My venture into Kawaii

My latest craft addiction, "felt plushies" has driven me to the brink of insanity. There's been talk amongst my fellow felt plushy crafters of a book entitled "Mascot Album Book or in Japanese, it's called "想い出マスコットアルバム by あゆみ, 宇山"

Last weekend, I drove into San Francisco to the Kinokinuya Bookstore in Japantown looking for this specific book. The ideal felt plushie book has lots of photos, patterns and easy-to-follow graphics. The graphics must be easy-to-follow BECAUSE the books are printed ENTIRELY in Japanese.

So there I was, a middle-aged Anglo woman in the craft section thumbing through all the books in the middle of a Japanese bookstore. Like a young child, I could not read one word but oh how I marveled over all the wonderful pictures!

Imagine my amusement when another customer told me that I was reading books backwards! I just giggled.

Unfortunately, they didn't have the particular book I was looking for. It was rumored amongst the group, that this elusive book is stocked at Amazon's Japanese website. This week I set off to to that site. That was an experience. The entire website is in Japanese (as it should be). What to do? I wanted that darn book!!!

Just then a brilliant idea popped into my head (occasionally these happen!). I copied the text on Amazon's Japanese webisite and pasted it into Google's Translation page.

Suffice to say, I should be receiving my new book soon!......I hope it's what I wanted. Keep your fingers crossed!