I love World Market! It's such a fun store. There's so much to see here and usually I hate these kinds of stores, but this one is awesome. I could easily go on a spending spree here so I have to be careful!
World Market has all kinds of stuff. If you want to look around, give yourself at least an hour or two. This location is pretty big, so you'll want plenty of time. They sell all kinds of pretty furniture like chairs and sets of drawers, chests and lamps and things like that for the home. I like to look at everything, but unfortunately, that's all I can do. The stuff is pretty expensive. The stuff they have here is comparable to a place like Hobby Lobby or Pier 1. I don't go too crazy looking at the furniture, but they do even have couches and beds and stuff like that. I sort of wish that they would do away with that stuff, or at least tone it down a bit. It's like half the store and everything else here is so much cooler and affordable. It's almost like they are two separate stores.
You can find all kinds of neat gifts here. Home decor, rugs, candles, journals, jewelry boxes, baskets, dishes, jewelry, the list goes on. You can even get little toys for kids! Some of the stuff can be a little pricey, but some of it's surprisingly cheap. This is why you need the time to come in here and check everything out. There are some good finds if you take the time to look. If you decorated your house will all kinds of stuff from here your place would look pretty sweet. I want to do something like that, but I'm too unorganized and I'll just buy random things here and there that don't end up matching.
My favorite thing ever about World Market is the international food section. I think it's a little bigger at this location than the one at the Lennox. More to choose from. My roommate from college used to come here all the time to get bags of those little spicy Chinese crackers. One time I came here and stocked up on silly foreign foods and took them home to my family and we had a great time laughing at them and sampling them all. They have packaged foods from all over the world and the wrappers are quite interesting. It's also all kinds of food, from gum to candy bars to crackers to meat. We had a good time laughing at the chocolate candy sticks that were "For men only" - why they were for men only, we'll never know, unless we ask the company in Japan. We also liked the chocolates that translated from German to mean "Kitten tongues." We also liked the cookies simply titled, "Finger." Or the British laxative biscuits. So silly. I love translations that end up weird. If you do too, this is the place for you. (I once bought a mug here for my sister that read, "Excuse saucer, but I must taste." What? It was too funny not to buy. She loved it because she likes that kind of humor, too.) And some of this food can be really good! It gets expensive if you buy a bunch of it at once like I did, but it's not bad if you just grab a few. But they also have a few things here that I like to get every once in a while, like green tea breath mints.
World Market also has a great wine selection. There's a heck of a lot to choose from and the wine comes from all over. I think it's categorized by where it's from. And it's really not that expensive. It's not as cheap as Trader Joe's, but I've picked up a few bottles here before and they were really good. The wine section is huge, but they also have an area that's devoted to all kinds of beverages. They have beers from all over as well that are mostly in 6 packs. There is also a huge section for coffees and teas. Some of these are also imported. They also have all kinds of fruit juices and sodas. Some of them are really good. Once I tried this Japanese soda that comes in this little glass bottle and you have to push this ball through the opening to open it. It was weird. But I bought some for my little cousins and they loved it. I also found some acai berry juice here in a little cardboard container with an Amazon woman on the front. It was silly, but the juice was good. There are definitely some interesting finds, and it's fun to sample things if you have the money to spend.
But this is perfect for picking up gifts. They have a lot of food gift sets, like hot sauces or chocolates all arranged in a pretty basket or a set of meat logs and cheese sticks and crackers. They range in size and price, but it's a good place to go if you don't know what to get for someone. Everyone eats food. And the prices are reasonable on all that stuff.
Sometimes they have aisles with random things all thrown in there and you have to dig around, but they are all markdowns so you can find things in there for really cheap. The store is a pretty good size but there's a lot in there so it feels a bit cramped sometimes and can be overwhelming. But if you just want to check out the food and wine (the best part!), head straight for the back of the store. All the other stuff is near the front and to the sides. read more
