Best Buys...So Far II

Wahey! I've finally got internet access in my room now, so this blog is coming to you live as opposed to typed up previously and uploaded via university computers! This is a quick follow-up to Best Buys I - just to cover a few cool items I purchased, as well as telling you how fantabulous my mobile phone is.

HOUSEHOLD GOODS

You will have previously seen cameos of my cool little glasses from the 100 yen shop. For no particular reason, they have AoB written on them, with a coloured circle and a character - like a piece of punctuation. I've got an exclamation mark with an orange circle, a plus sign in a red circle, Baptiste has one with a percentage sign in a blue circle, and there's also one with a yellow circle with an @ sign. They just look...kinda neat, s'all.

I also got a mug as part of the British Bistro Bear range, with the following enscription, which is also my mad phrase of the week:

Bistro bear is the best gentleman of a British tradition. He is cleverly refined, is very stylish and kind. Ladies enjoy conversation with him.

If this is what Japanese kitchenware manufacturers have been saying about 'gentleman of a British tradition', I'm going to disappoint many resident mug enthusiasts.

As for other goods, very little exciting; I still need to get a frying pan to expand my meal options a little more, and a household plant would complete my room (as would a couple of posters to brighten up the rather drab walls - household department store Loft currently has these great Halloween posters dotted around, but I don't think they're for sale - I might try and ask nicely after October).

MOBILE PHONE

Now I'm not exactly technologically-savvy or up-to-date on new mobile phones, but the features on my Sanyo A5514SA blew me away. And what's more - it was free! Of course, it's all part of a special student contract and as it was the only English-language mobile offered by AU (the service provider), so everyone has the same model - but who cares?

Features include:

• Camera - vary picture size and quality from the little pics I've already shown here to some pretty impressive quality big snaps, with all sorts of special digital camera effects you'd never expect a mobile could achieve. Plus up to 3 mins of video footage.
  
• GPS navigator and map system for when you are really lost.
• Radio channels - but not really any worth listening to.
• Internet access - perfect for quick headlines, weather, info searches. Also can download pics, music and episodes of Oh! Mikey.
  
• E-mail - without SMS texting, there's C-Mail (for phone-to-phone messages) and E-Mail for between phones and between computers.
• Infra-red - for uploading pics and videos to computers, exchanging address book info.
• Japanese - English / English - Japanese dictionary - by no means comprehensive, but useful for on-the-go translation.
• Photo-mixer - make bizarre little movie shorts with photos you've taken.
• Optical Recognition - this is amazing - you can use the camera to recognise kanji written on signs, packets, etc., and it will translate it for you! Plus it can recognise addresses, emails, notes, and such as well. Not perfect, but fun.
• Plus...calculator, alarm, remote control, calendar, journal, memo pad, pocket money log, and more!

It feels like such a special treat! A shiny new phone! And if this is what they offer to dumb foreigners like me, what do the top-of-the-range ones offer? It seems the most popular model at the mo is Docomo's Foma SH903i and other similar models, which seem to be a stylistic step backwards, looking chunky, blocky, thick and heavy. But I bet they're stocked to the gills with 3D holograms, virtual future predictive capabilities and every book ever written. Oh, and a little hole to put your 'strappers' (or 'danglies').