Bento MADNESS!!!

One of the things that I was really looking forward to doing on my trip to Seattle was to visit a store called Daiso. Daiso is a chain of 100 yen shops (like 99 cent stores) in Japan that has just recently started opening stores here in the U. S. Holy crap, there is so much stuff crammed into this small store, you wouldn't believe it! Best part - most of it is $1.50! That means, some of those boxes I paid $9 for on eBay (PLUS shipping!)... well, lets just say someone was making one HECK of a profit!

The only thing is that I couldn't read anything in there. I had to rely on pictures and educated guesses for some items.

This here is my haul:

I got two more Happy Balloon boxes, two super tiny three tiered boxes, a box for a friend's son, two packages of little dishes for dividing things inside the box, silicone heart molds, sauce bottles, seasoning shaker bottles, knotted bamboo skewers, sushi grass in three colors, including PINK!!!, a stainless steel side dish for husband to use when I use the Hello Kitty ones, silicone dishes for use inside the box, bento belts to match all my Happy Balloon boxes to help hold filled boxes closed, chopsticks to coordinate, long picks with cute animals on top, and the most adorable animal dividers ever to use like sushi grass. All this for about $35. If I had bought it on eBay, this would have cost me well over $100!!!

This is the tiny three tiered box. I'm holding it up so you can get an idea of just how small it is. My entire lunch will fit in there. These are my first three tiered boxes, and believe it or not, the capacity on these is just slightly lower than the ones on my regular boxes.

This is the stainless steel side dish. I have the Hello Kitty ones I picked up in Phoenix, but when I use them, I had nothing to put coordinating items in my husband's box, so he'd miss out, and usually on dessert! This is pretty manly, at least as far as Bento goes. Don't you just love the label?

My animal dividers and animal picks. Very kawaii, don't you think? You use the dividers like sushi grass. Speaking of...

PINK SUSHI GRASS!!! Isn't this AWESOME! There is a ton of it in here, along with yellow and a seafoam green. I already own the regular green color, so that means I now have four options when making lunches. That's great when trying to achieve that visual contrast in your lunch.

I was in that store for over an hour. I didn't find a single Hello Kitty item, or weiner cutters, nori punches, or egg molds, but hey - I'm not complaining. I'm completely happy with what I have here.