I love Japan so much it’s heartbreaking to watch the events currently unfolding after the earthquake and tsunami. On the other hand, it’s amazing to see how well the Japanese infrastructure has handled it, thanks to their earthquake protection and building codes. The one thing that stuck out for me was a mention that Suntory vending machines have an emergency lever that allows people to get free drinks. It’s that sort of kindly trusting forward-thinking behaviour that sums up Japan for me.

So I need to do a little bit to help. All the reasons I love Japan are described in my book so for this week, if you buy the PDF edition of my Kawaii Japan book, I will give 100% of the money to the Red Cross Japan Tsunami Appeal. You get to read about why Japan is so amazing and we all get to help Japan get back to being amazing as soon as possible.

(Tokyo photo by shoottokyo)

UPDATE: Thanks for the sales so far! I’ve changed my donation target to the Red Cross Japan Tsunami Appeal, now that they have a specific Japan fund.

Check it out! My book, Kawaii Japan, is now up for sale on Lulu. That’s my Author Spotlight page, which makes me feel a bit of a fraud as I am really no author. In fact, you may note that at no point in the book or promotion do I ever refer to myself as even a writer. I use made-up words, I over-use certain words and phrases. I mix up tenses and am never entirely certain if my grammar is correct. I CAN spell though.

Anyway, if you fancy a copy it’s right there with local regional shipping wherever you are. I should have a few copies for my own shop soon too. And if £16 is a bit much for your budget, don’t forget there’s a PDF version for just a fiver. The book is really nice though! You can read the first ten pages at Lulu if you want to try before you buy.

I’ll take some more photos of the actual book once I have some daylight at my disposal. I also have a post about the intricacies of self-publishing which I will finish soon.

But in the meantime, here is my favourite page – what I bought in Japan. Happy faces galore.

Good news! I finished the revisions on my book and it will be up for sale in about a week, once I receive my new copy. In the meantime, I have put the PDF version up for sale in my shop. It’s exactly the same content as the book, in all its full colour 67 page glory. Here’s a peek at a couple of pages.

I also have a special deal for you – if you previously bought my Ten Days in Tokyo zine, send me an email (hello AT askingfortrouble.org) BEFORE ORDERING THE BOOK with the relevant order number or PayPal email address from your zine purchase and I’ll send you a discount code for £1 off the book. Or if you bought it in person, tell me where! I have edited the section on that trip quite a lot for the book but it’s still pretty similar to the zine.

PS. Friends and family should check my Facebook – I’ll be taking pre-orders for the print book very soon so we can share the shipping. I will also be buying a few copies to sell in my shop but they won’t be any cheaper than Lulu.

Look what I got in the post today? A book written by me! Before you get too excited, it’s a self-published book, so don’t expect to find it in your local Waterstones, but it’s still an actual real life book. It’s super cute too at just 7.5″ square.

See, it has loads and loads of pages – 67 in fact! All of which are full of writing, photographs and illustrations about my three Japan trips. If you’ve read my Ten Days in Tokyo zine, then you’ll know what to expect – I had planned to do a similar zine of my most recent trip but I wanted to include illustrations and they would lose half their appeal in photocopy. So instead, I made a book. I’ll write more about the process later but suffice to say, it was a massive and brain-melting task.

Want a peek inside? Here’s the mini shopping guide of all my favourite shops in Japan. It also has pages of tips and resources and drawings of things I wore and bought. Plus there’s loads of photos and it’s in full colour throughout with a lovely glossy cover!

Speaking of which, this is the back cover, which I love most of all. Check out the barcode – amazing. I need to make a few tweaks to the content and then it will be available to buy via Lulu (and I think eventually through Amazon too – imagine!). I’ll also release a PDF version as the actual book will be on the pricey side.

Hurray! I hope you like it!

When we were researching new places to visit in Japan this trip, we couldn’t help but notice the ocean of negativity surrounding Osaka. One of our guidebooks suggests it’s worth a day trip, or really a half-day trip might be more sensible. The other one actually says there is no reason to stay in Osaka when Kyoto is so near by. Undeterred, we chose to spend the first part of our holiday in Osaka and can now only assume that this is all part of some conspiracy to keep Osaka free from tourists.

In fact, that is one of Osaka’s great features – it was only when we took a day trip to Kyoto (take that, guidebook!) that we realised the total lack of tourists in Osaka*. If you’ve ever arrived at a sightseeing spot at the same time as a busload of English tourists, you’ll know exactly why this is a good thing. As well as that, Osaka has loads going for it. Here are a few of the places we visited, plus a little shopping guide.

* I expect we’d have seen some at Osaka Castle but we never quite made it there

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Ever since I went to art school, I have always made cards of some description to send to my friends and family at Christmas. This year I did something a little bit different because Japan was full of totally adorable bunny themed New Year’s cards (I will need to scan the brochures I picked up) and everything you could imagine to make your own adorable bunny cards. So I bought some super cute stickers and used them for Christmas/New Year cards.

Each card has a slightly different combination of stickers and papers – you can see two examples here but all the origami paper squares are different colours and there are different small stickers on some. Once I ran out of obviously 2011 stickers, I had to make some of my own to make the New Year theme more obvious – not everyone knows it’s the Year of the Rabbit.

Anyway, they turned out pretty cute I think. I didn’t quite have enough for everyone on my list so I also sent out a few of these sweet snow bunny postcards from Parco in Shibuya – I love them so much!

Anyway, I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas too, and I’ll be back with more posts next week.