LifeInContrast.com

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A few weeks ago I discovered a place where I could easily spend hours drooling over the latest technology. It’s called the BEC (Bandung Electronics Center) and it includes 6 jaw-dropping floors packed with every type of techno-gadget you could ever want.

Three of the floors are dedicated to cellphones and cell numbers. They have these long printouts of every number they are selling, and you just pick your number and add minutes. People often have 3 or 4 phone numbers from different providers, no contract needed.

There are also tons of pirated DVDs (everything you can imagine, with very nice packaging) going for roughly $0.60 to $0.90 each. I bought Spiderman 3 on DVD a couple of weeks ago for about a dollar on the street. Unfortunately it was a crappy bootleg copy with the movie theater’s “Exit” sign clearly visible. I believe the other DVDs (for movies that have already been released on DVD) are probably much better quality… probably indistinguishable from the original.

Of course there are also pirated Xbox 360 and PS2 games for sale in the BEC. And every piece of software you could ever want, including Windows Vista… available for $3 to $5 each. Unbelievable. I was barely able to pull myself away.