In Japan, whenever you travel somewhere, you’re expected to bring back omiyage’ for family and coworkers. Omiyage’ is “souvenirs,” but they don’t mean things like keychains and mugs with the name of the place you visited on it. Usually Omiyage’ is snacks which are at least somewhat unique to that place. Especially in an age of globalization, where we can get just about anything, anywhere, this is a great idea. When I was living in Japan full time for example, I took a trip to Korea, and went back with ginseng tea and other small Korean food items, then just handed them out to my coworkers. It was thoughtful, cheap, and easy to carry.
As mentioned in the video, Chiba is famous for peanuts, so this omiyage’ shop sells entirely, if not all peanut snacks, many of them in gift boxes. They’re also particularly good snacks in these places, if you want something delicious. One place I went camping with friends years ago in the southern peninsula of Chiba was famous for red bean paste wrapped in mocha (pounded steamed rice cakes), which they made right in front of us; we just kept those for ourselves though.
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