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Saturday, January 5, 2013

Richmond, CA: Kpop Shop

I've visited this mall several times throughout my life, but it wasn't until my last trip here (July 2012) that I noticed a shop filled with kpop in an otherwise deserted Asian mall! Kingstone Books is a small shop located in Pacific East Mall in Richmond, California (suburb of San Francisco).  The address is: 3288 Pierce Street, Richmond, CA 94804.
Besides selling books, stationary and random trinkets, they have a fairly decent selection of Kpop merchandise. What drew me to this store was the posters hanging on the storefront (I spy a shirtless Taeyang...). This quaint shop sells unofficial Kpop goods including posters (Big Bang, Taeyang, SNSD, Boys Over Flowers, etc.), hard iPhone cases, folders, post-it note packs, playing cards, and more, all for reasonable prices.
I stumbled upon this shop towards closing time and didn't have much time to choose what I wanted, but I ended up buying a Boys Over Flowers poster, 2PM folder and CNBlue notepad, totally under $20.

My Boys Over Flowers poster is smaller than two 8.5" x 11" put together and is made of high quality, glossy paper. There was another Boys Over Flowers poster with Go Hye Sun in the center, but she ruined the flower boy image for me (though Lee Min Ho and Kim Joon kind of ruin the flower boy image here too).
This is my 2PM folder, which was $5.99. The left photo shows the backside of the folder (man do they look fine in sleek suits!) while the left shows the front, with 2PM in colorful outerwear and making fun poses.
This is my CNBlue notepad, which is about six inches tall and cost $4.99.  It has two different pictures on both sides. This notepad is divided into several sections, and the pages of each section have different CNBlue images at the bottom.

If you're ever in this area, stop on by and get some kpop gear!

2 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. I haven't been there since July 2012, and they only had highly established kpop groups like 2PM and CNBlue at the time. But because Exo has become so big by now, they might/probably have their merch.

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