Weird stuff in Addis (mainly copyright violations)

So, today I thought I'd just share a few pictures of some very random stuff in Addis.

First of all, an explanation of the phenomenon known as Facefood. Essentially, Ethiopia has no copyright protection laws at all. There are entire shops on the street that are dedicated to selling you pirated DVDs. This also carries over into the names of restaurants. In other words, Facefood is exactly what it sounds like...a blatant ripoff of Facebook in the form of a restaurant in Ethiopia.

The entrance:

My friends Nadia and Scott who I went there with. Yes, this is another picture from the week Scott was in town. Clearly, I didn't do anything interesting this week so I'm reaching into the past for material. By the way, in case you are interested (which you should be because Scott is awesome), Scott has decided to go work for a start-up in Tokyo (very cool for him; kind of sad for me since I thought there was a 30% chance he would come here).

A sampling of the pages in the menu. Obviously, the front and back are the best part with the "log in," "log out," and the giant "Like." I also like that on the second to last page it says "The End" at the bottom followed by "log out" on the back.

And because ripping off Facebook isn't enough, check out the sign right by the Face Pizza sign out front. For reference, T'ibs is a traditional Ethiopian dish.

That's right, ripping off the Pizza Hut logo is popular around here. There's also a restaurant called "Pizza Hu," which is literally the Pizza Hut logo with the "t" taken off the end. Somehow, I don't have a picture of that place though.

Anyways, next we have the blatant rip off of In-N-Out Burger. This place seems to be less successful at ripping off the logo, though, because that doesn't really look like the In-N-Out logo from the states. However, I've been told that's definitely who they are ripping off because there's no way this restaurant, which just recently opened, is celebrating its 50th Anniversary.

Here's a pizza restaurant whose logo looks an awful lot like Pac-Man.

And I kid you not, there's what I can only assume is a women's clothing store here (there's a picture of a high-heel shoe on the sign) called "Sofi's Choice." I'm betting that's just an unfortunate coincidence.

That's all for this week. I really want to check out the movie theater here, so I hope to have some pictures of that next time.