Butterfly’s Gift Shop

This is the first shop you hit once you enter the Chinatown Gate. They have a good selection of Chinese gifts, apparel, accessories and décor. More importantly, the staff here is friendlier than what I encountered in other stores. They didn’t follow me around or put any pressure on me to buy anything, which was great. The girl helped my son find a ‘boy’ fan because he really wanted one but didn’t like all the flowers. We ended up buying a black fan for my son for $ 4.99 and he absolutely loves it!

One of the first stores through the arches into Chinatown, it was an obvious stop. They had pretty much everything other vendors did, but I enjoyed looking at their wall of figurines. I bought a scarf and ring, both reasonably priced.

Friendly staff. Typical Chinatown junk sold here, but I did buy a little cable car toy for my nephew here.

I’m sure that this will forever scar me as a tourist, despite my residence being only an hr away from the city, but I couldn’t resist going into this place for a good luck cat. And I didn’t want just any shiny as minted coin cat, or the cheesy ass bookstore boxed good luck cat set with a book, noooo – I wanted a handpainted, painfully adorable in its cuteness good luck cat to bring in the customers/​students, dig?
Thankfully, Butterfly’s was the first stop and my new favorite place for figures. I walked out with a pouting good luck cat, three monkeys doing the «see no evil…» bit, and a red dog figure for protection. (See, I have this thing with Eugene O’Neill and Dao House, and he had dogs for protection, so yeeeeah…) I just couldn’t resist. Am I dangerous in SF with my wallet? Potentially, yes. But I left Butterfly’s happy, and that was a happiness that the other nearby stores couldn’t touch… until we entered City Lights, that is… that’s another story… Thank you, Butterfly’s!