Our reporter samples Sendai’s most popular food souvenir for the first time and is overcome by emotion.
omiyage
It turns out there’s a whole range of classic Kyoto goodies available on a typical store shelf!
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A collaboration that brings one of Japan’s oldest traditions and food culture together, in the form of tableware.
Now you can enjoy 35 different Japan-exclusive Kit Kats without having to run around town trying to find them all.
Available to purchase only in the Kanto region, this new variety comes packed with traditional Japanese flavour.
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.
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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These adorable sweets have been meticulously handcrafted by a centuries-old confectionery retailer in Kyoto.
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.
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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