100 Yen Fun

With about 6 months left on this lovely island, I thought that I really needed to highlight some of the things that make this place so great. One of those things is the 100 Yen store. The 100 Yen store is basically a dollar store. Now, I know what you're thinking: What? The dollar store is not that great. But, oh wait, my friend. The 100 Yen store is not like your typical Dollar General. Oh, no...it's so much better. First of all, most 100 Yen stores carry A LOT OF STUFF. Pretty much everything you need minus the kitchen sink. Seriously - they have it all. And everyone goes there - you'll find both Japanese locals and American military families shopping side-by-side at the 100 Yen store. It really is a great place and there's a pretty sweet one two blocks away from our place.

So, in honor of this shopping locale, I bring you "100 Yen Fun." Each week I'll highlight something that can be found at the 100 Yen store. It may be something useful, odd, and downright crazy, but you can be sure that whatever it is, you'll only pay around a buck for it.*

This week, I'm going with something cute. Japan is always making the ordinary adorable. Schoolchildren need to learn a lot of kanji characters and keeping stacks of flashcards are necessary for study purposes. Well, why bother carrying a boring stack of standard white, ruled index cards when you can be carrying these cuties in your pocket??

The smaller bear is actually a cell phone charm. I won't be putting him on my cell phone, but he's still cute. I think if I had had little word cards like this in high school, I might be somewhat fluent in French to this day.

*Okay, those of you familiar with 100 Yen store know that there are some things that are more than 100 Yen. However, you also know that the majority of items of 100 Yen and I've been in many "dollar" stores that also carry items that are more than a dollar.