{"id":1327,"date":"2016-06-16T10:10:08","date_gmt":"2016-06-16T20:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/weblog.hawaiifiles.com\/?p=1327"},"modified":"2016-06-16T10:10:08","modified_gmt":"2016-06-16T20:10:08","slug":"previewing-shirokiyas-new-japan-village-walk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.hawaiifiles.com\/?p=1327","title":{"rendered":"Previewing Shirokiya&#8217;s New Japan Village Walk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span style=\"color:#0000ff;\">HAWAII PLACES<\/span> | <span style=\"color:#993366;\">SHIROKIYA ALA MOANA CENTER<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Shirokiya Japan Village Walk\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/macprohawaii\/27701097175\/in\/album-72157668894531050\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/8\/7550\/27701097175_c69ed4021c_z.jpg\" alt=\"Shirokiya Japan Village Walk\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\" \/><\/a><a href=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\">\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Nothing short of &#8220;immensely successful&#8221; will be the words I use to describe the new <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.shirokiya.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shirokiya<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/japanvillagewalk.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Japan Village Walk<\/a><\/strong> set for full scale operations on June 25. The public got a preview look of the Japanese style food village arcade this week in advance of its grand opening.<\/p>\n<p>Shirokiya is carrying on as one of the original retail tenants in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alamoanacenter.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Ala Moana Center<\/strong><\/a> as a full scale eatery with more than 50 vendors and seating for 900. Food is the emphasis of this bigger\u00a0location.\u00a0Long gone are most of the retail products\u00a0such as books, electronics, cameras, massage, and music the store once offered.<\/p>\n<p>Souvenirs, gifts and a few high end items such as crystal will be sold in stalls adjacent to main food vendors and seating area. Radio station <a href=\"http:\/\/kzoogroup.com\/kzooradio\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>KZOO<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0maintains a presence in Shirokiya with a new studio adjacent to the Japan walk. There is also a new area called\u00a0the <strong>Shirokiya Guardian Spirits Sanctuary<\/strong> where customers will be able to make an offering to their <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tutelary_deity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">guardian deity<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I won&#8217;t discuss the food since most of it was not out in full force. During the preview many of the vendors offered free samples, which is what lured a thousand customers each day during the preview event. Needless to say, the food items I did sample were delicious: Tiny strips of beef steak and greens, garden salad, sashimi fish, oysters and a small roll of spam sushi. Some of the food vendors are associated with the\u00a0gourmet Vintage Cave operation, so expect to pay more for their tasty fare.<\/p>\n<p>My sister will be happy to know that <a href=\"http:\/\/kulukulucake.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Kulu Kulu Honolulu<\/strong><\/a> is there serving their desserts and refreshing shaved ice.<\/p>\n<p>When I first heard of Shirokiya&#8217;s downstairs location in the new Ewa Wing I had my doubts about its success. For nearly a year the Ewa Wing has been somewhat quiet while retailers slowly filled the blank spaces there. However with Japan&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/online.jtbusa.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>JTB Travel<\/strong><\/a> agency moving in next door and the fact that the escalator to the new upper level stores such as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alamoanacenter.com\/Stores\/Nordstrom-March-2016\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Nordstrom<\/strong><\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alamoanacenter.com\/Stores\/Bloomingdales\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Bloomingdale&#8217;s<\/strong><\/a> will assure success for this long time local business and magnet not only for the tourist market but residents as well.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Shirokiya Japan Village Walk\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/macprohawaii\/27701475675\/in\/album-72157668894531050\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/8\/7283\/27701475675_e0d9b8dcfd_z.jpg\" alt=\"Shirokiya Japan Village Walk\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\" \/><\/a><a href=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\">\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Shirokiya Japan Village Walk\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/macprohawaii\/27700964575\/in\/album-72157668894531050\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/8\/7239\/27700964575_8bb6ef64aa_z.jpg\" alt=\"Shirokiya Japan Village Walk\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\" \/><\/a><a href=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\">\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Shirokiya Japan Village Walk\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/macprohawaii\/27088764634\/in\/album-72157668894531050\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/8\/7442\/27088764634_3e075b452c_z.jpg\" alt=\"Shirokiya Japan Village Walk\" width=\"640\" height=\"424\" \/><\/a><a href=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\">\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Shirokiya Japan Village Walk\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/macprohawaii\/27090890633\/in\/album-72157668894531050\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/8\/7353\/27090890633_2a08284b16_z.jpg\" alt=\"Shirokiya Japan Village Walk\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\" \/><\/a><a href=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\">\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/s\/aHskB2T6Jb\"><strong>\u00a0MORE PHOTOS OF SHIROKIYA JAPAN VILLAGE WALK<\/strong> <\/a>(Flickr)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HAWAII PLACES | SHIROKIYA ALA MOANA CENTER \/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js Nothing short of &#8220;immensely successful&#8221; will be the words I use to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,30,31,9],"tags":[65,167,186,210,227,343,344,364,365],"class_list":["post-1327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-commentary","category-cuisine","category-hawaii","tag-ala-moana-center","tag-food","tag-hawaii-places","tag-honolulu","tag-japan-village-walk","tag-restaurant","tag-retailing","tag-shirokiya","tag-shopping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.hawaiifiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.hawaiifiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.hawaiifiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hawaiifiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hawaiifiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hawaiifiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.hawaiifiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hawaiifiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hawaiifiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}