The Japanese New Year is still continuing. The New Year's celebration lasts about a week and consists basically of visiting family and eating.
It seems I learn about all the cool stuff AFTER it happens (like the door decorations). Today I learned about the Fuku-bukuro or lucky bag. Retailers all over Japan create grab bags of their retail items (presumably to get rid of old stock and make room for the new merchandise) and you pay a certain amount of money and get to pick a bag. Almost all retailers participate in this.Usually the bags can only be found the first few days of the New Year.
One of my friends reported she paid 40,000 yen at the Apple store for a lucky bag. This is close to $500USD. Her grab bag included an iPad, a MacBook Air, Apple headphones, an Apple t-shirt and an assortment of software.
WHAT?! That is so cool. Apparently the small accessory stores also have some pretty great grab bags for 1,000 yen or about $15USD.
To do next year....
Total stranger following your blog...but thanks for this tip! I will be over there in February and will try to remember this tip for 2013!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely picking some up in 2013! All the cool stores run out of bags on New Year's Day.
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