Yui! Album Jacket Trading Cards

Do you love music and trading cards? Do you remember collecting CDs or record albums, and all the space those awesome covers took up? Well, do I have the product for you!

 I don't know much about these, other than the only ones I've seen are what I'm sharing with you. Yui is/was a Japanese musician who got her start in 2004. She retired in 2012, but returned the next year before eventually getting married and having kids - that was a couple years ago, so she seems to be on extended hiatus or fully retired at this point.

 .These are a little smaller than standard sized cards across and are square shaped. The card stock is thicker, too.

 The fronts have the images found on the CD covers. Backs give various details - what album or single it is, the release number, and title is at the top. The release date is followed by a track listing and some Japanese text that gives the smallest bit of information about the release. A "Yui" logo, "Jacket Trading Card" and the copyright is at the bottom.

 As you can see here, multiple covers get multiple cards - Namidairo has two identical releases other than the front image and release number.

 I've never heard Yui's music, but when I saw these little cards I had to pick them up.

 As I mentioned, a very quick search didn't turn up anything other than Yui having these cards, so it could have been some kind of campaign. I don't know anything about how or exactly when they were issued, though my "newest" card has a 2010 release date, so they're no more than 7 years old.

 I love this concept. The size isn't convenient for storage, but since they aren't much narrower than standard cards they'll fit well into card boxes. I would totally collect these for a lot of my favorite artists - everyone from Queen, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, and Madonna, to Avril Lavigne, Ben Folds, and Britney Spears. And in this day of digital music, having a cool card "album cover" for Taylor Swift and other modern artists would be awesome.

And for those who are wondering, here's a Yui song:

(You might be able to watch more through YouTube but I had a hard time finding one that wasn't blocked by Sony.)

It's A Pack: 2017 Calbee Series 1

I've shown a Calbee pack before, but as I mentioned then, I had another sitting around. So, what was inside?

Luis Mendoza's line is better than the Mendoza Line. Though he's a pitcher. He has a losing record over his career here in Japan, though he has a relatively respectable ERA (3.78 career in the NPB to date). Looking at his batting stats, in 14 plate appearances he's never reached base, striking out 10 times and grounding into a double play once.

The second card is a Starcard, which is about as good as you could get, other than the foil signature version of them or maybe a Lucky Card. The player is Hisayoshi Chono, who last year batted .283 but is only at .224 this year.

So there you have it. Two cards, two mediocre players. But wasn't that fun anyway?

Japan National Jersey!

Yes, it's been a long time. It's been two weeks since my last post, again not due to a lack of interest or psoting material, but due to a lack of time and other projects. Actually, I was getting sick as I was writing my last post, and that cold knocked me out for several days. I'm still trying to recover, stuck around 95%. This past week, I've been working on a project that has nothing to do with baseball, so I won't bore you with the details. I finally finished that a couple hours ago.

Meanwhile, I've picked up some great stuff off Yahoo Japan Auctions and new cards at the shops, so you'll see those soon.

But first, today.

Today starts with tomorrow, for tomorrow, I will finally go to Tokyo Disneyland for the first time. Yes, I've lived in Japan for five years, and have not been to TDR (Tokyo Disney Resort). Yes, I'm a theme park junky and a Disney fan, and have not been to TDR. Yes, I went to Hong Kong Disneyland a couple years ago, but have not yet been to TDR.

The real reason for that is crowds. The Tokyo park is probably the most consistently crowded. Lots of people visit the park at least once a year, and many have annual passes - which run about $500 each. Seriously, don't go to TDR on the weekend - wait times are consistently in the hours. Pass holders will go with friends and chat and ride one or two rides in a day, watch a show, and grab some food.

So I've been waiting for a good weekday, and between weather, money, and energy, there just hasn't been a good opportunity. But over the past few months, I've worked a shifted schedule where I have Mondays and Tuesdays off, and Tuesdays are much better days to visit. June is a good month, too, though even on a Monday - a school day Monday - Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain had over two hour waits this afternoon.

I'm going tomorrow, a Tuesday. Crowds should be lighter, but I'm still planning on long lines for the popular attractions. So I planned out my day - I made an itinerary to help me get the most important attractions as quickly as possible in the morning. People in Japan start their day early, too - the park opens at 8 AM every day and admission lines get long well before that. You can buy tickets at the park in the morning, but that's another line to wait in. You can buy tickets at convenience stores, but it looks like they need to be exchanged for regular tickets before going into the park. And you can buy online, but they need to be printed - I could do that but printed tickets wear out pretty fast.

But then there's the Disney Store. And there's a Disney Store about a 30-minute walk from here. Not having left my apartment and the one-block surrounding area (I love that I can walk to a grocery store and 24-hour convenience store both in 5 minutes) I figured it'd be a great way to get some exercise.

Not only could I get my Disney ticket for tomorrow, but on the way home I could stop at the two secondhand shops to browse around. And I found this at the first:

Yeah, that's a Japan jersey. It's not an "authentic" jersey - it's like the fan jerseys worn at NPB games. That said, the design is similar to one of the jerseys the national team has worn. And it fits - not terribly well (I need to lose my Homer Simpson stomach) but I'm glad it's wearable.

That shop has a good stock of Marines and Giants fan jerseys, and occasionally other jerseys too. I've also found a few baseball souvenirs there but the good stuff is overpriced. I didn't strike out at the second shop, but you'll have to wait to see that til later.

So until then, thanks for reading!