My Fukubukuro: The Luckiest Bag in Nagoya

by Blaine + Erin on January 13, 2013 in Adventures with 6 Comments

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As soon as I heard about fukubukuro from my students I decided I had to partake in this Japanese version of Black Friday (even though I’ve never actually participated in Black Friday). In Japan, the second of January is the day of the fukubukuro or lucky bag. Most stores including coffee shops sell lucky bags with goods valued at two to three times the cost.   Blaine and I woke up at 8am (which I'm embarrassed to admit is now early for us) and headed downtown to La Chic, a posh mall in Sakae. We merged into line with hundreds of other shoppers and waited about fifteen minutes for the mall to open. Our wait was nothing compared to the diehard shoppers. Crowds apparently camped out overnight waiting for the 30,000 yen ($342) Apple store fukubukuro, which were rumored to have either an Ipad or Mac Book Air inside. The security guards lined us up in perfect rows of four outside the mall and allowed us to stream inside in an orderly manner insisting shoppers ride the escalators only two at a time. We received a list of all the stores with the number and cost of the lucky bags for sale. I didn’t see any Mace or tackling and luckily we’ve grown used to navigating crowded areas. We hurried through shops and I quickly tried to decide if I liked everything in the store enough to risk purchasing the mystery bag. The prices of the fukubukuro we saw ranged from 1,000 yen ($12) to 525,000 yen ($5,985). We mentally planned for the craziness of fukubukuro day by deciding beforehand what mall we wanted to go to and how much I wanted to spend. I decided on 10,000 yen ($114), which was the average price for lucky bags in La Chic. Some stores had photos of what the lucky bags contained, but most left it to the imagination. I scoped out all the stores and decided on Perle Peche. Most stores had sizes on the bags, but Perle Peche is a one size fits all store (something I'd only expect to see in Japan). I paid 10,500 yen ($119) and the overall value of the clothes in my bag amounted to 60,800 yen ($693). It completely outweighed my expectations. My fukubukuro loot: Navy belt                          3,500 yen    $39.20 Striped cardigan               8,500 yen    $95.20 Striped long-sleeved tee  13,000 yen   $145.60 White blouse                     9,500 yen    $106.40 Black coat                         26,000 yen   $291.20 Total:                                60,500 yen  $677.60 We would have bought Blaine a fukuro of his own if he could fit into anything here. Would you purchase a lucky bag?