gifts

Stop and smell the flowers during the Spring Rose Festival at Tokyo’s best rose garden

The Former Furukawa Gardens make for an extremely economical escape from the big city with special seasonal events happening right now.

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Studio Ghibli’s Mother’s Day corn set is a heartwarming gift for Totoro fans

Fans of Kiki’s Delivery Service are also in for a pleasant surprise.

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Studio Ghibli celebrates Mother’s Day with special Totoro flower deliveries

Kiki’s Delivery Service comes along for the ride too. 

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Looking to gift some food? Here are some of Japan’s most popular snacks with online sales

These snacks, both salty and sweet, will be sure to satisfy anyone. 

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6 delicious, lesser-known food souvenirs you should buy on your next visit to Japan

They also make great gifts to bring when visiting someone’s house!

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Haven’t found the perfect Father’s Day present yet? Here’re 10 gift ideas from Japan

This ranking of some of the most popular gifts in Japan might have something your father would like!

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Osaka residents find mysterious cash gifts in their letterboxes

Strange occurrence has residents and officials baffled.

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New sake earrings let you wear your love for Japanese rice wine on your ears

Pay homage to Japan’s traditional drinking culture with unique eye-catching jewellery.

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Starbucks unveils limited-edition Valentine’s Day drinkware collection in Japan

Celebrate the romantic holiday with some lovely Starbucks goods.

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Ichiran Ramen calendar features moving parts so you can make every day noodle day

Recreating all the restaurant’s famous touches, including the serving of food from behind the bamboo curtain.

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Studio Ghibli unveils new “chopstick letters” to send to loved ones

Share the joy of eating with the help of some beloved anime characters. 

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Centuries-old Japanese store revolutionises the fragrance world with new incense cord

Tie a bow around gifts and envelopes with a wonderfully fragrant incense ribbon.

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New hair pins let you look like you’ve been stabbed in the head with a classic Japanese icon

If your body is a temple, your head is a shrine? Provide easy access to your bonce for roaming Shinto gods with a torii gate hair accessory.

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Diaper Sushi gets an upgrade, is still the best gift for moms-to-be

This beautifully presented gift set is all fun and no carbs!

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Nothing says “Happy Holidays” quite like a stuffed, cooked turkey plushy

It looks so delicious, but if it’s soft and cuddly, we’ll take that too!
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Japanese Twitter user reveals the secret gift foreigners love to get from Japanese tourists

It’s cheap, easy, and it makes their Naruto dreams come true.

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Hello Kitty melons currently ripening up for summer’s cute fruit harvest

Japan’s favourite cat is bringing cute back to melons this year — but how much will they cost?

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Ramp up your drinking game with beautiful Mt. Fuji rocks and tumbler glasses

Anyone who has climbed Mt. Fuji knows that besides the view, the best feeling is cracking open a drink at the summit. Is there anything more picturesque than standing on top of Japan and taking a nice long pull from a drink you most certainly earned?

Now you can bring back those memories while at sea-level with this beautiful glass that will turn all your drinks into a scene so beautiful you’ll want to write a haiku about it.

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Gift-giving made easy! The most popular omiyage bought in Japan, station by station

Believe it or not, train stations are one of the best places to buy gifts in Japan. Train station omiyage (gifts brought back from your travels) are usually edible, representative of the local culture, and are well-received by everyone from colleagues at work to friends or neighbors.

Whereas in the west we tend to keep a person’s personality and their likes in mind when buying a gift, thankfully in Japan, it’s much easier—just buy what’s most popular! In convenient Japan, you’ll find most of the decisions already made for you, so all you have to do is decide how many pre-giftwrapped boxes you want of each item, and you’ll soon be on your way. You can even wait until you’re on the train to buy them from the vendor pushing their cart up and down the aisles on the Shinkansen.

While initially the array of train station omiyage may seem baffling (hundreds of choices!), in this article we whittle it down to the most popular picks; the things that anyone would love to receive. We’ll start in Hokkaido up in the north and move down the archipelago station by station, highlighting the most popular gifts sold at each bullet train station. At the end, we also offer some suggestions on what to purchase if you’re looking for souvenirs from Japan to take abroad.

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Special limited-edition watermelon dango look amazing, sell out immediately after release

Although watermelon has always been traditionally associated with summertime in Japan, we’ve seen many more interesting watermelon-flavored summer gifts, or ochuugen, pop up compared to previous years, like this amazing watermelon-shaped mousse cake we taste-tested and raved about just last week.

Ochuugen, which were traditionally gifts presented as a token of gratitude to one’s parents and close family during the summer, are now given to anyone the giver feels indebted to around this time of year. As we’ve mentioned before, Japanese living spaces are sometimes smaller and more cramped than their western counterparts, especially in bigger cities, so the most popular gifts to give and receive are daily necessities, such as laundry detergent or cooking oil, and things that can be quickly consumed, like snacks or sweets. This year, Japanese traditional sweet company Yagumo Dango decided to hop on the watermelon bandwagon and release a limited run of watermelon dango as part of their summer gift set.

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