ichiban kan!

aren't i cute? clearly i come from japan where cute is the ultimate fetish. you can't see below my neck but i am wearing a school girl's uniform. it is very short. luckily i have some very scrunchy socks-tsu on my feet that pool around my calves and ankles, thus protecting my modesty whilst at the same time making me look very, very cute. nevermind that it is one hundred and four degrees outside right now. my name is otsu-chan. please take a bite....


ichiban kan, the dollar store of my dreams. i keep on going back, filling my house up with more, hmmm, let's be honest about this, junk. i dread the inevitable day that i move apartments yet again. i will have to go through my closets and cupboards, sifting through this stuff, wasting hours gloating over my useless bargains.

if you don't know about this junkers' haven, it is called ichiban kan, located in the peace plaza building on post street next to the sumitomo bank. it is a .99 cent store, sort of. this doesn't mean that everything costs .99 cents, like at the ".99 cent only" store, not to be mistaken for the ".99 cent and up" store, or god forbid, the "1.00 and up store". no my friends, it simply means that things are cheap.

filled with bargain-priced goodies such as instant miso soup, rice crackers, a dazzling selection of pocky (most recently added: "pocky for men"), house slippers, every imaginable type and size of plastic storage box, cute glasses, bits of japanese pottery, a huge stationary section, this place is paradise for the junk shopper. and the cute hunter as well. there is more cute in here than in both pigtails of aforementioned japanese schoolgirl.

i mean, just look at these onegiri molds. i am useless at making uniform rice balls that hold together, my graceless leaden hands forming instantly crumbling sandstone boulders instead. but look ma, now i can whip them out nice and tightly packed. and cute too.



ichi ban kan
22 peace plaza (western wing of kintetsu mall)
san francisco