Ah, my days as a single man in Japan

Hello again from Japan! Today is a holiday here, Shunbun no Hi, or the first day of spring. It's nice to say goodbye to winter, but it's still bitterly cold outside, and the wind is howling so loudly I have to use my noise-cancelling headphones to get any work done... I remember with fondness my single years in Japan. There was an izakaya -- kind of a bar, but with good traditional Japanese food, too -- with the odd name of AIUEO, which was a favorite hang-out of gaijin in our city. You could always find us there on Friday nights, drinking enormous beers and eating such fare as yakitori (Japanese chicken, skewered and cooked over an open flame), grilled "hokke" fish (which my dictionary tells me is arabesque, but we never knew what it was called in English at the time), and fresh sashimi (raw fish without rice, i.e. the top part of sushi, served on a plate). Those were fun times when we'd unwind with a few drinks then I'd ride home on my mountain bike -- it was the height of gaijin fashion in the 1990s to have one. Then there was the thrill of waking up the next morning to find a girl's pocket bell ("beeper") number scribbled on a chopstick wrapper and try to remember how it got there. But time marches on: even though the old drinking district where we use to roam is still there, they tore down AIUEO a few years ago to make more room for parking. (Incidentally, we have some cool miniatures of sake and izakaya food on the site today.) The Japanese love of saving money is world famous. Although the annual savings rate has dipped a bit in recent years, the average household still has an incredible US$100,000, usually held in cash in normal bank accounts making a laughably low return -- my own bank account gives me just 0.04% per year. Getting a 1% return on savings is considered great in Japan, what with the governments "zero interest policy" of keeping money practically free to borrow to try to keep the economy moving, and my wife is especially good at sniffing out better investments. There are some interesting cultural reasons why Japanese seem to enjoy saving money, and I think it starts with "otoshidama," the custom of receiving money from relatives on New Year's Day, roughly equivalent to getting presents on Christmas (although thanks to Toys R Us, this has become a part of Japan's culture, too). I've watched as my wife has carefully cultivated an interest in saving money in my son, and now he's got $500 in his bank account from carefully saving his allowance and New Year's Day money. Here are today's "really cool products" that I thought were especially noteworthy. Note: the J-List links below may be for adult products and should probably be considered "not safe for work." To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link.

	Miniature Sake Bottles. The Japanese make many miniature toys these days, but none is as cool as this: a set of miniature sake bottles, with their boxes, and delicious food from izakayas. I just love these cool sets to death, they are so amazingly detailed. This is a full set.
	Hokago Dorei Club. This is one of the most incredibly penned mature manga I've seen in an age -- I'd gladly choose it for my top 3 favorite books. A creation of the illustrator Maguro Teikoku, which means Tuna Empire, this is a book that should be on every hentai manga fan's list. The subtlety and quality of his art is just amazing.
	Star Wars Bust-Ups -- Set of 6 *Full Set*. Another cool item from Japan, this is the Star Wars Bust-Ups, very detailed busts of Star Wars characters. They look great, much better than most of the 3.5 inch figures they've been making of late. I've got to got to get a set of these myself.
	Japanese Lucky Charm -- Sakura Print Omamori. These are Japanese good luck charms, which sounds dorky when you say it that way -- the Japanese word omamori is much cooler-sounding. They're sold at Shinto shrines and these are offically blessed at a shrine in the Tokyo area.
	Urecco Dec. 2004. Urecco is the top adult magazine at J-List, and we love selling it -- the photography is always sassy, always good. This isn't the best cover to come along for a while, but the insides of this issue are one of the best in several months.
	Go to Thailand while Young! -- Yuko Ogura. We've seen a funny trend over the past few years: girls who become popular at J-List hit the big time in Japan. I'm sure it's unrelated, but sexy idols like Yuka and now Yuko Ogura really seem to take off once they get popular at J-List. This is Yuko's latest DVD (it's region 2 though, so you'll need a special player to watch it, although a computer will do too).