Find It All and Have Fun Doing It At the Don Quijote. For a cheap, all-encompassing shopping experience in Japan head to the nearest Don Quijote. Named after Cervantes’s famed adventurer, it is really a place where you can find almost anything. Whether you’re looking for things to furnish and decorate your home, stock up the pantry, increase the size of your wardrobe, or buy the latest gadget, Don Ki (as it’s called in Japan) is the place to go.
It’s a bit like a Japanese Wal-Mart; you can get such a wide range of items- from groceries to alcohol to electronics to shoes to medicine- and you can find it all under one roof. Yet Don Quijote may prove to be a bit more interesting and memorable an experience than the American mega-chain.
First of all, Don Quijotes are all several stories high. Like a lot of things in Tokyo- shops, restaurants, salons, etc., you may have to look upwardly and not vertically to find what you’re looking for. It’s like taking Wal-Mart and squeezing it in and up. And some of the purchases you find here you may not find in the American chain- from cheap Japanese souvenirs, kimono, designer hand bags and watches to pet clothes, herbal aphrodisiacs and sex toys. Not to mention the wide array of Japanese anime and other costumes (young people love their “cos-play,” as they call it) on offer.