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| Above, a 100-Yen Shop in Tokyo. Photo by Armand Vaquer. |
Americans are familiar with Dollarama, 99¢ Only Stores, Dollar Tree and others. The Japanese have their own "dollar stores" to go to.
They are the 100-Yen Shops.
The Los Angeles Times wrote in 2009 that these stores are "hot" in Japan and:
Freelancer Andrew Bender writes:
A single 100-yen coin (plus an additional 5 yen for tax, totaling about $1.15) buys you more than just plastic tchotchkes. At 100-yen shops you'll find ingenious, well-designed goods you probably didn't know you needed. Sixty dollars can outfit a kitchen (with teacups, rice bowls, chopsticks and strainers, sponges shaped like kittens, and graters for daikon and wasabi), laundry room (with hampers and hangers) and office (with pens, paper and boxes to hold them), with funds leftover to spoil the kids (toys, elegantly patterned origami paper and erasers shaped like mini-milk cartons or tiny bowls of ramen).
So, if you are in Japan and need to buy something "on the cheap," you should consider the 100-Yen Shops.
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