Wow, there's even one in Canada!


Sorry if my last few postings have been kind of negative. To make up for it, I thought I'd talk today about one of my favorite things about Japan... namely Daiso!


I've whored a bit for Daiso before but I thought it deserved some extra attention. In case you're not familiar with it, Daiso is the world's greatest dollar store chain. It's all over Japan and is one of the only big chain stores we have in Noheji. In fact Daisos seem to be popping up all over the place these days. It seems like anytime a department store, pachinko parlor or any other business goes under, the next day a Daiso will pop-up in its place. Like Wal-Mart back home, Daiso is sort of like a cancer spreading over the world of Japanese retail, but with even lower every day low prices.


Of course it doesn't sell the highest quality stuff in the world, but you can say the same for most Japanese department stores as well. Still for only 105 yen (including tax) the quality is generally much better than the cheap crap you would expect from a dollar store. What really distinguishes it from dollar stores back home however is the sheer variety of goods for sale. I won't go into all the great stuff you can buy, but suffice to say that if you're not a picky shopper, you can buy just about anything you need for your home short of furniture and electronics. The toy department has lots of cool and weird discounted toys that I can't help but buy. Recently I snagged a bunch of really neat wind-up robot Disney character toys to add to my collection of Transformers models and Japanese road construction crew men. The Daiso in Noheji even has 100 yen Purikura!



Perhaps after JET I'll invest my big savings into Toronto's first Daiso franchise and crush that free turkey giving away jerk Honest Ed once and for all.