Karuizawa (軽井沢) is an upmarket mountain resort in Nagano Prefecture. It's one of the most popular resort places in Japan, so much that the Japanese emperor and his family go there yearly. There are various of outdoor activities like golf, hiking, tennis, skiing and ice skating, and of course lots of opportunities to shop! Karuizawa is most beautiful in the fall when the leaves are changing, but it's really popular all year long. We went when the leaves were still changing, making it a beautiful experience!!! We wanted to get some shopping done, and heard that Karuizawa's shopping outlet was really famous for being a huge outlet that's surrounded by Nagano's beautiful mountains and trees. So we went to check it out~★

The popular brand in Japan, Edifice Iena, is a store that offers clothes of the latest trend mixing original and imported goods. Also if you don't know Japanese, there are phrase cards hanging outside the dressing rooms. 

Normally these clothes would be pretty pricey, but since it's an outlet store you get everything at a lower price. The store also has a variety of famous international brands available in the back of the store.
 

In Japan you can see MANY women with COACH bags and wallets. We were curious what sort of stuff they sold compared to America so we went to check it out.

A good variety of men's, women's, and children's apparel along with bags, wallets, keychains and more that you can touch!
 

What was great though was they had some of the lines that were sold out in America!

Getting older we've found ourselves always checking out home deco/kitchenware stores. Something about it is just really fun! It's even more fun in another country because you never know what sort of thing that country sees useful, popular, and interesting. 
 

A lot of the kitchenware for sale here were special handmade by Japanese craftsmen, "Made in Japan" stuff. Like a traditional grater that's labeled as "shark skin grater"…is this really shark skin!? It looks like it'd work really well though. Even if you don't buy anything, it's always fun to look!

Comes with shichimi which contains 7 different spices/chili peppers and it’s said that there isn’t a single household in Nagano that doesn’t have it.

Nagano has some of the best soba. But if you don't have the right soba soup things can go wrong. That's why the soba set is pretty helpful. Inside contains snacks/side dishes that are special to Karuizawa. 

Just LOOK at that! It looks crazy good!!!

Baumkuchen is a very popular snack/dessert in Japan, and apples are very famous in Nagano. So it's no surprise they combined the two!! 1852yen (about $16) isn't a bad price but when we were there though they had a deal where they were selling it for 1200yen (about $10) so maybe you guys will get lucky too!

Love how stylish this bottle is!

This was our favorite!! Karuizawa sake that's bottle is decorated with the concept of Japanese pattern. You can drink the sake and keep this pretty bottle! We got one for our parents ^-^ ★720ml (24.3fl oz) = 2160yen (about $19)
 

We had this places #1 menu, which happened to be hot pot that had all sorts of yummy fresh fish and local veggies.
 

Some other local specialties are Karuizawa original sake and Sakuya's very own shichimi. It has a very distinctive taste, still spicy but has a real earthy. If you like it you can also buy some from here for 907yen.