JR Hakata City
This is a large commercial building located at the Hakata Exit of Hakata Station. It contains fashionable shopping venues including Tokyu Hands, the Tokyo Department Store, and Amu Plaza (specialty stores).
In addition to shopping, you can treat yourself to a fabulous meal on the restaurant floor, Kuten, or watch a film at T. Joy Hakata Cinema Complex. There is a large rooftop park called Tsubame no Mori Hiroba where you can walk around in a beautiful garden and attend various events catered towards families with children. Because of its convenient location, JR Hakata City attracts a number of visitors from young people, families with children, and business travelers.
Today, I would like to introduce Calbee Plus Essence, one of Calbee Corporation’s shops designed to gauge customers’ interest. In this location, you can taste Hankyu’s limited edition potato chips as well as freshly fried chips and special Kyushu potato chips flavored with Kyushu soy sauce, Ishigaki salt, and Mentaiko Butter (flavored cod roe). These Kyushu flavored chips are 756 yen; freshly fried ones are 310 yen. Mentako Flavor (limited edition in Hakata) is 310 yen.
KITTE
Kitte means a stamp in Japanese, and KITTE is a new commercial venture of Japan’s Postal Service. There is a KITTE in Tokyo already, and the Fukuoka version is slated to open on April 21st, 2016. Marui, a large retail corporation, is opening its first Kyushu store in this KITTE building. Although Marui is popular among young shoppers for its reasonably priced clothing, 70% of its content in Hakata is supposed to be non-clothing to attract a wide range of customers. I am very excited about this!
