Ninjago City (70620) - Sushi Anyone?

We've been busy little lego bees over the past few days and last night, we finished off the rooftop sushi bar. It's got a neat sushi conveyor and offers diners a spectacular view over the city and the surrounding areas.

The conveyor moves quite smoothly and is actuated using the translucent orange knob at the center of the conveyor assembly. It would have been cool to have this linked to a power function box so it could turn on its own. Along the bottom of the table is the prep area where the chef can prepare the sushi and sashimi offerings.

The sushi bar's only access is from the elevator, which is a bit of a pain for the occupant of the apartment just outside. Unless he is very athletic and can just vault the wall he would actually have to take the elevator up to access the restaurant.

The menu display is located right by the elevator and is the first thing diners will see.

The set is reaching an impressive height and continues to offer amazing detail in every aspect. Some of our previous sets (which seemed really great at the time) look very plain and boring beside this one.

Ninjago City (70620) - A Very Cramped Apartment

We spent a solid couple of hours legoing last night and got a start on the rooftop level. There is a tiny tiny TINY apartment crammed onto this level. I guess it's pretty typical of a Japanese apartment which tend to be very space conscious.

The small square footage, however, does not detract from the amount of detail that the Lego designers have crammed into the apartment. Virtually every inch of the place is used, whether it's the floor or the walls.

In the below shot, you can see a very compact bunk bed along the far wall. The headboard seems to have a trophy of some sort on it as well as an electronic device - hard to tell what exactly. On the shelf beside, all the occupants clothes have been neatly folded and stacked and on the top shelf are some additional display models. Looks like a humanoid model as well as a car/truck and perhaps a lava lamp?

No apartment would be complete without a TV and there is one stuffed into the corner of the combo kitchen/living room/dining room. There is a microwave mounted on the wall - no stove but then again, who needs to cook when the sushi restaurant is just outside? There is a chair and table crammed up between the bottom bunk and the kitchen counter.

From the outside, the apartment looks very picturesque. There are some Asian designs on the side wall as well as a lattice window to help cool the place down.

 The roof continues the overall Asian look of the set. And of course, there is a satellite so the occupant can enjoy the thousands of channels available!

 The apartment has an ideal location in the city. It's got a great view of the rest of the city and the Japanese Cherry Blossom tree is growing right outside the window. An additional benefit (though not yet built) is the Japanese sushi restaurant which will be located just steps from the front door. Maybe it's the sushi chef that lives here. That would be a nice short commute to work!

Ninjago City (70620) - It's a tree!!

So after a little more building, we did indeed find out what that odd-looking protrusion was from the single room on the 3rd level.

It is a lego representation of the iconic Japanese Cherry Blossom Tree! The strange looking piece that protruded out from the window of the building is actually the trunk (we initially thought maybe it was a cannon although that seemed to be pretty out of place with the rest of the set).

The tree looks quite realistic and I really like the knobby nature to it - with projecting branches jutting this way and that. And it definitely adds more color to what is already an amazingly colorful set.

The completion of the tree signals the completion of the 3rd level of the building. All that is left now is the 4th level (or roof) and the tower that sits above it.

Ninjago City (70620) We're Back!!

It's been a horribly long time since we made any progress on this set (or on any Lego in general). Unfortunately, summers tend to be like that. There are vacations to go on, family visiting and of course lots of work in the yard and garden. After all that, it's tough to find the motivation and energy to do Lego, even though it's a lot of fun.

I finally managed to drag mom back to the table for a little bit of work by showing her a neat minion MOC I found online. She loves minions and has always wanted to do a large minion that she can put by the front door. And it just so happens that I came across a MOC. However, we still have multiple sets waiting to be built so I told her we couldn't in good conscience look into building the MOC until we had finished off our current collection. That seemed to spur her into getting back in the Lego groove.

Over the course of a few days of building (an hour here and there), we finished off the 3rd floor of Ninjago City. As with the previous floors, the detail is excellent - very colorful, very authentic and full of play functionality.

Naturally, the elevator extends up to this floor as well, allowing shoppers to access the clothing store located on this level.

As expected, the clothing store has a ton of detail to it. Below, we can see the outside display where large "glass" windows allow the store's good to be put on prominent display. On the right side, you can just make out a mannequin in one of the windows, sporting a fancy orange sampan hat and a traditionally patterned Asian outfit.

In the other windows, you can see an arrangement of headware and a few houseware items on display as well.



Here, we get a glimpse of the inside of the store. As with the other stores in the city, there is no corner that is wasted and there are items jam packed into a small area. There are hats of all varieties, a few houseware items and mannequins displaying some of the clothing.

 There are also a number of smart phones on sale - because everyone needs one of those right?

And last but not least, there seems to be a skateboard or surfboard on display as well. To the left of the board, you'll see shelves with some golden tiles on them. I believe these are meant to be folded stacks of clothes.

Something else that was located on the 3rd floor that we could not decipher was the below structure. At this point, there doesn't seem to be a way to access it (no walkway, ladder, etc.) and we are at a loss as to what it could be. I'm sure we will find out as we progress further in the build.

Ninjago City (70620) - Billboard Advertising

I was so wrapped up describing the crab house, ATM, and comic store that I almost forgot to circle back to the billboard outside the elevator structure.

The billboard display is actually designed so that the billboard can easily be replaced, with ads rotated in and out as appropriate. This is absolutely brilliant. I mean, the billboard itself already adds so much vibrancy to the otherwise dull elevator shaft. But now there is the added capability of displaying different ads!

You can see below that the entire billboard sits between 2 rails. The replacement process is very quick and easy - simply slide the current billboard out and replace it with a different one.

There are 4 different billboards that can be displayed. Each with a lot of detail and color.

The billboards that are not in use are stored unobtrusively behind the display. This is such a brilliant use of space with the additional benefit of keeping everything in one place. Bravo Lego! I keep saying this but the thought that has gone into this set is astounding.

Ninjago City (70620) - We Are Full And In Need of Entertainment

So now that we've gotten our fill of crab, we continue to wander the shops and come across this adorable comic store.

It's a pretty tight space in the store but is pretty reminiscent of the similar stores I have been in. There are loads of items crowding the shelves from figurines to comic books to games and DVD's. It looks like they've got some kind of sale going on as well - the ad in the window is proclaiming deals of 40%, 50% and even 70% off!

Viewed from the top, the cramped quarters becomes even more apparent. There is literally only standing room in the store and even then, you'd better not be fat! The poor cashier barely has room to squeeze in behind the counter.

Ninjago City (70620) - We Need Money!

Ooops, we forgot to fill our wallets! That won't do - Ninjago City is just like any other business operation. Money makes the world go around and without it, there will be no crab, no comics or anything else. Lucky for us, there is a full functioning ATM here that spits out $100 bills.

And it really does spit them out. While testing it, I was able to get the machine to dispense the bills forcefully, launching $100 bills across our Lego building table. Talk about having money thrown at you!

Appearance-wise, Lego has nailed this (again). It looks just like the regular ATM's that you and I are accustomed to seeing. There is the keypad where you put in your card, enter your password, etc. as well as the large screen where you can view your information. And towards the bottom of the machine is the slot where your money will be dispensed.

Here is a close-up of the machine as it is dispensing it's $100 bills. The bills are kept loaded magazine-style in a slot behind the machine. The slot is capable of holding up to 13 bills, so you can have quite a bit of fun dispensing bills before having to reload the machine. Reloading is a pretty simple task as the whole ATM can be removed very easily to access the service area behind it.

The mechanism that allows dispensing is also simple, yet ingenious. It's really just like a long skinny finger that slides on a rail. There is a rod on one end that is shaped exactly like the dispensing slot. By sliding the green piece from right to left, this rod is pushed into the wall where it contacts a bill and slides it out through the dispensing slot of the ATM. You can see the red rubber band that helps the lever to retract after each dispense.