The Fall season in Japan, touching Japanese TV commercials, and a cosmic rule about pickles

Hello again from Japan. We're very sorry with the problems with the site after the last update -- we had reset the products on the server, but many of them had images that were missing throughout the site, causing them to fail to appear. Also, T-shirt sizes weren't being displayed, which caused some confusion. We're happy to report that everything's working again now. Fall is coming to Japan, my favorite time of the year hands-down. Before long, the leaves will start to change to beautiful shades of red, yellow and brown in a beautiful display of colors second only to the cherry blossoms in April. The most popular tree in the autumn is the momiji-no-ki (紅葉の木）, or Japanese maple, with small, delicate leaves that are really beautiful. The changing of the leaves is called koyo (紅葉), and it's especially nice to head up to the mountains to enjoy the colors up close -- we often have barbeques up there with friends in October. The coming of Autumn is a chance for advertisers to sell products themed for the season, such as Kirin's season-limited Aki-Aji ("Taste of Autumn") beer, which is best enjoyed during an evening of tsukimi or moon-viewing. Autumn is also the season for school sports festivals, held from one end of Japan to the other. Kids run relays, perform synchronized dances, and generally celebrate sports while their parents look on with pride. Makers of home electronics don't miss the opportunity to sell sell video cameras to mothers and fathers who want to record these events for posterity. This year's Panasonic TV commercial is especially nice, capturing a bittersweet moment. See it here (Flash required). While living in Japan is fun, there are an awful lot of things you have to learn to do without. The local version of peanut butter here is nothing like what's sold in the U.S., so when I run out of Skippy or Peter Pan at home, I have to learn to eat something else on my bread. Tortillas are very hard to find in Japan, and the closest thing to a burrito here are the Twisters at Kentucky Fried Chicken, which are actually not that bad as a substitute if you bring your own hot sauce. Other staples like Campbell's soup, macaroni and cheese and root beer are absent from an expat's life in Japan. For some cosmic reason, living in another country seems to make people yearn for the traditional pickles of their homeland. Although the Japanese have a long tradition of pickling vegetables (including making kim-chee, delicious Korean spicy pickles), they're not just a replacement for good, crunchy Vlassics that I am used to from home. Likewise, J-List's Daisuke (the guy who keeps us stocked with Domo-kun toys) tells me that when he was living in Chicago he yearned for various pickled Japanese foods, including ume-boshi, Japan's tart pickled plums. We've got some ume related products on the site for you if you want to try some. J-List carries thousands of amazing and rare products from Japan, including a lot of cool traditional Japanese items that are hard to find outside of Japan. We've added a huge stock of our popular Japanese sandals, including "tatami" sandals (called zori in Japan) of various sizes, including our largest sandals for the guys. Come browse our great Japanese traditional footwear! 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.

	Multi Style. Another nice erotic manga, this book features very nice art by Ken Akamatsu that's really clean and pleasant to look at. It's a cosplay themed book.
	Asa Mizushima 1/8 PVC Figure -- Color of Sky Coler of Water ~ Solid Theater. Here's a nice prepainted figure featuring Asa Mizushima from Color of Sky, Color of Water, a bishoujo game and anime. Great imagery in this figure -- she seems to really come to life.
	Kiki's Delivery Service Mini Stamp Set -- Set of 4 ~ Pink. I've been a fan of Kiki's Delivery Service ever since I saw it back in 1990 (before I spoke Japanese, wow). Japan seems to be in a "Ghibli rubber stamp boom" right now, so here's a cool stamp set for Kiki fans.
	2006 Calendar -- Yoshitaka Amano. It's calendar time at J-List, which is why there are about 200 calendars on the site. One of our favorites every year is the Yoshitaka Amano calendar. The creator of Vampire Hunter D, he's also created art for Batman and Sandman, which was breathtaking to see.
	2006 Calendar -- Space Battleship Yamato (Star Blazers). Another oldie but a goodie, this is the 2006 Yamato (Star Blazers) calendar, filled with original art by Leiji Matsumoto -- a real treat! Yamato is one of the most important influences on me as a child, and helped put me on the road to Japan.
	Glasses Fetish Fuzoku. Another Japanese glasses fetish product for you, this brings you a fuuzoku (soapland, e.g. a place where you go buy services from pretty women) who all wear glasses.
	2006 Calendar - Totoro Desktop Calendar (No Tube). Another popular calendar evey year, this is the 2006 Totoro Desktop Calendar, which is really cool because you get a great original calendar to display all year -- and when the year is done, you have a fantastic picture stand to show off your kids!

My trip to Tokyo. I had to go to Tokyo to get something stamped in my passport. It was raining, since a typhoono (not named Katrina) was coming to the Kanto area for a visit. This is Akihabara, Japan's electronics mecca.

As a Mac user, I'm mildly insulted that Laoxx's old Mac-kan (Mac only store) has given way to a NTT DoCoMo store selling cell phones (and this is a 7 storey building selling nothing but phone stuff, wow.) Now the only place to buy Macs and get a good selection is Sofmap's store, located farther from the station (and thus, having lower status).

However, they had a big poster of the beautiful Chiaki Kuriyama, aka GoGo Yubari, so it was okay.

I'm sure an Apple store is coming to Akiba soon, but in the meantime, there's a Bose store that seems to be cut from the same cloth.