Fukubukuro

Fukubukuro (福袋) literally "lucky bag" is a "surprise bag" sold at the end of december. Most of the time, you buy it but you don't know what is inside until you open it.

Normally, if the price of the bag is, let's say 10,000 Yen, the content inside is of higher value. For instance, these days, they still had some lucky bags at a local electronic store for around 15,000 yen (150 USD) which were worth about 25,000 Yen (250 USD). They contained a Digital camera and a Digital Picture Frame.

There was a news some time ago, that in Tokyo, the Apple store had this kind of bags and were sold for around 30,000 yen (300 USD). Among all the bags (which mostly contained ipods and accessories) there were few of them with a bigger surprise. The lucky ones, maybe 3 or 4 people, went home with a shiny Macbook (worth over 1000 USD).

I guess, as our teacher said, probably next year, everyone will want to get a Lucky Bag at the Apple store hoping to be the lucky one ;)