Actually, sales go on from the 1st to the 4th, with the craziest Black Friday-like sales happening on the first, where people get up at 3am and get to stores before opening time to get the best bargains. I myself have never bothered with Black Friday, but I like sales in general, as long as I don't have to fight for what I want. xD;
So I thought I'd go take a look. All I really needed was gloves, and maybe some more socks (because somehow I have dropped to like 5 pairs of socks--totally not cool), since my friends and I are planning to go to Hokkaido, which is the coldest and most northern part of Japan, for three days this week. But then Yuriko, my Japanese friend, told me about this great grab-bag like things called fukubukuro (lit fortune bags 福袋), which have a bunch of things inside of them and are often priced cheaper than all of the goods in the bag counted together. You can get all kinds of fukubukuro in almost every store after New Year's, and I think the idea is quite unique to Japan (I've never seen it used so specifically and widespread before). Before you buy it you (technically) aren't allowed to look inside (but everyone does anyway), and usually you can choose your size. Sometimes they have a designated outfit, or sometimes they have a sample assortment, or sometimes you can just get a bunch of random stuff. The prices range from maybe 1000 yen to 10,500 yen (and probably more for more expensive places). It's kind of a fun idea, so I thought I'd try it out.
I didn't want to get one for socks, because, well, I wasn't gonna spend a large amount of money on socks and anyway the ankle socks that I like are not that popular in Japan (the grab bags had like indoor fuzzy socks and stuff that I will never wear), so I wanted to do one for clothes, figuring I would never actually buy clothes separately in Japan because A) I have little money, and B) Japanese clothes are really quite expensive. But I wanted to try out this cool Japanese experience. Unfortunately, looking around, I only saw ones for 5,000 or 10,500 yen, which I was unwilling to pay, being my cheap self. So I'd decided if I saw something good I'd get it, and if not, whatever, I'll buy my gloves and socks and be on my way.
So I found socks at this great store called Donkey Hotei, which was actually recommended to me be a senior at my school last year who had been and gone to Japan. You really can find anything in Donkey Hotei, from humidifiers to Halloween costumes to this really hilarious toy called the Shrilling Chicken (squeeze it and it SHRILLS) to boots that cost 980 yen. It was here that I bought my socks, having only found mildly acceptable socks at 3 pairs for 580 yen elsewhere. Here I got three pairs for 420, the best I found all day, so I got six cute pairs of socks for 840 yen. Not my best bargain hunt, but I did what I could under the circumstances.
Then we continued our search for gloves, which were oddly difficult to find. Well we found a lot of places that sold gloves, but a lot of them were just half gloves that didn't cover the fingertips, or were gloves we didn't like much. Eventually we landed up (miraculously) at the 100 yen store, which of course, almost like Donkey Hotei, has everything. Indeed, it was at the 100 yen store that we found some pretty cute gloves, and of course, they were only 105 yen. While there, I also (not really needlessly) purchased some long socks to wear with my snow boots so they don't ride down and a beanie hat (which is super cute on me actually), for a total of 525 yen. So far a satisfying experience because I purchased all I needed, although not admittedly at any sales. haha.
My spoils for the necessary part of my trip:
So that was good. Then we went back to look around the malls because I had expressed interest in buying a fukubukuro, and it was near closing time, so we did one last walk around. And luckily we found one for a mere 3,000 yen! Not bad at all; about $40 by today's Yen to Dollar rate. And in this bag was one shirt, one button up flannel, one sweater, one fluffy over sweater, and one fake animal fur scarf-like thing. I was mildly concerned it wouldn't fit me because it didn't have size variations, but I tried some of the stuff on and, although it was a bit tight, it fit, so I said why not! So here is what the fukubukuro looks like when unopened:
And here are the things that were inside:
I'm somewhat satisfied that I made this purchase. The clothes are, in actual fact, a bit tight around the arms, and just a tad short, and I can't wear the navi sweater over the flannel shirt like it's meant to do, but hey, I can make it work somehow. I do now think a little too much about how I could have saved myself $40, but an experience is an experience and it didn't turn out to be too bad. In any case, with the expenses of the holidays my cash stipend from the school is running out a bit too quickly, so I can stop eating out and buy less groceries and lose some weight. :D Yeah I'm just kidding I don't think I can lose enough wait to make the sleeves not so tight. xD; And I won't stop eating. I will never stop eating. Food is too delicious. I might benefit from refraining to buy cookies though. Hmmm. >_>;
But I'd say, for $40, it was a win, putting those 5 items at about $8 per item. However, this is my advice to future fukubukuro shoppers: unless you are the size of a small Japanese girl or woman, make sure you can try the stuff on before you buy it, because you really never know with Japanese sizes.
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