Shopping guide for Pokemon and Rilakkuma fans in Kagoshima

Good news for fans of Pokémon and Rilakkuma who are visiting Kagoshima!

There are specialty stores devoted to these loveable characters right at AMU Plaza, the shopping mall that is connected to Kagoshima Chuo Station! Chances are you will definitely pass by this station if you're travelling by Shinkansen, so it’s very convenient to do your shopping here!

AMU Plaza Kagoshima - recognizable by the ferris wheel on the top of the building

The fourth floor of AMU Plaza is toy heaven to people like me as you can find both a Pokémon Store there as well as a Kiddyland that stocks a very good range of Rilakkuma products. The Pokemon Store is also a little smaller than a standard Pokémon Center, but it does carry most popular official items.

Both stores are open daily from 10am to 9pm. No tax free shopping here is available here, unfortunately.

If you are looking for Japanese mooks and magazines, there is also a huge Kinokuniya (紀伊國屋書店) at AMU Plaza too (on the same floor as Kiddy Land). I managed to buy a copy of this there: a magazine that contains a cd-rom of Rilakkuma greeting card images! I have no idea what the title of the magazine was, but I showed the cashier a photo of the magazine cover on my phone and she managed to locate it! When I paid, she asked me if I was a Kino member, but I said “I have the Kino card in Singapore, can a not” and she laughed. HAHA :)

Related Links

Pokemon Store Kagoshima Website

Kiddyland Kagoshima Website

What to do in Kagoshima - eat a polar bear!

Before you freak out and call the SPCA on me, hear me out.

We're not actually eating a real polar bear!

In Kagoshima, there is a very famous dessert called shirokuma, which literally translates to “white bear” or “polarbear”.

Kagoshima is the birthplace of the shirokuma dessert and one simply does not come to Kagoshima and leave without eating a polar bear ;) You can find several variations of shirokuma at the popular restaurant called Mujyaki (天文館むじゃき) which we learned about through our Kyushu guidebook.

The unmistakable shopfront of Mujyaki has a life-sized polarbear mascot sitting out front

Mujyaki is a large concept restaurant comprising of four floors. The first floor (the Shirokuma Cafe) where the desserts are served while the basement serves okonomiya, second floor sells Italian and the 4th floor is an izakaya.

Photo credit: http://mujyaki.co.jp/

The Shirokuma Cafe has a policy that requires all patrons to order an item each in order to dine-in. So we ordered a baby-sized Shirokuma and a dango set to share. After a few minutes, this arrived on our table.

Verdict? The Shirokuma is very much like an Japanese version of an ice-kachang. It is a shaved ice dessert that is doused with condensed milk, mochi, local fruits, and Azuki beans. It should be really refreshing to eat this during the summer time or when the weather is hot.

Where to find this?

Mujyaki is located at the Tenmonkan shopping arcade in the downtown area (the restaurant is a 3 minute walk from the tram stop Tenmonkandori). Tenmonkan is touted to be “the number one shopping area in the southern Kyushu region” and is completely sheltered with a roof cover to provide shade from the sun and also volcanic ash from Mount Sakurajima.

There are retail stores, boutiques, restaurants selling traditional Kagoshima food, cafés, karaoke joints etc lining the arcade. As we visited during a weekday evening, the crowd was visibly thin and there were barely any shoppers there. The most happening thing was the sales people who were trying to cajole the crowds to enter the KTVs!

If you did not manage to make it to Tenmonkan, you can find a small Mujyaki counter at the omiyage shop in Kagoshima Chuo station (next to tourist information desk). There, they sell frozen shirokuma in small convenient cups that you can take away.

Ohara Bento (おはら弁当), Kagoshima Chuo Station

One of my favourite food finds in Kagoshima is Ohara Bento (おはら弁当). It is a tiny takeaway store selling bentos and sushi, located outside Kagoshima Chuo Station (walk towards the direction of the tram stop Kagoshimaekimae)

Prices are very affordable. One day for breakfast, we bought a kani temaki handroll, inari and kani sushi to share for a grand total of 484yen. As marvellous as convenient store onigiri can be, the sushi from Ohara tastes sooooo much better! 

Ohara Bento has been in the food manufacturing and catering business for 40 years. Besides running several takeaway outlets around Kagoshima, it also supplies bentos to schools, delis and departmental stores. You can also order online. 

We gobbled down our sushi so fast that we totally forgot to take pictures. But here's the menu from their website to salivate over instead.