 5 colors, but I feel that there are poor designs in some elements, which would weaken the value of the Atlantis theme despite having some very cool minifigs.

Finally seeing the Lego Atlantis series available in Toysrus Hong Kong, only one or two of the smaller sets were previously sold at higher price at some small shops (which were probably imported by them on their own and not through Lego Hong Kong), I was expecting the official channel to release the theme, but it turns out that the pricing is extremely agressive:

Set No Hong Kong pricing (HKD)
8056   78.90
8057  118.90
8058  188.90
8059  188.90
8060  298.90
8061  498.90
8072   34.90
8073   34.90
8075  748.90

(Please click on the image to see a higher resolution image)

I was not expecting to see them on shelf and was not prepared with information, although Atlantis is not quite a favorite theme the way I see it, I still purchased a set to experience it, from the boxes I instinctively feel that 8075 is a good set, but the pricing is really too high here  with a 160% markup compared to US Pricing (at 1 USD = 7.8 HKD, this set is sold at USD 96 here!), really a big turn-off!

So I looked at 8061 Gateway of the Squid instead, at HKD 498.9 (~USD 64), the markup is still 160%, but the squid looks quite interesting, so I decided to get 8061, well, I opened the box and built the Squids (bag 1) last night, I would say I am not too impressed so far.

Yes, the Atlantis theme is quite special as it introduced a whole bunch of interesting minifigs/creatures, such as the Squid warrior included in 8061, but I still need to see good designs and good values in the theme, with such aggressive pricing, good value is an unlikely thing that I would say about the theme.

For fans of Star Wars, what kind of items are worth collecting aside from Lego Sets? I found these metal plates from Bandai and they look kind of cool, do you think they are worth buying?

The whole set of 6 plates represents Yoda, Clone Troopers, Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, Asaji Ventress and Obi-Wan Kenobe, which one do you think is the hottest and hard to get?

Just read about the happenings at the 2010 Toy Fair at New York, aside from the new Lego models, I found out that some lucky people got a White Boba Fett minifig along with a Star Wars collector's book for 2010.

You can check out the following Flickr album for a photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47496150@N05/4360062182/

And there are also rich details at:
http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/index.php/2010/02/16/cool-lego-toy-fair-swag/#more-3282

Having a tiger head pattern may seem to be fine at start but it is obviously inadequate, I should really put in more effort to complete the body I think, so despite lacking parts and ideas on how to do it, I give it a try.

The Chinese new year holidays ends today here in Hong Kong and everything going back to business tomorrow, I hope better things are installed for us in this new year.

樂高虎圖賀新歲! - Celebrating the Chinese new year with a Lego Tiger pattern!

祝大家虎年萬事如意 「樂在磚裡尋, 高朋享心得」- Wishing eveyone good fortune in the year of Tiger, enjoying the fun of Lego brick building, and sharing ideas with friends in the Lego community

After I have done my review on Lego 4996 Beach House, I decided to see if my 4 years old kid can handle the regular lego and graduated from Duplo, and to my surprise, needing less than 20% of help, she can build all three models mainly by herself, a good test of patience and bricking skill, despite having some challenges along the way.

But the small bricks are really difficult for her, especially on removing them, it was painful even for adults to pull out the closely aligned 1 x 1 tiles!

By the way, many creator sets are great for family fun and provides good value as they provide multiple models, this beach house is excellent in these aspects, all three models are fine, but the primary model obviously is the best. And 4996 is affordable too, good for play and good for parts as well.

Anyway, my kid is not giving up on Duplo yet, and I have no plans to let her touch some of my high value sets, such as those new Starwars sets...

A group of local Hong Kong Lego masters have organized an exhibition that is attractive for all ages! It is not very often that we can have such opportunity here, fortunately I was able to find time to visit, it is very different indeed to be there in front of the real thing, watching everything in one grand view.

The exhibition is until Feb 12 only (11:00a to 9:00p), so any lego fans who are currently in Hong Kong may want to check it out, the venue is within walking distance from MTR Kowloon Tong station.

Venue:
4th floor, Amenities Building,
City University of Hong Kong

Thanks to all the experts, including a friend from US, for giving us a chance to enjoy and learn more about Lego creations!

You may also check out the creations online at:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/bricksadventure2010/

I blogged about a Lego 40004 look-alike last time, but I made a mistake in mentioning the base, I think it should be a Round Dish 6 x 6 Inverted instead of an 8 x 8 I mentioned last time, and the 6 x 6 inverted dish is readily available from a set I just reviewed: 4996 Beach House! So here I have an exact replicate of 40004 built using parts I have on hand.

Lego 40004 available at: http://shop.lego.com/Product/?p=40004

There are quite a number of Lego Valentine gift options, check them out!
http://shop.lego.com/valentinesday/Default.aspx

Check out this Rose too, though I like the heart much better
http://shop.lego.com/product/?p=852786

For kids in China, Hong Kong, and other cities with Chinese new year celebration, aside from the fun, sweets and holiday, another great thing to be happy about would surely be red pocket (紅包 - Hóng Bāo in Mandarin, 利是 - Lai See in Cantonese/Hong Kong, and some would call it red packet). Red Pocket is a small red envelope with cash inside, given by married people to unmarried people (who nowadays may not necessarily be young) for good luck and blessing. The amount usually are small (around HKD 20 = USD 2.5), except from people with close relationship, which can reach 50X more, but since you'll get it from most people you'll meet during the Chinese new year visit (拜年), the total can be quite a big amount.

In recent years, the design of red pocket has gained a lot of new twist, interesting designs and licensed art works are used to make the red pockets much more interesting, but so far I am not aware of any Lego red pocket 樂高利是 being available yet, the discount coupons from Toysrus disguised as red packet should not count.

So why not create one when I can? The DK Sticker book I reviewed before can probably be useful in doing that, so I just give it a try, and here it goes....

I think it would be great if Lego subsidiary in greater china region (especially Hong Kong) would come up with some nice red pockets for Lego fans next year, imagine the marketing effect when these red pockets are distributed, and they would hit the exact customer target group! Looking forward to a Lego Starwars red packet with Anakin and Ahsoka saying "kung Hei Fat Choi"...