Hello again from your friends at J-List!
Well, my little trip to San Diego and Las Vegas has come to an end, and it’s time for me to make the jump back to Japan. It’s always nice to come home — nothing makes a person appreciate what a great place their home country is like living in another one. One thing I really miss about San Diego when I’m in Japan is the weather: today, while the rest of the U.S. was freezing, it was a balmy 74 degrees, perfect for wearing short-sleeves.
Tokyo is a really exciting city, a sprawling mass of people and concrete that really boggles the mind the first time you’re there. The population of Tokyo itself stands at around 12 million, but if you count the neighboring cities of Kawasaki and Yokohama and nearby prefectures of Chiba and Saitama, it grows to a massive 33 million. About a quarter of all Japanese live within 100 km (60 miles) of the Tokyo, making it by far the most influential part of the country. Because Tokyo is so massive, every few years someone brings up the topic of moving the capital to another part of the country, like Japan’s Tohoku region (the northern section of the main Japanese island of Honshu), which is still underdeveloped economically. Unfortunately there’s not much momentum for such a plan at present.
If you’re ever in Tokyo, there are some good places to see, the famous “playgrounds” which are fun to check out, whether you want to have fun or just do some people-watching. First is Harajuku, a stylish area on the Yama-no-Te loop line where you can find very cool shops, and very hip young people. Go on Sundays to see people dressed up in Gothic & Lolita fashions. Next is Shibuya, also on the Yama-no-Te train line. Go out the Hachiko exit (Hachiko was a faithful dog who waited at this station for ten years for his master to return, unaware that his master had died; you can see a statue of him here), preferably on a Friday or Saturday night, and just feel the energy from the lights, the massive TV screens, the street musicians, and the cool restaurants. Roppingi is also good — famous for its bars and “image clubs” (establishments where you can have girls dressed in costumes pour drinks for you), and Tokyo’s Hard Rock Cafe is there. Finally, if you ever hit Tokyo, you must go to Akihabara, the electronic mecca of Japan, with hundreds of large and small electronics shops. When riding the train, you can always tell you’ve stopped in Akihabara because all the gaijin suddenly get off the train.
When you learn a foreign language, one concept you catch early on is that a given word will often have many different meanings or nuances when used in another language. One of the first words students of Japanese learn is “genki,” which is used in the Japanese greeting “Ogenki desu ka?” (Are you well?). In the context of this greeting, genki means “fine” or “well” and you can reply to this greeting by saying “Hai, genki desu” (Yes, I am fine). But genki can have other meanings, such as describing children running around (“energetic”), or someone beaming with happiness about something, or someone getting healthy after an illness. (The word can also refer to a man in a state of sexual arousal.) Studying a foreign language teaches you a lot about how words work and makes you think about your own language, too.
For the new update, we’ve got some excellent all-new products from Japan for you, from toy magazines to cool items for your home to brand-new Gundam toys to nifty Kitty items and more. Items for adults include erotic new magazines and super sexy photobooks and hentai manga/doujinshi and great DVDs like the popular “clothed female, naked male” DVD series. Three dozen new products from Japan for you to check out — please browse them all!
At J-List, we love DVDs, and are happy that we can provide so many unique titles to our customers from Japan. 95% of the DVDs J-List sells are “region free” meaning you can use them in any player, but some discs from Japan — Japan-released anime and high-end indies 18+ DVDs — require a special region-free player to view. J-List stocks two excellent transportable region-free players from Lasonic, the feature-rich yet inexpensive DVF-982 and the even more affordable DVB-8092. These players will play discs from any country in the world, including playing PAL (European) discs on an NTSC (North American) TV and vice-versa. They also play VCDs as well as CD-R and DVD-R/CD-RW media. And they start at just $88!
