Hakone Shopping

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In the souvenir shop at Hakone Ropeway Owakudani station, you will find some of animation characters such as Hello Kitty and Neon Genesis Evangelion. Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the most popular Japanese robot animation series in 1995 and the newer film editions has been released up to the third of the four-movie series. One of the main reasons Evengelion-related goods are sold in Hakone is that Hakone is used as the setting for Tokyo-3 in that animation series. It is a part of movie-franchise for the latest Evangelion film Evangelion 3.0 You Cannot Redo.

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Hakone Yosegi Puzzle Boxes also known as trick boxes, secret boxes are some of the most well-known Hakone souvenirs and what were sold in Owakudani shop are for low-prized, easy to mid-level yosegi puzzle boxes with the price ranging from 1,000 yen to 6000 yen at most. The higher the prices the trickier and more complicated the puzzle becomes. Yosegi handicraft is truly the work of art Hakone boasts. Its wooden mosaic work has highly been appreciated by handicraft fans around the world. Other than puzzle boxes I found yosegi craft folding fan very interesting.

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The shop is special for its creative and exquisite trick boxes and other examples of Japanese arts and crafts.There are also other souvenirs,local food like the black eggs (from the springs), bags, etc and some t-shirts but no big sizes available for huge westerners!

We were specially fascinated with the Japanese trick boxes hand crafted especially in Hakone from local wood.( I shall get back to this soon.)

What to buy: My boys and hubby were amused for what seemed like ages choosing which trick boxes to get! They are not cheap but worth the entertainment one gets if you are interested in trick boxes- more like puzzles. There are ways to open the boxes which require patience and a bit of talent which challenged my boys (including hubby of course!) They got the 5 and 1 ways trick boxes with intricate designs typical of the area.

I shall post the pictures of the boxes soon too.

I also bought a handbag for 1,50 yen made of Japanese cloth with lovely design.

The souvenirs like fridge magnets with the same wooden designs from Hakone are great too. The yare priced from round 5 to 15 Aussi dollars depending on the design. I got an owl design magnet with a hook for hanging keys and other small objects, small but very useful indeed!

What to pay: Depending on your budget expect to pay around 18 to 35 dollars for small to medium trick wooden boxes. The fridge magnets are not so cheap too compared to usual souvenirs but they are handmade from wood and some from plastic so they are cheaper.