Hello again from J-List!
First of all, a full hard drive caused a dozen or so orders received over the weekend to show as incomplete on our end — we received the orders but not the email addresses or names of the people who made them. If you ordered something through the J-List website on Saturday or Sunday and haven’t received the second email from us, please contact us so we can get your order processed properly.
We had a fun weekend. Our kids don’t get out enough since we’re so busy with J-List, so we took them to beautiful Yokohama to show them the city, hitting such famous sites as Chinatown and the Gaijin Graveyard and Yokohama Marine Tower in Yamashita Park, the tallest lighthouse in the world (I’ve wanted to see it since I saw episode 15 of Robotech back in high school). Yokohama is a fabulous place, steeped in history and international culture, and I’ve always felt drawn to it — maybe that’s because my hometown of San Diego is similar in many ways, and in fact, Yokohama and San Diego are sister cities. We took the kids to have some fun at Hakkejima Sea Paradise, an amusement park and excellent aquarium located on an artifically created island in Yokohama Bay. We loved riding the rides, but had the most fun in the aquarium, a very well-designed system of tanks and windows that allow you to get inches away from some amazing marine life, and meet eyes with beluga whales, dolphins, penguins and more. There’s also an escalator that goes up through a massive tank of aqua life, so that there are fish on all sides of you and above you. It was pretty cool.
In Yokohama we stayed in a Western hotel, one of the high-rise hotels popular in the major Japanese cities known as “city hotels.” Staying in a city hotel is a totally Western experience — everything from the beds to the bathtubs to the food in the restaurants is based on a slightly exaggerated ideal of what a fine hotel in America or Europe would be, as seen through Japanese eyes. It was actually a bit of a culture shock for my family and I — we’re so used to the rhythm of a Japanese-style inn, with tatami rooms, futons, cotton yukata and large communal hot spring baths, that the city hotel took some getting used to.
At the amusement park there was an Anna Miller’s restaunt, which we happily ate at. Anna Millers’ is a famous chain of “Boston style” family restaurants that’s really good, and their pies can’t be beat. But Anna Miller’s is famous for another reason: their sexy waitress uniforms, which feature very short skirts and, er, support for various parts of a woman’s anatomy. As part of the general Japanese boom in “cosplay” (costume play, i.e. dressing up in various uniforms or costumes), the Anna Miller’s sexy waitress uniforms have become famous throughout the country, and are as recognizable to Japanese as the Playboy Bunny is to Americans. To see what the uniform looks like, just search for “waitress” on the J-List site and see what comes up — the bishoujo game Viper V16 also features a girl wearing this famous costume on the cover. Supposedly, the best place to experience Anne Miller’s is the restaurant in Meguro, Tokyo — the girls are supposed to be the prettiest there, according to Tomo, who is an expert. If you’re ever in Tokyo and want to experience some delicious food and pretty waitresses, just go to the Meguro or Ebisu train stations on the Yama-no-te loop line and take a taxi to the restaurant.
Now I’m at Narita Airport, about to make the leap from Japan to California again. I’ll be attending the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas from Jan 8-12. If you’ll be at the show and want to stop by and say hello, we’d love to see you! For more info on the show, see http://adultentertainmentexpo.com
For the new update, we have a whole lot of new items for you, from magazines to photobooks to doujinshi/manga to DVDs to anime toys to wacky things from Japan and more — a great volley of new items for you to browse and enjoy! Also, look for freshly restocked items from Japan from our extensive selection of unique products from Japan for you. We hope we can serve you in some way!
Remember that J-List carries thousands of cool things from Japan, including the really cool miniature “candy toy” (called this because you usually get some ramune or other candy in the box). Our favorites include the full sets of Street Fighter II replica figures, the excellent Urusei Yatsura figures, and the replicas of famous foods found in Japan, like sushi, traditional Japanese dishes and miniature bento boxes sold in train stations all around Japan. Because we want you to be satisfied with these great toys, we go the extra mile for you and create full sets that you can buy — so there’s no need to buy two dozen toys and throw away all the duplicates. Please note that these candy toy items are all out of production, and no more will be available — so if there’s something you want to get, we recommend you get it before our stock runs out.
