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New Year in Japan means family time, food with very specific meanings, and of course shopping. And one of our favourite things about this time of year is the opportunity to buy Lucky Bags (fukubukuro). As the name implies, these are bags containing a lucky dip of items from your store of choice – so you don’t know what loot you’ve got until after you’ve parted with your cash.

Sometimes, you can hit the jackpot with fukubukuro – last year, for example, our very own Mr. Sato was ecstatic to get his hands on a MacBook Air. But here at RocketNews24 we like our tech to come with a side order of luxury chocolate, so when we heard that upmarket chocolatier Godiva were selling Lucky Bags for 5,400 yen (US$45), we sent our reporter P.K. Sanjun down to buy one. Here’s what he got!

After purchasing his Lucky Bag, the first thing P.K. noticed was that the bag itself was quite snazzy: a dark chocolate-coloured shopping bag that, he felt, was just oozing sophistication. Things had gotten off to a good start!

▼ Godiva Lucky Bag: now with added je ne sais quoi.

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So, what was inside? Well, we got:

  • Truffle Assortment (6 truffles)
  • Signature Gold Collection (8 chocolates)
  • Milk Chocolate Biscuits (12)
  • Milk Chocolate Cookies (5)
  • …and one Truffle Chocolate Bar

…“Huh.”

P.K. wasn’t sure, but he had a sneaking suspicion he hadn’t done too well in the lucky dip. “I’m just an ordinary guy, so I didn’t actually know how good the things I got were,” he explains. But he couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed, so he dutifully put on his researcher hat and looked up the prices of the items he’d received on Godiva’s website.

And the result? If we’d bought all those items separately, it would have come in at a hefty 7,400 yen! That’s 2,000 yen more than what we paid! P.K. let out a big sigh of relief that although he might not be much of a choco pro, he had at least got his money’s worth. Still, he couldn’t shake off the feeling that 45 bucks is a lot of money for a bag of chocolate.

“I recommend this item,” says P.K., “to people who already know how much everything in the Godiva shop costs.” Makes sense to us!

▼ Pictured: expensive chocolate.

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▼Not pictured: P.K.’s slightly disappointed face.

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Original article by P.K. Sanjun
Photos: RocketNews24
[ Read in Japanese ]