Postcards From Japan

February 18th, 2024

So far we have received 37 postcards from our recent Japan trip, all of which I sent myself. Here they all are:

The panda one was purchased at Ueno zoo the day we went and saw the pandas. The Godzilla one is metallic and plastic. I have a few more like this waiting to be sent one day 🙂

The top right one is a lenticular postcard of an underwater scene. It’s the only lenticular we’ve received so far, and arrived about 6 weeks after it was sent. There’s at least one other lenticular card I sent us that hasn’t yet arrived, but it’s been about two months now and I’ve somewhat given up hope.

The left one was purchased in the gift shop of Hiroshima castle (which it depicts). The horse one was purchased less than two hours after we had arrived in Japan, and may be my favourite card of the trip (even though it has nothing to do with Japan). It effectively shows how I usually feel at the end of every day on a vacation!

The postcard showing ‘Alice’ is a mystery: I found it amongst some unsent postcards a few months ago and had no recollection or ever buying (or even seeing) it before. Naturally I took it with me so it could fulfill its destiny to be mailed! The Diavolo postcard depicts an Ultraman villian, and is an impressively metallic and textured card.

The cat one was mailed on Christmas Day!

The card at left was found amongst some old items when I was doing some spring cleaning a year or so ago. It’s about 30 years old and (I think) came in a magazine. I wonder if any Japanese postal employees looked and it and wondered where it came from?

The Buddha card was purchased in Kamakura in 2013 (when we visited with Bernard), and had been ‘gathering power’ – unsent – in my collection for over a decade. Now that power has been released into the world!

The Hermione (from Harry Potter) card is a beautiful high-quality all-plastic postcard and I doubted it would actually arrive. I may have purchased a few others at the same time…

I sent 12 New Years cards in different designs. Did you get the same one I sent myself? The Rilakkuma card was purchased at the Miyajima Island Rilakkuma shop which was insanely well-stocked considering how remotely it was located. I bought two in this series and sent the other to someone I knew would appreciate it 🙂

Nothing says Japan like a photo of a quokka! I bought three copies of that cute card but forget who I sent the others to. The card in top left was part of a set purchased at the cinema when we saw the Kamen Rider film, but the set was for another movie (that we didn’t see).

Four of the cards show here – including the middle one above – I had made myself and taken with me ‘just in case’. I do this every trip, but I’m a fool for every supposing I wouldn’t be swimming with options when it came to buying cards in Japan!

And lastly this gotochi (shaped) card of a Buddha. It’s fairly large, and Japan Post is emphatic that these cannot be sent through the mail internationally. And yet I put a stamp on it and tossed it in the postbox with a wish… and it arrived safe and sound. I also bought an oyster gotochi (in Hiroshima, which is famous for oyster), and sent it to AW’s sister who lives in Japan.

“What do you write on all these cards?” is a question I’ve been asked more than once. As an example, here’s one I wrote the evening of the Earthquake (we were in Osaka):

Most of the cards have silly anecdotes or in-jokes on them that we have invariably forgotten about by the time we receive and read them. They’re mini-diaries, and I’ve got decades worth of them now. They’re my most prized possessions!

In case you were interested, here’s (most of) the different stamps on the above cards:

I’ve become an expert at buying stamps in Japan, and always do my best to make sure I get a good variety for the cards. Take another look at the stamps on your cards!

37 (or more?) postcards in 16 days is a lot, but I never plan on sending myself so many. Truth is I always buy too many stamps, and then end up sending a lot of ‘extra’ cards in the last few days. Of course this post is just the ones I sent myself, and dozens more were sent to other people. I hope you enjoyed the ones you received 🙂

Posted in Blog, Japan, Memories, Postcards, Trip | 1 Comment »

Dragons!

February 10th, 2024

Today is Lunar New Year, and 2024 is the Year of the Dragon. This is traditionally an auspicious year, and those born under the sign of the dragon are said to be as charismatic and influential as the very dragons themselves!

As a fan of fantasy, obviously I’m a fan of dragons as well, and I like both western and eastern wyrms – as well as the fantasy archetype that is mostly an invention of the last half century. Today I thought I’d showcase some esteemed dragons from myth and fiction to honor these great beasts. How many of these do you know?

Shenlong is a dragon god from Chinese myth that has been described in stories and depicted in art for almost 1000 years. His domain is the sky, his gift is rain and his wrath is thunder and lightning. In ancient days people in many Asian nations would try to avoid angering him since his gifts were essential to agriculture, and an angry storm dragon god could wreak havoc on crops!

As one of the divine Chinese dragons of myth Shenlong had five claws instead of four, and as with almost all eastern dragons could fly, speak and change his shape to a human at will.

Ryujin (which literally translates to dragon god) is the Japanese deity of the ocean and all the creatures therein. An important Shinto deity, there are shrines across Japan to him to this day, especially in coastal areas.

Ryujin has a rich mythology and is said to be a direct ascendant of the Japanese imperial family. He has many fabulous powers, and as with many Japanese deities utilizes wondrous magical items such as a jewel he can use to control tides. He is believed to live at the bottom of a large lake near Kyoto.

Incidentally while Chinese and Japanese dragons resemble each other, you can tell them apart by their horns (Chinese look like deer, Japanese are straighter) and their claws (Chinese have four or five, Japanese have three).

The Beowulf Dragon is not the best-known character in the 1000+ year-old Germanic poem, but in some ways it became the most influential. After Beowulf defeated Grendel and Grendel’s mother, he settled into kingly life for decades until a dragon emerged and threatened his kingdom. Taking up his sword once again, he slew the dragon but was fatally wounded in the struggle.

Germanic dragons are the origin of what most of us think of when we hear the word ‘dragon’ today, and there are notable ones older than the one in this poem (such as Fafnir). But the un-named beast slain by Beowulf was the first example of the western dragon template that continues to this day: a large scaly winged reptile that breathes fire and covets gold and jewels. One author liked Beowulf’s dragon so much, he more or less used it himself when he wrote a book called…

The Hobbit was published 87 years ago and for many readers in the decades that followed Smaug was likely their first exposure to a dragon. He is the archetype of the modern dragon: the Beowulf beast turned into a true character with the intellect, vanity, power and fire-breathing his kind would eventually become known for.

Just as Tolkien was influenced to create Smaug, his creation would influence the fictional dragons of those that grew up reading The Hobbit. Not the least was Gary Gygax, who appropriated the Tolkienesque dragon as the model for the many dragons inhabiting the world of Dungeons and Dragons, the styles of which have essentially become the modern ‘dragon’.

Of course there are some other famous dragons I didn’t detail today – no doubt many of you wonder about the beast slain by St George – but I think this presents a brief snapshot of both eastern and western dragons and their origins.

You probably got a 2024 Japanese postcard from me with a dragon sticker on it: did you notice you could peel the dragon off the sticker to re-use, and there’s a second dragon underneath? Why not wish someone else a Happy New Year by sending them a little dragon sticker 🙂

May 2024 grant you the wisdom, health and fortune of the dragons!

Posted in Blog, Miscellaneous | Comments Closed

McDonald’s Memories

January 28th, 2024

That’s the first Australian McDonald’s, which opened in Sydney the year before I was born. From what I can determine, the first McDonald’s in Newcastle opened when I was 7, and since it wasn’t far from where my Nan lived it was a frequent treat after we’d visit her house.

Since then I’ve eaten at Maccas hundreds of times, and over those 40+ years many memories have been made. Here’s a selection:

  • As a child the McDonald’s calendar was an essential purchase! Not only did we hang it on our walls, we also coloured it in and – most importantly – we used the coupons every month to get free food!
  • Happy Meals were my default order as a child, and the toys (in my memory) were much higher quality than today. I fondly remember some Star Wars stencils that could be used to draw characters, that I wish I’d kept to this day.
  • Ice creams in those days were self-serve!

  • Graduating to Big Macs was one moment in my life when I felt like an adult. I don’t remember who it was, but I was at Maccas with a friend once and he got a Big Mac and I ordered a ‘Junior Burger’ and he asked me why I didn’t eat Big Macs! This prompted me to try one and I never looked back 🙂
  • Back when we had our paper run one time the newspaper came with Maccas coupons for free fries. We ended up with loads of them and I recall I had a lot of fries during the weeks that followed!
  • During the 1984 Olympics I remember my group of friends used to go to Charlestown Maccas after school and watch the athletic events. A girl in my year was working there at the time and she used to surreptitiously give us free food.

  • I used to love the cookies! Australia didn’t have a strong traditional of ‘animal crackers’ so we didn’t know that Maccas cookies were basically the same. Even well into my teens I used to get a box of these with my order and eat them on the bus home.
  • I also used to enjoy their strawberry milkshakes, although I haven’t had one since I left Australia.
  • In my last year of High School we organized a treasure hunt and one item on the list was ‘one point for every McDonald’s cheeseburger you bring us’ and we had loads delivered (as well as a phone call of complaint from a McDonald’s!). This was when microwaves were uncommon so we (me and the judges) ate a bunch for dinner and – to my shame – had to throw the rest away.

  • The frozen cokes I’ve ordered at Australian McDonald’s. During my summer trips it wasn’t unusual for me to have two or three a day, but these past years – since I’ve traveled in winter – it’s usually been just one. It’s the best item on their menu 🙂
  • When I first returned to Oz in 2000 I wrote a series of postcards on alternate days in the George street Maccas. Entitled ‘The McDonalds Series’, these are some of the oldest and most nostalgic postcards in my collection.

  • During our trip to Germany we visited many McDonald’s, often not eating at all. The reason: I was hunting McDonald’s glasses with ‘coca cola’ written in various different languages!
  • At a Maccas in Paris – on the Champs-Elysees to be specific – I ate breakfast very early and was the only diner in the restaurant. A man came and sat down right next to me and bowed his head until it hit the table. I quickly finished and left, and later that day my hotel concierge told me he was probably a homeless man looking to scavenge any food I may have left on the tray.

  • I could do a blog post on Japanese Maccas memories alone, but two that stick out were the Superfries (read about them here) and not once but twice being seated at a very busy Maccas and finding myself sharing a table with a young ‘office lady’ working on her laptop!
  • The memory I’m most proud of would be my 2022 achievement of seven identical orders in seven days at seven different Maccas (read about it here). Will I ever surpass this? No man yet knows…

So many years of McDonald’s! The irony is I almost never eat it in the USA since it’s usually awful here, but you can bet that any foreign trip I ever go on will include at least one stop at a Maccas. Let’s hope there’s many more memories to be made 🙂

Posted in Food, Memories, Miscellaneous, Time | 1 Comment »

Chocolate Stickers

January 21st, 2024

Back in 1977 a Japanese candy company called Lotte begun releasing wafer snacks with packed-in stickers (called Bikkuriman). They were immediately popular, but in 1985 with the release of a series of comedic stickers depicting a war between angels and devils (Akuma vs Tenshi) the wafers became a phenomenon.

The above is an artbook I bought in Japan (with a fancy holo cover to make it look like a sticker) and some example art of the first series released in 1985. These stickers are very collectible these days, and I’ve seen very rare ones in stores for thousands of dollars!

I’ve read that the official series of angels vs devils stickers ended some years ago, but Lotte wafers with stickers are still available and I’ve been buying them since we first went to Japan over 20 years ago. The above is a photo of one purchased on the recent trip, showing how the sticker is just packed right next to the wafer. These cost about $1 each, which is pretty good for a tasty wafer and a metallic sticker!

The above shows some recent stickers in the original series depicting ‘angels’ and ‘devils’. The art is stylized, comedic and colourful, and the metallic or holographic effects on the stickers immediately draws the eye. I know had I lived in Japan as a youth I would absolutely have been collecting these!

The most famous sticker was the super rare one in the 1985 series called ‘Super Zeus’, and the above is a version of him from a commemorative series of ‘ink style’ art from a few years ago.

In 2013 as the popularity of the original story began to fade, Lotte began releasing licensed stickers, and that continues to this day. The above is a Star Wars one from the sealed box I purchased back in June. You can read about it here. I would love to get the stickers from the second Star Wars series (the prequels), but alas have never seen a single one for sale.

The decades-long popularity of these stickers led to many competitors, and collectively they’re known as ‘chocolate seals’ in Japan. They’re always small, square, and usually have bright colours and a metallic or holographic effect. The biggest producer these days seems to be Bandai, and you can see examples of unopened packs and various licensed stickers above.

I used to just stick the stickers, and they’ve graced many postcards over the years (check old ones I’ve sent you and you’ll probably find one). But ‘choco seals’ are serious collectibles in Japan, and there’s a mini-industry around them including guide books, sleeves, albums to store them in and even protective lucite cases like this magnetic one I bought on the recent trip:

I’ll never ‘collect’ these, but I love the Star Wars ones and ever since getting them my eyes have opened a little wider towards these stickers. And then in the last couple of years this happened:

Bandai started releasing Ultraman ones! The above is a box of series two, and I hope to complete the set since I’ve already opened many packs even before buying the full box.

Sadly I missed out on series one (it released early in the pandemic) and although series three is apparently out I never saw any for sale these past few trips (which is doubly mysterious since shops were still selling series two).

The stickers are wonderful! Not only colorful and metallic, some are also etched and have reflective holographic effects (like stars) on them. I’ve got many doubles as well: if you want one on a postcard leave a comment.

The oldest ‘choco seal’ I own is coincidentally also from Ultraman, was acquired during one of our Japan trips almost 20 years ago, and depicts a kaiju from Ultraman Dyna. How it survived all these years without ever being stuck I’ll never know, but now it will live in my (not a) collection forever 🙂

Posted in Art, Collecting, Otaku | 1 Comment »

Japan Pickups: Gamebooks

January 16th, 2024

As always I was on the hunt for books for my gamebook collection during the recent trip, and I’ve become better at finding them in the various collectors and used book shops I visit. I bought some interesting items this trip!

The above are the standard gamebook finds. Only one original Fighting Fantasy book is fewer than the last few times I was in Japan, but my collection of Japanese versions is becoming quite complete now and it’s not easy finding ones I don’t already have!

The middle book is the Japanese imprint of volume one of Cretan Chronicles and the rightmost is the Japanese version of the Maelstrom RPG written by a gamebook author and released to the same market in the 1980s.

To my great surprise – and happiness – I also found a brand new copy of the first box set of FF reprints from 2020. As I understand this was only available via a Japanese crowdfunding campaign and I assumed I’d never get a set. Now I have one! I already owned the second and third box sets, and the fourth is out in a few months. I’ll look for that one on future trips 🙂

Amazingly, after my great surprise finding a single issue back in June, I found thirty-one issues of Japanese Warlock magazine. This was not an impulse buy – both weight and cost were considerable – and I deliberated for a few days. Lunacy won out though, and they’re now in my house!

I now have about half of the 63-issue run of this magazine. This is a collection that merits more attention, and I’ll probably feature it in a future blog post one day.

The above were a surprise since I didn’t even know they existed. They’re AD&D modules based on FF books! Eight were printed in english (and they’re quite expensive now!) but the numbering on these Japanese ones (the above are 1, 6 and 7) don’t match the english versions and it’s hard to find information about them online.

They’re impressively designed with lots of nice art, and they make me want to try and get one of the English versions….

The last – and by far weirdest – item I found was this gamebook based on the 1980s horror film House. As you can see it was called Goblin in Japan, probably because there was a famous Japanese fantasy-horror film called House already.

This book is super strange. I though the Back To The Future gamebook I bought on a previous trip was weird but of all the films to based a book on why on earth was this one chosen?

It seems like a fully featured book with hundreds of entries, but it’s also very puzzle heavy, possibly in lieu of a normal combat system. Art is stills from the film. I’ve seen the film somewhat recently so I may have to get the translator and give this one a play through just to try and understand what the story could be?

Incidentally the publisher is the same that released the video game licensed gamebooks in Japan, including the two Wizardry ones I showed in the last post. And yet this is from a different series. As you can see it’s number 4 in the series. What were the others? Unfortunately finding info online about these is almost impossible, so for now I can only wonder.

Posted in Books, Collecting, Gamebooks, Otaku, Retro | Comments Closed

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