a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
(Sunshine City is a building complex located in East Ikebukuro, Toshima, Tokyo, Japan.)
I set out to Ikebukuro station on Wednesday morning to look for a bookstore called K-books.
There were several unforeseen obstacles in my mission: a persistent rain; it turned out there were about a dozen K-books stores in the area, each tucked into a hole-in-the-all space; and when I finally found the right one, a sign outside said it was closed until Friday for renovations. Oh no!
I checked out of my hotel in Asakusa on Monday morning.
There was a drizzle outside, and a taxi ride was in order for the transfer to my hotel in Shinjuku.
Shinjuku City is one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, and functions as a major commercial, administrative, and entertainment hub.
Look for Godzilla at the left, on top of the IMAX theater in the last picture (the view from my hotel room on the 22nd floor). Shinjuku train station is towards the right side of the picture. Its inside is going to test my indoor navigation skills again!
Sunday was the last day of the JAPEX 2026 stamp exhibition.
I made a few more purchases, and mailed postcards with new stamps issued specially for the exhibition, and with a dedicated cancellation mark, to myself in Seattle.
They were marked ‘AIRMAIL’ (of course), and will be at my house long before I return there. (The post office is holding my mail until I get back).
*The way the Japanese pronounce it. Japanese doesn’t have separate L and R sounds. It has one sound, the ら row (ra, ri, ru, re, ro), which is a quick tap of the tongue against the ridge behind the upper teeth. It’s a bit like the “dd” in “ladder” as pronounced in American English. To English ears it can sound like an R, an L, or a D depending on the word and speaker. The loanword version for ‘Halloween’ is ハロウィン (Harowin).
-explanation by Claude AI
I paid my dues at the JAPEX 2026 stamp exhibition on Saturday, and left after two hours. (The amount of money I spend buying stamps is directly proportional to the time I spend there).
From there I went to an obscure stamp shop on the 4th floor of a nondescript building here in Asakusa called Yuzudo stamp.
The store manager helped me find some Japanese stamps that I had been looking for, for a long time— an 1871 dragon stamp, a few 1872 cherry blossom stamps, and an 1876 old koban stamp.
It was just a few hundred dollars; the weak yen helps a lot, and I would pay 1.5x or 2x that if I had to buy them online. (Or that is what I told myself.) Anyway, I came away very happy with my purchases.
Then it was back to the hotel to chase away the jet lag with a little Starbucks pour-over origami coffee.
Early evening I ran out to the Yodobashi Camera department store in Akihabara to take advantage of the very last day that foreigners can get the 10% local consumption tax right in the store. Starting tomorrow on Nov. 1, the 10% tax has to be paid and an onerous process of claiming it back at one’s departure airport out of Japan kicks in. Aw.
Those watches caught my eye (based on the famous One Piece, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda). The crocodilian dinosaur is a Kaprosuchus. It lived 100 million years ago and galloped on land to catch small dinosaurs with its ferocious teeth.
The De Lorean from the Back To The Future movies is a special edition, highly detailed little model offered by toymaker Takara Tomy.
My hotel is in Asakusa.
Asakusa is the center of Tokyo‘s shitamachi (literally “low city”), and a district where an atmosphere of the Tokyo of long, long ago survives. Asakusa’s main attraction is Sensoji, a very popular Buddhist temple, built in the 7th century.
I took the sunset picture from across the Sumida river, looking towards Asakusa. Sunset is at 4.48 pm Japan Standard Time.
The communications tower is Tokyo Sky Tree (it opened in 2012), a broadcasting and observation tower, located in the neighboring Sumida district, across the Sumida river from Asakusa.
It’s Saturday-Caturday, and here’s a sticker stamp from Japan with a contoured outline.
These out-of-the-world stamps arrived today in the mail from Japan.
The four miniature sheets issued from 2018-2021 fit together left-to-right, but I broke it into two images to show more detail.
There is a stamp with a refreshing view of Earth in the bottom right below, showing all of Asia and Japan (instead of Europe or the Americas).
Japan – Astronomical World Series No 2 Miniature Sheet
Issued Feb. 6, 2019
Die Cut Perf. 13×13¼, Die Cut Perf. Round Stamps | Self-adhesive | Design: Satoshi Maruyama (丸山 智) | Offset lithography printed on special transparent hologram foil | No watermark | Print Run: 3,000,000 sets printed
Sakura Cat. No. C2397 a. 82y Starburst open cluster, red at right (32mm diam.), b. 82y Pleiades star cluster (32mm diam.), c. 82y Mars (denom. at LR, 22x26mm), d. 82y Ceres (dwarf planet) (denom. at UL, 22×26 mm), e. 82y Sirius (the brightest star in Earth’s night sky, 8.6 light-years away in the constellation Canis Major) (denom. at LL, 22×26 mm), f. 82y Moon (denom. at UL, 22x26mm), g. 82y Io (Jupiter’s innermost Galilean moon) (denom. at UL, 22x26mm), h. 82y Europa (Galilean moon) and Jupiter (denom. at LL, 22x26mm), i. 82y Earth (43mm diam.), j. 82y Great Red Spot of Jupiter (32mm diameter).
While Series No 1 focused heavily on deep-space nebulae and broad celestial charts, Series No 2 narrows its design lens onto specific solar system entities paired with classical astronomy elements.
Japan – Astronomical World Series No 4 Miniature Sheet
Issued Feb. 3, 2021
Die Cut Perf. 13×13¼, Die Cut Perf. Round Stamps | Self-adhesive | Design: Satoshi Maruyama (丸山 智) | Offset lithography combined with a special hologram finish | No watermark | Each stamp has a denomination of 84 Japanese yen | Print Run: 3,000,000 sets printed
Sakura Cat. Numbers C2492 a. Neutron star (artist’s impression) (25.5×21.5mm), b. Black hole (artist’s impression) (21.5×25.5mm), c. ‘Oumuamua asteroid (artist’s impression) (25.5×21.5mm), d. Saturn (partial view) and Mimas (32.0×44.0mm), e. Arrokoth asteroid (21.5×25.5mm), f. Rhea (21.5×32.0mm), g. Pluto (32mm diam.), h. Uranus (partial view) and Miranda (32mm diam.), i. Neptune (partial view) (32.0×21.5mm), j. Triton (32.0×21.5mm)
Background: Imagery of space, Barnard’s Loop (partial view), Titania (partial view), Charon (partial view).
Here are up-to-date pictures of the ‘747 sandwich’ at 1200 Stewart Street in the Denny Triangle, courtesy of The Seattle Times.
The Boeing 747 is sandwiched between the podiums of the two residential towers there, and will contain a little bit of office space.
Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day and happy Columbus Day.
(In Seattle we celebrate both. Some cities have replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day.)
Humans have roamed North America for at least 21,000 to 23,000 years, with some archaeological studies suggesting an even earlier presence.
Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas on October 12, 1492 (534 years ago).
We ran out to the Sunny Dunes Antique Mall today.
By evening it was time to take the EV pony to the Tesla Supercharger station at The Downtown Park.
We took an evening stroll along Palm Canyon Drive while the car was charging.
We braved the blazing mid-day sun today for a walk along Palm Canyon Drive. This boulevard is the primary commercial, retail, and hospitality thoroughfare through the downtown area of Palm Springs.
Happy Friday.
It was 100°F (38°C) outside here in Palm Springs today, so we could not spend too much time out and about in the middle of the day.
The charming postcard and first day cover (envelope) from Japan that I had bought online, arrived in the mail today.
The wealth of information for each was generated by my AI helper Claude, just from examining the images. Very impressive.
The Stamp
The orange 2-yen stamp in the upper left is a postwar definitive stamp reading “日本郵便” (Nihon Yūbin/Japan Post), showing a temple gate design. Two-yen stamps in this style date to the late 1940s, a period of rapid currency inflation in occupied Japan, which pushed postal rates up quickly from their prewar sen-denominated values.
The Postmark (the real story here)
The circular cancellation in the lower left is a special commemorative postmark, not an everyday one.
It reads:
市制六十周年 (60th anniversary of city status)
復興五年記念 (5th anniversary of reconstruction)
岩瀬 (Iwase) — the post office/place name
24. 8. 1 — Shōwa 24, meaning August 1, 1949
A small ship and mountain range are worked into the design, along with text referencing 越中富山 (Ecchū Toyama) and 反魂丹 (Hangontan)
This tells us the postcard was mailed from Iwase, a district of Toyama City on the Sea of Japan coast. Iwase developed as a port town in the early Edo period, and by the late Edo period, wealthy shipping merchant families there grew rich handling kitamae-bune (northern-bound ship) trade in rice, kelp, and local medicines — which is exactly why a ship appears in the cancellation, and why “Hangontan” (a famous Toyama folk medicine, historically peddled nationwide by traveling Toyama medicine merchants) is referenced. The mountains in the design are almost certainly the Tateyama range, Toyama’s iconic backdrop. The “60th anniversary of city status / 5th anniversary of reconstruction” combination fits 1949, four years after WWII bombing damage to Toyama City, whose 60th anniversary of municipal incorporation also fell around that time.
Kyoto-art
The Poem and Artwork
The calligraphy is a classical waka poem attributed to Ōtomo no Yakamochi (大伴家持), one of the great poets of the Man’yōshū (Japan’s oldest poetry anthology). It’s poem 4249 from Book 19: 石瀬野に秋萩しのぎ馬並めて初鷹猟だにせずや別れむ — roughly, “At Iwase-no, brushing past the autumn bush-clover, shall we line up our horses and part without even a first hawking-hunt?”
Art Tags
This is the key connection: “Iwase-no” (石瀬野) in the poem is the very place the postcard was mailed from — Yakamochi served as governor of Ecchū province (roughly modern Toyama) from 746–751 CE and wrote many poems about the local landscape, including this one about a hunting trip near Iwase. The postcard’s illustrator paired this 8th-century poem with a Shōwa-era illustration of pines, sea, and mountains, and captioned the scene 古志の松原 (“the pine grove of Koshi,” Koshi being the old name for the Hokuriku region).
Putting It Together (Summary)
This appears to be a locally produced commemorative postcard, likely sold or distributed around the 1949 Iwase anniversary events, using a beloved local Man’yōshū poem tied to place-name pride — pairing Yakamochi’s ancient verse about “Iwase-no” with modern-day Iwase, Toyama, and postmarking it with a special celebratory cancel on the actual day.
The Stamps
Four stamps commemorating Nikkō National Park, issued September 1, 1962 (Shōwa 37) as part of Japan’s “Second National Park Series” — a long-running program (1962–1974, 52 stamps total) that succeeded the prewar “First National Park Series.” The stamps were issued in denominations of 5 yen and 10 yen, with 9 million printed.
Going by the imagery:
Purple/violet 10-yen — a lake with a mountain behind it, almost certainly Lake Chūzenji (中禅寺湖) with Mt. Nantai (男体山) rising behind it — the park’s signature view.
Olive/gold 10-yen — a wooded gorge or stream, likely one of the park’s famous waterfalls or river valleys (Kirifuri or Ryūzu falls area).
Blue 5-yen — a wetland with a mountain reflected in still water — this looks like Senjōgahara (戦場ヶ原), the marshland plateau below Mt. Nantai.
Brown/red 5-yen — steam or mist rising off a hillside — likely one of the volcanic hot-spring areas near Yumoto Onsen (湯元温泉), within the park.
The Postmarks
There are two different special first-day pictorial cancels (特印), both dated 37. 9. 1 (September 1, 1962), each from a different post office — a common FDC practice in Japan where multiple offices tied to a stamp’s subject each get their own commemorative design:
Left: 日光 NIKKO — shows a bridge (likely the sacred red Shinkyō Bridge at the entrance to Nikkō’s shrines), mountain peaks, and a jet plane, suggesting the Nikkō post office cancel.
Right: 群馬 片品 (Gunma, Katashina) — shows a marsh/lake outline and flowering plants, almost certainly referencing Oze (尾瀬), the famous highland marsh known for its skunk cabbage (mizubasho) blooms. Katashina Village in Gunma Prefecture is the main gateway to Oze, which is part of Nikkō National Park even though it’s a fair distance from Nikkō itself — the park spans four prefectures (Tochigi, Gunma, Fukushima, Niigata).
So this cover was specially prepared by a collector or dealer to catch two different first-day cancellations from two different prefectures, both tied to different corners of the same national park — a nice touch, since it visually ties together the mountain/lake scenery around Nikkō itself with the separate Oze wetland area the park also protects.
The Cachet
The painted mountain-and-lake scene across the bottom is a cachet — decorative artwork added to the envelope specifically for the first-day-of-issue release, standard practice for FDCs worldwide. It appears to depict Mt. Nantai over Lake Chūzenji again, reinforcing the stamp series’ theme, with the English title block up top confirming the series name and date for English-speaking collectors — suggesting this was likely produced with export/foreign collectors in mind, which was fairly common for Japanese FDCs of this era.
An adult seahorse pictured with newly born juveniles in the shallow seaweed-filled waters of Moorea, French Polynesia. Although they are unlikely to be related, their arrangement creates the impression of a farewell, as if the tiny seahorses are gathering around a father after he has released them into the world. Seahorses are now rare in French Polynesia so this image was the result of long hours of searching among the seaweed.
PHOTO TAKEN WHILE ON A REBREATHER DIVE LUMIX GH7 & SEAFROGS HOUSING
BIGBLUELIGHTS 2X 36000 LUMENS & X1
12000 LUMENS
1/320, F/5.6, ISO 400
I opted for the Seattle Public Library (instead of the bookstore) for my book fix today.
Notes for the pictures:
Black Tesla Model Y photobombs my picture of the William Kenzo Nakamura United States Courthouse on 6th Avenue.
The Courthouse is a federal courthouse and primarily used by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. It was completed in 1940.
I am not sure why the 13-star flag (for the original 13 colonies, used 1777-1795) is on the courthouse— possibly to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. (Any past official national flag can be legally flown or exhibited for historical and patriotic displays.)
Flags are flying at half-staff to honor the life and memory of country music legend and philanthropist Dolly Parton, who passed away Tuesday at the age of 80.
The yellow Lamborghini is a Lamborghini Huracán Spyder (the convertible Huracán, which is Spanish for hurricane).
Near the Hotel Sorrento off Madison Street is where I caught the G-line bus on the way back. The Hotel Sorrento was completed in 1909 and is Seattle’s longest-operating boutique hotel.
Gas prices are still high. The war with Iran is now 6 months old. The Strait of Hormuz is still closed, despite the insistence of the White House that it is ‘open’.
A big carton box from buyee.co.jp landed on my porch this morning, full of stamp albums and sets of stamps and books that I had bought from sellers in Japan over the course of a month.
The package followed a circuitous route to make it to Seattle from Kawaguchi, Japan:
Trucked from Kawaguchi to Narita Airport,
flown from Narita Airport to FedEx hub in Anchorage AK,
flown from Anchorage AK to FedEx hub in Newark NJ,
flown from Newark NJ to FedEx hub in Memphis TN,
flown from Memphis TN to local FedEx facility in Auburn WA,
trucked from Auburn WA to Willem’s porch in Seattle WA.
I have a few hundred of these self-adhesive Japanese stamps on that are still on paper. My usual technique of dunking them into water to get the stamps to peel off is not going to work with these.
The proper method is to spray the back of the envelope paper with isopropyl alcohol. The liquid soaks through the paper in about 30 to 60 seconds, dissolves the acrylic adhesive, and then the stamp can carefully be peeled off.
One would think everything is at a standstill in Ukraine because of the war, but no— my purchase of Japanese stamps from an Ebay seller in Kyiv arrived in the mail today, courtesy of Ukrposhta (Ukraine’s postal service).
These stamps were on the outside envelope.
Issued Jun. 13, 2017
Perf. 14 x 13½ | Design: Natalia Andreichenko | Offset Litho. | No watermark
1656 BFO Domestic Postal Rate H | Multicolored | Coat of Arms of Marynyn
Notes:
The Ukrainian trident (tryzub) appears in a small shield at the top left
Marynyn (Маринин) is a village located in Rivine Oblast (Рівненська обл.), as noted in the small text near the bottom
[Sources: stampworld.com, Claude AI]
Issued Jun. 7, 2011
Perf. 13¾ | Design: Ekaterina Shtanko | Offset Litho. | No watermark
1191 ANW ₴ 6.00 | Multicolored | Bandura (Бандура)
Notes:
The Ukranian monetary unit is the hryvnia (symbol ₴).
A bandura is a pear-shaped, multi-stringed plucked instrument unique to Ukrainian folk music. The image shows the instrument’s rounded wooden body, long fretted neck, elaborately carved scroll/ pegbox, and the many strings (both the neck strings and the shorter sympathetic strings stretched across the soundboard) that give the bandura its distinctive harp-like sound. A decorative rosette surrounds the sound hole.
[Sources: stampworld.com, Claude AI]
Issued Apr. 21, 2023
Perf. 13 | Design: Natalia Andriichenko | Engraving: Integrated Printing Plant Ukraina For Securities | Offset Litho. | No watermark
2096 BWQ Domestic Postal Rate T | Multicolored | Pysanky Decorated Egg from the Hutsul ethnocultural region
Notes:
About pysanky: These eggs are decorated using a wax-resist (“batik”) method, where designs are drawn in hot wax before dyeing in successive colors, with the wax removed at the end to reveal the multicolor pattern. Each region of Ukraine has traditionally developed its own distinct motifs and color palettes, and Hutsul pysanky are especially prized for their intricate geometric symbolism.
Region label: “ГУЦУЛЬЩИНА” (Hutsulshchyna) in small text at the top — indicating this pysanka pattern comes from the Hutsul ethnocultural region, an area in the Carpathian Mountains (spanning parts of Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, and Zakarpattia oblasts) renowned for its distinctive folk art
Design: An elaborately patterned egg rendered in the traditional pysanka wax-resist dyeing technique, featuring a black background with a central stylized fish motif (a common Christian symbol) in green, yellow, and white, surrounded by geometric bands of triangles, stars, and wave/comb patterns in yellow, green, black, and white — colors and motifs characteristic of Hutsul pysanky
[Sources: stampworld.com, Claude AI]
In 1995— as part of a series commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II— the postal service designed a stamp with a painting of a mushroom cloud captioned “Atomic bombs hasten war’s end, August 1945.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, the Japanese government, peace activists, and many others were offended by a stamp that appeared to celebrate a terrifying weapon that multiple countries now possessed and occasionally threatened to use.
After the intervention of then-President Bill Clinton, postal officials reconsidered the matter and the stamp was never released (although a prototype for it, showing “00” where the stamp’s denomination would have appeared, is easily found online).
In its place, the post office substituted an image of President Harry Truman announcing Japan’s surrender on August 14, 1945. (The stamp in the middle at the bottom of the souvenir sheet below).
– From a discussion of the most controversial stamps in the history of the United States on history.com
