Here’s a random roundup of odds and ends.

A mattress packed up and shipped over from Japan

It’s an Italian mattress called Magniflex, which I bought in Japan and had flown over to Korea. I bought it on Amazon Japan for 52,000 yen, carried it to the post office and sent it to Korea by EMS for 10,600 yen (sea mail and airmail weren’t options because of the size..), paid 74,540 won in customs duty, and paid the post office 4,000 won in customs clearance fees. It took about two weeks (there may have been a holiday in the middle that made it take longer..) and cost a little under 700,000 won all in.. Is it worth going to all this trouble? Well, for most people, probably not.. But.. hauling a bed around every time I move is a hassle, I had a feeling my life might become as minimal as in Perfect Days, and among tri-fold mattresses its performance isn’t bad either.. I had my own reasons for choosing it.. and my mindset is that this is the last mattress of my life. Honestly the finish isn’t entirely to my liking, but I’ll just have to hide it well with a cover..

Wireless earbuds from Britz

These are bone conduction earbuds that don’t plug your ears, so I bought them to use in summer, but there were all sorts of problems. They don’t block your ears, but they sit so close to them that wearing them together with earplugs is awkward, and oddly, if music is playing from one device and you hit play on another, the priority switches over instantly, plus the battery is short, so they were a pain to use. And there’s no setting to fix any of those annoyances. After trying these I finally realized that no wireless product has the features I want, and I switched to wired.. which I think was the right answer.

A McKenzie lumbar cushion

If you know McKenzie, you know.. he’s the man famous for extension exercises. I figured a cushion with the McKenzie name on it had to be great, so I bought one.. but it turned out to be made entirely for American body types.. Oh no! Money down the drain..

Lee Arip’s songbook, Ieung Pumeun Mieum (A Mieum Holding an Ieung)

She’s a musician I’ve liked for a long time, but it’s been ages since I made it to a show, and I listen to her albums on Spotify now.. so I’d love to see more keepsake media like books come out more often.. The recordings released with this book aren’t on Spotify though, so I wonder if there’s any way around that.. YouTube is the only place to hear them..

Amahagan highball

It’s a highball made with Amahagan whisky from the Nagahama Distillery, but I found it a bit ordinary.

Mestemacher Vollkornbrot

It’s rye bread, and eating it changed my life. It’s pure rye bread that doesn’t cause blood sugar spikes, so it’s the kind of bread that helps you lose weight and get healthier. It’s about 700 yen a loaf, and one loaf lasts several days, so it’s a good rice substitute and easy on the wallet. The only problem is that it doesn’t taste all that great? But you get used to that. My life before and after discovering this bread is quite different.

Peanut butter

I just grabbed this on Amazon without much thought, but it’s 100% peanuts and tasty. I liked that there’s no sugar in it.

Ebios

This is a popular supplement in Japan; it’s popular because it supposedly does all sorts of things: digestion + multivitamins + hair loss prevention and so on. Taking ten tablets at a time is a bit of a chore, but the value for money is good. Buying each of those separately would cost two or three times as much, and this claims to do it all in one go.. That said, I never had hair loss to begin with, so I can’t tell whether it’s actually preventing it or not.

Menma that goes well with beer

I got taken in by the advertising on this one.. It wasn’t all that tasty..

Jagariko tuna mayo flavor

The tuna mayo flavor is surprisingly strong. I think something like this would make a good snack with drinks too.

JAYFAI Shin Ramyun

A ramyun that hasn’t even been released in Korea is coming out in Japan first.. It’s so global it’s hard to keep up.. I tried the cup version, and hmm.. the lemongrass flavor is strong so it does taste like tom yum goong, but the ingredients feel really skimpy. You’d have to pile in shrimp and other ingredients to get a proper tom yum goong flavor, and for that I think the packet version would work better than the cup.

Ramen from all over Japan, sold at the post office

I took this at the post office; it’s fun that they do this sort of thing. Distribution in Japan is so good these days that it seems you can enjoy a decent noodle life no matter where you live.

Gyusuji nikomi (beef tendon stew)

I’d heard it was famous for some reason, so I bought it at Lawson, but it was just ordinary.

Beef tongue and smoked cheese

It looked interesting at the convenience store, so I bought it. It’s diced beef tongue and cheese, and maybe because it’s surprisingly well seasoned, it made a good snack with drinks. This one passes!

QBB’s Baby Cheese series, aburi mentaiko and yuzu kosho

Both were just so-so.

Aji namero (minced horse mackerel)

It was decent enough.

Calbee’s Zeppin Kappa Ebisen, Naruto salt and scallop flavor

I’d bought these before and they were good, so when I saw them again I picked up another bag. Not every supermarket carries them, so they aren’t that easy to find..

Melon

I didn’t get to eat this one myself, but apparently it was ordered online because it was being sold incredibly cheap for its size. Melons are getting expensive these days, especially the branded ones, so I hope chances to eat them cheaply come around more often.

Master’s Dream in a can

I’d seen it in bottles, but now it comes in cans too, and the taste was just so-so..

Semi-dried persimmons

A friend sent these and I enjoyed them thoroughly. Friends are a wonderful thing.

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