omiyage

Hagi no Tsuki, how we love thee: Why you should get your hands on this Tohoku treat ASAP

Our reporter samples Sendai’s most popular food souvenir for the first time and is overcome by emotion.

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This lucky bag of Tokyo snacks is full of delicious treats to take home–wherever home is!

There are 11 different items in this box–and they aren’t sample size either!!

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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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It’s eco-friendly AND delicious! Popular Yamanashi sweet now comes in an edible container

This tasty sweet is now easier to eat…but the edible package version is harder to find.

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Supermarket souvenirs! You can buy a bunch of presents in Kyoto while ignoring tourist shops

It turns out there’s a whole range of classic Kyoto goodies available on a typical store shelf!

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We munch on some real-life Slime dumplings from the Dragon Quest Walk collaboration

One of Japan’s most popular app games takes on a classic sweetshop staple.

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Pokémon Tokyo Banana haul: Will we find the rare Pikachu tail?

We buy stacks of the new limited-edition sweet souvenir to see if we can snare all six cute Pikachu designs. 

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Tokyo Banana teams up with Pokémon for limited-edition Pikachu sweets collection

Tokyo’s best-selling sweet souvenir charges up with six cute Pikachu designs. 

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Tokyo Banana and KitKat team up to offer limited-edition Caramel Banana KitKats

The smash hit taste sensation is back! In KitKat form! Again!

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Kabuki and food join forces for the ultimate collaboration in the form of soy sauce plates

A collaboration that brings one of Japan’s oldest traditions and food culture together, in the form of tableware.

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All the best Japanese Kit Kat flavours together in one exclusive anniversary box for limited time

Now you can enjoy 35 different Japan-exclusive Kit Kats without having to run around town trying to find them all.

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Pringles releases sukiyaki flavoured potato chips in Japan

Available to purchase only in the Kanto region, this new variety comes packed with traditional Japanese flavour.

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We buy plastic food samples from a Japanese vending machine with Mr Sato

Come with us as we track down the unusual machine in Tokyo.

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Tokyo Station reveals its 10 top-selling sweets for 2017

As 2017 begins to draw to a close, it’s time to look back at the year that was, and for Tokyo Station it was a year filled with glorious sweets.

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Japanese Kit Kat fans go crazy for new banana variety available only at Tokyo Station

With queues out the door for the new limited-edition Tokyo Banana Kit Kat, we grab a pack to see if it’s really worth all the hype.

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Pringles in Japan come in special souvenir packs featuring the flavour of takoyaki octopus balls

We get our hands on one of Japan’s most sought-after souvenirs to find out what makes them so popular.

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Kyoto geisha and maiko yatsuhashi sweets are the latest food craze to hit the ancient capital

These adorable sweets have been meticulously handcrafted by a centuries-old confectionery retailer in Kyoto.

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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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7 Japanese customs that even Japanese people wish would just disappear

Japan has a lot of unique customs, and not all of them make sense to newcomers. Eating fried chicken on Christmas Eve, anyone? How about the weird ritual of girls giving chocolate to guys on Valentine’s Day (do guys really like chocolate more than we girls do?).

But it turns out that there are plenty of customs that even Japanese people think are a waste of time. Here’s the top seven worst offenders, and why they are so annoying…

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