Tokyo’s Best Souvenirs: Ginza Edition
This week’s Ranking Paradise went to Tokyo’s most well-known shopping area and asked foreign tourists what they were buying as souvenirs. Here’s the countdown:
Top Souvenirs Foreign Tourists Buy In Ginza
- Tenshin Amaguri [Tianjin sweet chestnuts]
- Earphones [from the Sony Store]
- Okaki [rice crackers]
- Cosmetics
- Chopsticks
- Traditional Japanese Paper Dolls
- Kashmere Scarfs [from Uniqlo]
- Anpan [sweet bread filled with red bean paste]
- Octopus Dolls [a good luck charm for exams)
- Sake
Additional Factoids
- There is a break halfway through the countdown so they can shock foreign tourists by revealing that property values in Ginza are nearly 25 million yen per square meter!
- Ginza’s Wako clock tower has special illuminations at night, so many foreign tourists take pictures of it.
- Cosmetics and rice crackers were particularly popular with tourists from Asia. Chinese tour buses stop at one particular shop so that their passengers can stock up souvenir snacks.
- Tenshin Amaguri are sold at a kabuki theater that is very popular with foreign tour groups. The street vendor in front of the theater claims that Leonardo Dicaprio once bought some of his Tenshin Amaguri.
