The Japan Postcards

  • July 15, 2026

I sent myself a whopping 63 postcards from Japan! That’s an average of nearly 4 each day. If I was an independent observer, I’d suggest this was excessive, but as with the Australian cards it didn’t seem so while I was there. A ritual of my solo Japan trips has become relaxing postcard-writing in my hotel room while watching anime on the TV 🙂

Why so many? Well an explanation is hardly needed, but let’s just say I’ve leveled up in my postcarding! It’s also true that I bought many more than usual, and even brought with me a couple of dozen leftovers from last winter’s trip.

I was in Japan for 16 days, and for the first time completed a special ‘postcard project’. Once a day I sent myself a card from an art series involving two cats exploring Japan. I had 12 of these from past trips in my collection (here at home) and was confident I could find 4 more while I was there. As you can see above, I did!

I also successfully sent the above enormous lenticular card, which I photographed next to a normal sized postcard. I’d purchased this in Australia several years ago, but never sent it because I was confused about the Japanese rules for sending oversized cards. But I know how to send these now, and I was happy this arrived in perfect condition.

I didn’t count how many unique stamps I used on the cards I sent home, but it’s surely in the dozens. I bought mint retro stamps several times during the trip, and used many of them. You probably got some yourself. I wonder if you look at the stamps?

Last January I went to a postal museum in Arima, and saw some Japanese stamps featuring various pop culture properties. Six months later I used some of these myself on cards 🙂

The above is on a card sent home from Osaka, and which features the rubber stamp I made myself at a Sanrio store. What’s this card talking about? These:

I went all in on these gacha machine ID photos, which followed in the footsteps of ‘someone else’s dog’ from last winter. I think got about 10 times of these, and I stuck every one on a postcard. As it turns out these are members of Japanese (not that famous) idol bands that I believe are all signed to the same management company.

But that still doesn’t explain the dog!

Summer Soccer City

  • July 13, 2026

We went to NYC this past weekend, with Jessica and Dohoon. The goal was simply to eat and shop.

We split up on Saturday, since I had no interest in cafes in SoHo and wanted to visit my usual stores. This required lots of walking in extreme heat and humidity, which was the decision of a fool.

Meanwhile KLS got her right ear pierced twice! Since she got it pierced twice last weekend (in Rochester) as well, this means she now has seven piercings in that ear! They had lunch at an Australian cafe that had ‘Vegemite tasting’ on the menu (for $10).

I visited comic shops and Japanese shops and the RPG shop I blogged about previously. It was lightly raining on and off which raised the humidity without ever lasting long enough to lower the temperature. You can imagine how comfortable that was 🙂

I bought $48 worth of postcards at my favourite NYC postcard shop and to show his appreciation the ancient guy that works there gifted me a pewter collectible spoon. I plan on flipping it to my brother for a tidy profit.

The city was overcome with FIFA madness and soccer fans were everywhere. Almost every business had FIFA themed window displays or sales, and the street vendors had replaced the usual bootleg purses and watches with team jerseys.

There was some sort of FIFA celebration near Rockefeller Center which drew enormous crowds and made it a challenge to visit the Cathedral for mum’s candle. Later in the day after England won a game a street near our hotel was blocked with a loud crowd of English supporters and police descended on the scene to clear the street!

Times Square after dark is as bright as day now due to all the billboards. It was bonkers busy, no doubt due to extra tourists due to the World Cup. It was still very hot even at 9 pm and the $4 frozen cokes from Maccas were heavenly.

Due to a new job, Jessica and Dohoon are moving away soon so it was nice to be able to visit the city with them before they leave. I wish it hadn’t been so hot though!

This One’s For Adam (And Maybe Bernard)

  • July 12, 2026

We’re in NYC for two days, and I will blog about it in a day or two, but I had a fascinating experience today that I knew Adam would be interested in so this post is just about that.

There’s a store here called The Compleat Strategist that’s been selling RPG and board game products for many decades. I’ve shopped there many times over the two-plus decades I’ve been visiting the city but it was very obvious in recent years the store had seen better days.

So today when I walked in and found it revamped and rearranged and clean it was obvious a change had occurred.

The first thing I noticed was a big glass case containing lots of vintage Games Worshop Warhammer items. Books, games, models: all mint condition and most still shrink wrapped.

I don’t know much about this stuff but I do know how unusual it is to see so much brand new stock of products released over thirty years ago. It was a bit like visiting a museum, especially since it was all clearly labeled as ‘not for sale’.

And then I walked to the back and saw the three larger cases of TSR products! This is just one of them:

Dozens and dozens of Dungeons and Dragons books, as well as other games released by TSR over the years. I’ve got a good D&D collection myself, but not close to what I saw here. Take this for instance:

And many modules, some still sealed:

And obscure TSR games, like these:

Or this (still sealed) board game from 1982:

The manager saw me taking these photos and wandered over. He was younger than the guys I used to see here and I didn’t recognize him. I immediately asked “You bought this store didn’t you?” to which he laughed and confirmed.

We talked about this amazing collection of relics he now owned – some of which he wasn’t very knowledgeable about (I educated him) – and he was quite interested in my gamebook collection so I told him a bit about that.

And then he said out of the blue: “Want to see the basement?” Of course I instantly said yes, and he took me through two doors to a large metal staircase we descended down into a games room they use for events, then through another door into a large room filled with tall shelves stuffed with boxes of game materials collected by the previous owners over decades.

To say I was amazed is an understatement. The above photo shows boxes of Spellfire – the failed D&D card game from thirty years ago. Those boxes in the back? Sealed cases of the same game. He’s got dozens of boxes of each expansion, up to the 7th which almost no stores stocked since the game was already dead:

In the blurry background you can see boxes and boxes of other dead TCGs, including many I’d never heard of. These were stacked three or four shelves high up to ceilings well above my head!

As incredible as this was, we then turned to the D&D material, and he showed me this:

That’s a box of sealed copies of a D&D solo module from 1985. I’d estimate 30 or more, untouched for decades. And this was one of many boxes of sealed modules for TSR games, including D&D, Star Traveler, Top Secret, Gamma World, Indiana Jones, Marvel Super Heroes and probably more.

I took the above photo since I’d never seen a GURPS board game (which is still sealed and would sell for $300+ based on a quick internet search) but there was so much to see in this basement I barely noticed the stack of MSH modules behind and below the board game, or the pile of a couple of dozen Gamma World GM screens to the left.

I’ve read in the past about people stumbling on a cache of ‘new old stock’ in a warehouse somewhere, but it was quite an experience to see it. It’s all for sale too, although since TSR products are very collectible now it’s hardly cheap, and he’ll make a nice profit if he can sell it all. (I purchased a Blizzard Pass module, which I’ll keep sealed.)

There was some advertising material as well, including the above board for the 1976 (I think) edition of TSR’s Dungeon board game. This was heavy and may have been printed on or at least stuck to a wooden back! This is a true grail for a collector somewhere.

I regret not taking more photos, but I was simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of what I was seeing 🙂

He told me they’re slowly going through everything, including 25 long boxes of 1980s comics, many more sealed cases of RPG books and modules, and even “a box of novels signed by Gary Gygax” (!) and continuing to find treasures he didn’t know about when he bought the store. His goal is apparently to open a museum and if he ever does I’d certainly love to visit it!