Souvenirs and Christmas Gifts

So now that the amazing Packer Super Bowl victory is out of the way, I'll have some more time to blog. This post is about all of the souvenirs that I brought back from the trip to Vietnam. Knowing that goods from Vietnam would be relatively cheap, I did nearly all of my Christmas shopping there.

First, a few gifts for me. This is a three-stringed musical instrument that sounds a lot like a banjo and has snake skin on the body. I have done a little research to try to figure out what it is called and what frequencies to tune it to, but so far have had no luck. It's still pretty awesome:

I picked this up in the same music shop, it's a bamboo xylophone:

These are a few lanterns I picked up for myself:

For my dad I got every episode of Seinfeld in a DVD box set. I wasn't sure of how good the quality would be for a few reasons. First, the box claims the complete season 1-10 although there were only 9 seasons. Also, who thinks Seinfeld is "A good-hearted tween comedy"? Apparently the people who made this box:

It did end up being good quality, so it made a nice gift. I also picked up Mad Men seasons 1-4 for my mother among other things. Here is a nice action shot of her opening a lantern:

And the lantern in expanded mode:

For my sister Amber I got a few things including a lantern. Here is a picture of her opening a nice vace with crushed egg shells on the outside and a nice lacquer finish:

By far, though, my favorite gift that I got for anybody was this finely embroidered silk Japanese samurai kimono for my brother-in-law Dave. The second I saw it I knew it was perfect for him, and he said that he will use it as a lounging jacket when he has friends over. That made me feel good.

Well that's most of the Christmas gifts I gave, next I'm going to write a few posts of the time that I spent with my family in Korea.

My Japanese Stuff

This is finally the last post about the recent trip to Japan with my family. I ended up spending the majority of my money that I brought on a bunch of Japanese junk that I kept for myself instead of giving away as presents or whatever. I'm going to run through the pictures that I have, but prices are not included because they are ridiculous.

On of the first days we visited the Matsuya Ginza department store and they had a shop with a whole bunch of prints and pictures. This is a print I picked up for pretty cheap:

A sweatshirt I picked up in Harajuku which is quickly becoming one of my favorites ever. BTW, the Japanese characters mean pretty rabbit:

I bought this small Buddha picture on New Year's day at the temple:

While at the Edo-Tokyo Museum, I picked up these postcards which are copies of famous Ukiyo-e prints. The ones with Mt. Fuji and the one with the tidal wave are from Hokusai in his 36 views of Mt. Fuji series:

I picked up a set of blow up paper spheres which are really cool but don't serve a lot of purpose. This one is of an octopus:

I bought a pair of sumo slippers on my last day. I saw a picture that said they are supposed to be worn at a small size so your foot hangs over the back, but these are really small. Someone may end up with them for a souvenier.

Another last day purchase of a strange ladder toy. This cylindrical block with a groove in the opposite sides is placed on the top rung and falls down each step. It's really cool.

By far my most important purchase in Japan, I picked up a stock of coffee flavored KitKats. These things are amazing. Nestle NEEDS to start making these everywhere. I picked up a bunch but I ate them pretty fast.

Well, this is definitely my last post about Japan. I did manage to milk about 11 blog posts out of it which came in hand due to the fact that I'm running out of new things to talk about. I do have a few more posts I plan to put up soon, so you know, check back soon.

Quite a Score!

I'm not exactly sure what it was. The fact that I have a paying job again. The fact that I was in a foreign land where everything was so cheap. Maybe it was that I live in a place where I can't find any shirts that fit me. Regardless, my trip to Thailand felt like a giant shopping spree. I thought I would just get to telling all about the souvenirs I'm bringing home.

These movies I got at the "mall" of Bangkok called MBK. It has about 5 floors of shops, movie theaters, singing rooms, and a giant food court. They really had everything there. At only 100 baht (3 USD) these movies were a good price.

These polos were also from MBK and very cheap. I believe I payed 480 baht for both of them.

A nice painting I bought from a street artist near Khaosan road. I think I paid 800 baht.

T shirts from MBK. 100 baht apiece!

Some elephants from the street and some wine holders from MBK. Don't want to mention the prices b/c some of these may be gifts.

The two colored shirts were bought off a street vendor and the t-shirt at MBK. Again won't mention prices.

Some shades and a watch from street vendor. Sunglasses together went for 300 baht and watch for 200 baht. I really love the watch because it has both an analog and digital timepiece on it.

Last, my favorite shirt. I overpaid a little to get this one from a street vendor (220 baht). He claimed that it's real high quality fabric and will never shrink. We'll see.

Current conversion rate: 34 baht = 1 USD