Visit to Mall of America: Lego Store and Brickmania

I had a chance to stop by the Lego store earlier this week, something I have not had a chance to do in a while.  I also had heard about the Brickmania store and wanted to check that out too.  I was hoping to grab some of the new Summer 2016 releases but alas they did not have ANY of them out!  Just by pure luck however, the Minecraft Village D2C set was released to VIP members that same day and was available in store for me to buy!  So there is the most expensive set off my top 10 list for the summer bought and ready to put together!  Was also excited to check out the pick-a-brick wall as I had never really tried it out in the past.  Now that I am starting to do some of my own designs, I have been building up a collection of parts and the wall became a huge focus point for me to flesh out key pieces.

To start off with, here are some pictures of the actual store, which combine a classic Lego Store front with a bit of a entertainment and spectacle piece:

Always an impressive site!  I wish I had gotten more pictures beyond just the large scale builds on top.  There are some brick built murals around the outside and a building area with seating and tables with bins of parts to build on.

Nearby there is a 3rd party store called "Brickmania" that had a great MOC of Stalingrad in the window along with a couple glass shelves full of custom military equipment (mainly World War II).  Most in minifigure scale but also some micro builds to use in a table top game they have.  Inside they had the military sets for sale along with accessories and other custom parts, designs and accessories.  They also had large number of rare out of print sets available for sale on the walls for typically inflated prices.  I was very impressed by the store front and they had some truly amazing stuff in there for AFOLs and other hardcore collectors.