Where the heck to I start?

So, you're so excited about bentos and you've been obsessively checking blogs every day for the past four days, but you still haven't gone out to get a bento box yet?

Welcome to when I discovered bentos.

I discovered the art of bentos when I realized I had a bag of Japanese sticky rice and a crap load of those red azuki beans (pictures shown) from Mitsuwa, a Japanese market from Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, an awesome place to shop for bento gear by the way.

Like any self-respecting college student, I typed sticky rice and azuki red beans into google and a recipe for Osekihan (pretty much sticky rice with red beans) from a site called JustHungry popped up...Hmm....

2 hours and a ton of surfing later, I'm at JustBento, clicking on every box I can and obsessing about when and how I can get my hands on a box.  Bento is one of those things you either love or can never understand.  I loved it and was hooked.

So, where the hell can I get a bento box?  And what...do they have to all come with flowers?  Let's just say I usually don't care what other people think, but I mean everyone has a breaking point.  I'd rather not whip out my 20-dollar Hello Kitty bento box and start picking at small bits of broccoli with chopsticks in a six-hundred person lecture hall.

Enter Ichiban Kan.

REVIEW: As my first store that I've ever seen with bento boxes, I was amazed.   All this for $1.50 a pop?