Yongfook is a web producer and usability consultant based in Tokyo

Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty I’m free at last.

I have spent most of today flying round the aisles of 100-yen shops, Omiyage stores and other establishments hoarding a load of Christmas stuff together so I have something to give to my extended family at this New Year dinner thing they have planned. So this is what is has amounted to - a 6kg box of utter BOLLOCKS. Samurai hats, plates, wooden spinny things, a frisbee that actually says in Japanese on the front “It rotates as it flies!” as if that isn’t blatantly obvious already - a bit like a sign on an optrician’s saying “glasses - if you put them on they help you see!”, some kind of spiky ball massager things (as in, balls that massage, not something that massages- oh god I’ve said too much), loads of badges with dumb Japanese Engrish on them, and the list goes on.

To counteract the shiteness of all of this junk, there is also some pretty decent omiyage, from both Kumamoto and Fukuoka, including proper green tea, STORK EGGS (candy), and about one thousand different kinds of manju that are in some way made from red bean paste or derivative, just like 99.99999999% of all Japanese omiyage.

Anyway I really should get to bed since I must wake up at about 4:30am tomorrow as I have to drive to Fukuoka in time for a morning flight, which means I really need to be in bed by oh I guess about 2 HOURS AGO.

So yeah, Merry Christmas to you all and have a Happy New Year. Cheers for reading the site and stuff - I’ll be back in the new year.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 19th, 2003 at 6:50 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.