Hello again from a very hot Japan!
The J-List server change went pretty well. There was a bit of a rough patch around 6 pm California time when the server acted up, but overall we’re pleased with the smoothness of the changeover, and with the speed of the new server. If you experience any problems with the site, please let us know. Be sure to try the new text-based browsing feature, which allows you to view many products at once — great for customers with slower connections.
In Japan, there’s a fun custom called “753” which is pronounced “shichi, go, san” in Japanese. It’s basically an excuse for parents to get extremely beautiful photographs of their sons (at age 5) and their daughters (at ages 3 and 7) taken. Our daughter is six but by her school year, she’s considered seven years old this year, so we took her to the local photo studio to get some beautiful pictures taken, in kimono and traditional Western gowns. Actually, the real 753 photographs are taken in the fall, but because it’s a big event for parents, you usually get two sets of pictures taken, in case one doesn’t come out very well. I’ve posted pictures of Rina-chan (who is still in the U.S. getting her annual dose of English) on my personal homepage, if you want to see them. The direct link to the pictures is here: http://www.jlist.com/rina753.html
When I came to Japan, one of the first things I was fascinated with were the toilets here. Japanese-style toilets, which you squat over to use, were among the strangest things I’d ever seen, of course, but happily you only see these in public restrooms or in very old houses. Normal toilets in Japanese homes are very similar to those in the U.S., but they usually have a little sink at the top where water comes out of a faucet — a handy way to wash your hands after doing your business. The water in the sink falls into the tank where it waits for the next person to come along and flush. Japanese are masters at invention, and the toilet seats which wash your butt, called washlets, are very popular throughout Japan (we have one in our home). They have features like bidet, a warm air dryer and a “water massage” function. If you go into older houses in Japan (at least outside of Tokyo), you can still find what the Japanese call a “bo-ton,” a big tank in the ground that must be emptied every few months — it gets its name from the sound of stuff falling into the tank.
One of the secrets to doing business in Japan is navigating the often frustrating mazes of distributors and suppliers, which are organized into multiple tiers that can be very confusing. We’re happy to report, however, that we’ve broken through one barrier and are finally able to make Domo-kun goods available again, after more than a year of getting in very little new stock. Domo-kun is the official spokesmonster for NHK, Japan’s version of the BBC, and his cute face is famous all over the world. “Domo” is a polite word in Japanese that can be used in many situations in Japanese, casual greetings, when thanking someone for something, and so on. Enjoy the great new Domo-kun items we’ve got on the site for you!
For the new update, we’ve got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- In addition to a bunch of new Domo-kun toys, mentioned above, we’re happy to report that the long-awaited Star Trek Official Museum series of detailed Star Trek replica toys has come in — we’ve posted full sets as well as other pre-made sets to the site now (you never have to worry about getting random ships and duplicates of ones you don’t want)
- If you love Hello Kitty, we’ve got a great Kitty plush pet that cleans your computer screen, just like Groomy
- For fans of our Japanese snacks, look for several new items, including Picola strawberry cookie rolls, more fun March of the Koalas chocolate cookies, sherbet you can make at home, and more!
- Also, boil in bag curry, delicious miso soup, and sour plum-flavored pretzles — Japan is such a fun place
- A great item for summer, we’ve got some Japanese wind chimes that are just great
- At J-List, we love to promote the study of Japanese — look for two brand new Canon Wordtank electronic dictionaries that are great for learning Japanese, as well as reduced prices on all other Wordtank models
- For fans of the miniature food replicas that are popular in Japan these days, look for fresh stock of the dynamite Japanese food, both full sets and random boxes
- For fans of collecting wacky erasers, which are popular in Japan, we’ve got some cool Japanese erasers replicating Japanese drinks, as well as more fun sushi erasers for you
- We’ve posted limited stock of the popular Final Fantasy X-2 CG art book to the site — these are the last we will be able to get, so hurry if you want one
- We love the eerie and beautiful artwork of Shin Takahashi, creator of She, The Ultimate Weapon, the amazing anime series that features English subtitles on the Japanese DVD (a rare treat) — check out Shin’s new perfect art book, in stock
- Did you look through the beautiful 2004 calendars we posted last time? Well, we added another ten or so, calendars that we felt were really special and wanted everyone to look at
- We’ve also gotten in fresh stock of Japanese study materials including kanji notebooks and the cute Hamtaro hiragana guidebooks, as well
- Finally, portable ash trays who want to exercise good smoking manners, cute Hello Kitty ear cleaners, fresh stock of our Japanese eyedrops that will wake you up, and more!
Remember that J-List carries excellent magazine by our “reserve subscription.” This means that you can get great anime, JPOP, fashion and other magazines sent to you as soon as the new issue is out in Japan — a few days earlier than newsstands receive them here, in fact. We recommend great items like Young Magazine Uppers, a superb manga magazine that features Shirow Masamune’s great posters in special issues as well as great comic art from some of Japan’s best manga-ka (manga artists). As always, payment through any method is fine (credit card, Paypal, check or money order) and you can stop your subscription at any time.
My friend Chris is traveling around the world on his BMW motorcycle with a Japanese friend. He’s having a great time, and is somewhere in Uzbekistan now. His homepage is at http://www2.gol.com/users/chrisl/travel/ if you want to check it out.
