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Last Chance to Buy Souvenirs! (February 20)
With the Nagano Games drawing to a close, many foreign athletes and visitors are hunting around the host city for souvenirs. They're buying up not Olympic goods but home appliances and traditional Japanese goods like kimonos.At an appliance store near the Olympic Village, athletes and officials have been flocking to a duty-free section that the store set up last October.
An Ukrainian official who bought a video camera explained that it's cheaper than buying a camera back home. "Besides," he said, "if you buy it here you can be sure it's 'Made in Japan.'"
An ice hockey player from Kazakhstan also bought a video camera. "This is something I was determined to buy when I got here." The camera cost a little less than 110,000 yen (about 850 dollars).
At a department store in front of Nagano train station, meanwhile, items with traditional Japanese designs have been popular, like cups with pictures of sumo wrestlers and wallets with Japanese-style paintings. Another department store said that trays, fans, chopsticks, wooden clogs, furoshiki (large cloths to wrap things in), and summer kimono were selling well. (Shinano Mainichi Shimbun)
Hunting for a bargain in a store's duty-free section.