Ikea celebrates New Year in Japan with a fukubukuro lucky bag filled with surprises

Ikea says “Blåhaj!” to New Year by giving us a bunch of products that are just as random.

In years gone by, we used to have to travel out of downtown Tokyo to get our Ikea fukubukuro (“lucky bags”) at New Year. Now, though, with the chain having opened branches in Shibuya and Shinjuku, it’s a short trip from the office to get our lucky bag fix, which is a good thing seeing as only 200 lucky bags were made available this year, and only at the Shinjuku store.

Two types of lucky bags, priced at 1,000 yen (US$7.65) and 2,023 yen were sold at the store from 10:00 a.m. on 2 January, with only 100 of each available. In order to get our hands on both bags, we visited the store about an hour and a half before it opened, and at that time there were already three people in line.

▼ A beautiful, but chilly, day to be standing in line.

The line gradually grew with time, and at around 9:30 a.m. — about 30 minutes before opening– staff brought hot coffee to people waiting in the queue.

This gave us the energy we needed to grab both lucky bags, so let’s take a look at what we received in the more expensive bundle, which came in a bag with Ikea’s Blåhaj (“Blue Shark”) plush toy pictured on it.

The first thing we pulled out of the bag was…

▼ A set of 17 storage containers.

▼ This was soon followed by a reusable shopping bag in a polka dot pattern…

▼ … a pack of fried onions…

▼ …some sauces and soups…

▼ …a storage case…

▼ …and a New Year’s gift coupon valued at 2,023 yen!

Seeing as the bag itself cost 2,023 yen, these vouchers gave us our money back, with everything else in the bag acting like free bonuses.

▼ Perhaps our most favourite thing in the bag was this random elephant, which looked like it had been searching for a good home.

▼ What a cutie!

So all in all, we received a total of ten items in this Ikea lucky bag, including the gift voucher and the pack of 17 containers.

▼ The contents of the 2,023-yen Ikea Shinjuku lucky bag.

While the contents of these lucky grab bags may differ, tallying up the cost of each item in this collection revealed it was worth 5,116 yen in total. Even without the coupon, the items were worth 3,093 yen, making this a great deal.

▼ And now the elephant has a home in the office next to Amazon Japan’s lowest-rated Shiba Inu tissue cover.

It was a very different haul compared to the 2,020-yen hot dog bag we got from Ikea in 2020. But we still have the 1,000-yen bag to open this year so keep your eyes peeled for it on the site soon!

Photos: ©SoraNews24
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