In October, we were going stir crazy. Disneyland is still closed and we have been delaying and delaying vacation. Since I had some to burn, we loaded up the family into the car and drove south, stopping at National Parks and time shares all down California to Palm Springs and back. It was a two week trip and we stayed as socially distanced and sanitized as possible.

In planning for the trip, we heard about Daiso as a “Japanese dollar store”. That description gives you a sense of the store, but it is way better than that. So many interesting small products and foods at low prices ($1.50 or more plus tax).

As you can imagine, my favorite spot was the Petit Block display. There were 20-30 different sets, all in small bags at the $1.50 price point. I bought about 10 that looked interesting on our first visit, but we had so much fun at Daiso that we went back two more times and I bought more sets each time.

The Petit Block is a nano-scale brick, like many of the Chinese brands (and they are made in China as well). The quality on them is really good – so far I’ve only hit one piece that was mis-molded, and the grip is solid.

So this post is a warning that I will have many more little builds to review soon. (Note the Sequoia National Park set is not Petit Block but rather from Impact Photographics as other Parks sets are).

The Sydney Opera House is another iconic building in the Sites to See Series of official nanoblock sets. It is not new, and I’ve had the box sitting on my shelf for a few years.

This is another in my long list of nano-scale builds to review. I have a pretty big backlog, so expect more to show up eventually.

This is an interesting build, especially due to the challenge of having roof sections at odd angles. This is achieved through the use of ball and socket pieces at the base of each section. Additionally, the ball pieces are attached together inside two stacks of blocks that lay sideways inside the building. When I was first building this I was worried the stacks would just fall out, but the stacks are secured with some more overlapping building structure.

The result holds together fine, though there is some play in the roof angles and one side can slide back and forth by a hair’s width.

As typical for these nano-scale sets, you get some extra pieces. I counted 62 extra with this set, maybe more if I dropped one or two under my desk.

I really like this one. The look is immediately recognizable, the build technique is interesting, and it goes well with the other scenery on my self.

This was a purchase during an earlier road trip this year (flew to Vegas, drove through St George, Bryce, Zion, Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon dam, Hoover Dam, Red Rock Canyon, Vegas). There were a number of animal themed sets at the Grand Canyon gift shop and this Roadrunner stood out. These “mini building blocks” are nanoblock compatible (look like LEGO bricks but 1/12th the size).

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