15,500 square feet of Japanese!

by Kris   ⋅   January 2, 2007   ⋅   Comment now   ⋅    RSS

Oh. My. God. On New Year’s Day, Chris and I were driving back from Stinson Beach which is NICE but just a little “white”. Chris held the door for a stranger to a restaurant we peed in, er, in the restroom of course, and the elderly woman’s jaw dropped and she said, “oh my, you’re not from the West Coast”. Hmm, maybe more concerning that rant later, but I’m in too much of a good mood right now to expand.

Anyway, we were driving on the 280 when we saw this humongous neon “DAISO Japan” tacked onto a giant block warehouse-ish building in Serramonte Mall. I can’t tell you how much I was intrigued, especially since it was such a huge mystery building. I searched the net and soon found out it just opened around Dec 16th and this is the very first Daiso store in California. There are only three other shops in America, all in Washington, the largest of those being 6000 sq ft. The Serramonte branch joins the 383 overseas shops (320 in Korea, even four in Kuwait), and the 2400 in Japan. Some of the Daiso stores in Japan are 71,000 sq ft big!

So what is Daiso Japan? It is row upon row upon row of utilitarian items and tchotchkies with that signature Japanese twist, like cutesy salt and pepper shakers in the shape of huddled bunnies or plaid plastic umbrellas. It is all high quality Made in Japan stuff at bargain basement prices. Mostly everything is $1.50 and nothing is more than $15, says a Daiso spokesperson.

Since it had long closed for the day when we discovered it, Chris and I will be headed out there sometime soon (maybe even tonight) to get lost in 30,000+ items. Although Daiso stores are in plans to open in South Bay, I just can’t wait! :)

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