You stand outside a shop, the sort that yawns wide open with drab grey vertical rolling metal shutters under fading wooden shop signs. A few customers mill about within, silhouettes almost fully obscured by the display at the threshold. You step between two rows of shelves carrying boxes of various sizes — model cars, ships and planes. The interior is about the same as the neighbouring shops beneath the canopied alley, deeper than it is wide. To the right a magazine rack stretches from floor to ceiling, a patchwork of bookazines, manga monthlies, paperback thrillers and bestsellers. You ignore the occasional beeps and muted clacking of keys emanating from the partitioned checkout counter.
Shortly you find yourself at the rear of the shop, behind a chest-high glass cabinet of model parts wrapped in little cellophane bags. You glance behind your shoulder at the next rack, then back towards the front of the shop.