Hello from Japan, land of wasabi, pickled eggplant and dried, shredded squid to go with your beer.
I remember, when I first came to Japan, I was amazed at the popularity of actress Aubrey Hepburn. An incredibly popular actress here, she stars in the movie that many Japanese girls claim as their all-time favorite, Roman Holiday. She’s popular in Japan, I am told, because she was the first world actress to become famous despite having a slender (Japanese) body. Another person who is far more famous here than in the U.S. is Sydney Sheldon. A walk through tiny English section of any bookstore in Gunma is like a Sydney Sheldon special selection. (Incidentally, did you know that Sydney Sheldon is the creator of I Dream of Genie, that old TV show?)
In an effort to jump-start the economy, and also to commemorate the new century, Japan will be printing a 2000 yen bill next year. Currently, Japanese currency comes only in 1000, 5000 and 10, 000 yen denominations, making things quite simple. There used to be 100 and 500 yen paper money, but these have wisely been retired and turned into coins, something that I believe Americans should consider doing to the $1 soon — paper money costs millions to print, but coins last for years. The new bill will cause some confusion
There are a lot of nice items in tonight’s update. First of all, we’ve added a lot of cool items we consider to be great Christmas gifts. On the cards & puzzles page, for example, check out our beautiful only-available-from-Japan puzzles featuring cool Pokemon as well as beautiful traditional Japanese artwork puzzles. We’ve also got some smaller easy-to-display puzzles, and a great puzzle for Micronaut fans. On our anime & toys page, we’ve got cool Microman/Micronaut figures, a deluxe battle mech from Front Mission 3, and more. On the magazine front, there are several nice new additions, including the new Bejean
The calendars are selling well, as people pick up the extra calendars we ordered before the Year 2000 calendar pre-orders closed down. We’ve got plenty left, but the supply is limited, so please check out the in-stock calendar pages to see if there are any items you want. We can still get them to you by Christmas if you choose airmail as the shipping method. Among the great large-size Y2K calendar we have in are Anzai Hiroko, the lovely Matsuda Jun, the great pop groups Speed, Max and Every Little Thing, hot race queen Suzuki Fumika, only-from-Japan Pokemon and Evangelion calendars, the lovely Kusanagi Jun
Remember that our buy-4-get-1-free sale on dojinshi will end soon. This is a great chance to get some nice dojinshi for up to 20% off, and help us make room for more stock of cool dojinshi. Yoroshiku!
If you’ve got kids who like those fine wooden Brio trains, please check out Spruce Goose, a nice company that sells Brio-compatible track and trains at very reasonable prices. The URL is Plug https://www.addr.com/~spruceca/cgi-bin/ordpage.cgi?uwrhrfrst .
