Otakara Ichiba (Treasure Box) お宝市場; Daiba Ichome Shotengai 台場一丁目商店街; Decks; Odaiba; Tokyo

Welcome to another round of wonders and oddities coming out of the land of the rising sun.  This one involves a store of... Mystery boxes!!!  That's right, you don't know what you will get in the box, maybe tickets to Tokyo Disneyland, maybe an iPod or maybe a pig sculpture or a keychain!  You can find this shop in the Daiba Ichome themed area of Decks shopping mall in Odaiba.   This area replicates 50s, 60s and 70s Japan, known as the Showa era.

 Now in all honesty this mystery box thing got us really excited and as silly as it seems,  I had no problem paying 300 yen for a chance at (really rare) getting Disney tickets or an iPod.  Every New Year's holiday, Japanese retailers have a similar concept with fukubukero (lucky bags) where people buy mystery bags from stores.  A lot of times it is stuff retailers weren't able to clear during the year but other times it is truly good stuff.   Even the Disney store has these mystery bags around the New Year's holiday.

So on with the festivities!

Here we have a lovely lady picking out a chance for something special.  It is customary to shake the boxes to get an idea what is inside.  The premium prizes are like that golden ticket from Willy Wonka; they are certificates hidden in normal prize boxes.  So the Disney tickets wouldn't be any lighter than normal boxes.  However,it is still fun to shake as many boxes as possible.

Here are more boxes.  The gold ones are 1000 yen a piece and have better prizes.  The cheap Chinese part of me prodded for the 300 yen box.   However the gambley Chinese part of me kept prodding about the more expensive gold boxes.  Cheap won out in the end.

We have a cutie opening the box here.  You have to open the box in front of the clerks.  They as well as interested bystanders observe the fun.  If you get a premium prize,  the clerks ring a bell and everyone goes nuts.  Well, as nuts as Japanese people get, which is just saying すごい!!!(great).

Here is what we got, a mini Care Bear, which to be honest, was a good deal and made our little one quite happy.   Had we got an I Heart Seoul pin or a cheap compass, we definitely would have felt the 300 yen was not worth it.

Thanks for reading, and please try your luck at getting a 300 yen iPod!