Japanese New Year SALE

I think we all know that during new year there are usually a lot of SALE everywhere. They put discount even up to 80%. I remember when i was in Indonesia, i often went to the mall before or after new year to enjoy the big sale.

I just had my first new year few days ago (ok, maybe not really first time, since i have also been here for about 3 years when i was a kid). I just discovered something unique here related to the big sale. In Japan, there are a lot of stores which sell Japan local brand (i mean not such international brand) and believe me the their products are quite expensive (since the production is really in Japan, not in china or india or anywhere else, we can say that the quality is very trusted). Now something that i mean unique before is, those local brand stores almost every new year sell a happy bag called FUKUBUKURO. 

Any of you know what fukubukuro is? So those stores, beside selling their products as usual, they also sell something like a set of clothes (or anything else), they put that set of clothes inside a (mostly) cool bag (or even a suitcase). But most of the stores don't let us to know what are inside the bag. So, it's a kind of luck. You may get all the stuffs good as you deserved, or maybe some of the stuffs may disappoint you, or the worst is that you don't like any of them. The stores sell the fukubukuro in some prices depend on how many item inside the bag. But the choices of the fukubukuro's prices are mostly  10,000yen or 5,000yen (without tax). But don't worry, if you dare enough, the real total price of the items inside the bag may be worth 5-10 times than the price of the fukubukuro.

Yesterday i went to Shibuya to enjoy the new year sale. Many long queue in front of many stores (trust me it's so weird. i never saw something like this before in indonesia). But this year i couldn't challenge myself to buy any of the fukubukuro. For me now, it's too risky buying something which i don't have any idea what are they for 10,000yen (i need to go to morning baito for 5 days to collect that much money..hehe). But mba rani (my senior), finally challenged herself this year and bought one fukubukuro. And she's so lucky. The items inside the bag are good. And also mba desy (another senior who already graduated then stay in japan), she also got many good items from the fukubukuro.

Me? I bought something. Yes, really. And i bought an item which i didn't plan to buy, but since there was a very great offer so i decided to buy and let myself poor. What is that special item? I'll let you know later :)

mba rani was buying the fukubukuro

people who (maybe) didn't like the items that they got from fukubukuro were asking for exchange with others. so crowded, right?