During an opening-day tour of the brand new International Terminal at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport (officially: Tokyo International Airport) last week, I spent a good amount of time searching for souvenirs on the pre-security shopping street designed to evoke a very early style Japanese village.
And because Souvenir Sunday was coming up, I of course looked for inexpensive “of” the city or region items to share with you.
First up: Green Tea and wasabi-flavored Japanese Kit Kat bars, available by the single bar, the 12-bar box and in much larger mini-multi-pack versions.
Other Kit Kat flavors being offered at the airport included strawberry cheese cake, blueberry chese cake, and Intense Roasted Soybean Flavor.
It turns out that’s just a small selection of the wild and wacky Kit Kat flavors available elsewhere in Japan – and around the world. Here’s a link to Fried Toast’s Flickr set of more than 100 types of Kit Kat ‘flavors.’)
I stocked up on Kit Kats and hit the Hello Kitty Store:
I contemplated buying these Super Hero-shaped water bottles, but realized I’d have to give them up at the security checkpoint.
Instead I bought these cookies, which depict the airline of Sirotan, a white seal character popular in Japan –
And, just because they looked fun and colorful, some paper souvenirs.
After a morning poking around the shops in the International Terminal, I headed back to my hotel – which was conveniently located inside one of the airport’s two domestic terminals. And there, at the Starbucks in the mall attached to Terminal 2, I found these special Starbucks mugs, made especially as an airport souvenir.