Make Your Own Pillow

Here is an unique Christmas gift idea.  Upload a photo and make your own pillow!

PillowMob makes your custom pillow and ship worldwide.  You can also chose to buy featured designs such as animal and people.

It’s $30.00 each, and it includes shipping fee!  I think it’s very reasonable price.  There are two options for the size : oval and circle.  Whichever you chose, I’m sure it will be a great gift to surprise your friends or families!

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Chicken Katsu and Apple Store

Today it’s raining, but it had been wonderful weather here in Perth.  Warm, sunny spring.  Not now though… Heavy rain outside. News of Steve Jobs has been everywhere since Thursday. I knew him just as little as other people did, but D has been one of the people who admire Steve since long time ago.

I didn’t really think about how we started to use computers and Internet in everyday lives many years ago, until I saw the news. GUI, mouse… To think about it, we wouldn’t be leading our lives like today if Steve didn’t invent these gadgets… I can just say “sugoi” about him. He changed the way we live.

D wanted to visit Apple store yesterday, so we headed to city. We had quick lunch at Matsuri in Enex beforehand. This Matauri does special bent box for $6.00. The menu changes day to day, but yesterday was chicken katsu again. They keep 1 ~ 2 in the counter showcase so that busy people can just grab and run, but you can also ask for fresh-made.

The Apple shop was busy just like normal Saturdays. There’re flowers and fruits for Steve in front of the store, and people had written few words for him in Post-It and sticked to the shop windows. Few people were gathering around the flowers and taking photos.

Inside the store has been changed.  There are iPads placed next to each products, and customers can brows the info of the products on iPad.  You can call staff via iPad if you need assistance or purchase the item as well, by tapping the “call staff” button.

We bought a iPod Nano because D wanted to use it as a watch. New Nano has new watch faces, which you can also download online.

They look so cute! Colorful Nano would go with Carmit and Micky watch faces, but D bought dark silver and wants to get metal watch band, so he will probably use something less casual for the watch face, I guess.

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Japanese Coupon Sites

There are few coupon sites in Japan now, and I’m subscribed to their daily deal emails.  It’s just that Japanese coupon sites offer much better deals than those in Australia.  Australian coupon sites, such as Scoopon, DealMe, LivingSocial etc, offer quite same deals over and over and I’m little bored with them.

I check deals at Groupon and Ponpare at the moment, but I prefer Ponpare.  Their deals are more interesting than those at Groupon.  So far I’ve purchased 4 coupons from Ponpare:  ¥500 worth MacDonald’s voucher for ¥100, 86% off hotel stay at hotel in Osaka Umeda for ¥10000 for two, 80% off skin whitening masks for ¥1050 etc.  These things are what we may actually use!  Groupon’s offers are always discounted hotels, discounted restaurants, and discounted activities.  I like Ponpare because they have lots of free-shipping items on deals and they are pretty cheap, such as more than 50% off on organic shampoo set, electric items, photo print services and fashion items.

Sigh… after checking these interesting offers for hair salon, I wish I were there right now!  Cut, colour, perm, etc etc are so cheap and these salons are pretty well-known.  I’d pay ¥2000 hair colour package without hesitation.

I’m checking these up everyday so that I can use the coupons when we go there  I’ve ordered several ¥500 worth MacDonald’s vouchers already, so we may be probably spending lots of time at MacDonald’s this time :p

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Look@MyBaby Mercy Hospital

Mercy Hospital Mount Lawley has just become the first hospital in WA to provide new parents with a live and secure video streaming service direct from the maternity cot.

Exclusive built-in hospital camera system sends a live broadcast of your baby in the maternity cot to family and friends locally, interstate or overseas. It is like ‘visiting’ your baby in hospital 24/7 at their convenience on computers and mobile phones. It is the Virtual Baby Visit!

I think it’s a great item for parents who have to leave their unwell or premature baby in the hospital, as well as for the families who live far away from the hospital and can’t visit to see the new baby.

Daily Deals

Scoopon, DealMe, OurDeal, AllTheDeal, etc etc.  There are so many websites that sell daily deal coupons online now.  The first one to do this was American company Groupon (www.groupon.com), and was founded in November 2008.

Groupon is operated worldwide, except Australia – some people should know the battle between Groupon and Scoopon.  Scoopon bought the domain “groupon.com.au” and forced Groupon to buy it at an insane price.  Groupon accepted it, but then Scoopon changed their maid – they’d only sell the domain and trademark if Groupon buys the entire Scoopon business.  The deal is off.   Groupon sued Scoopon, and Groupon is now doing the business in Australia under Stardeals (www.stardeals.com.au).

Anyway, I’m sure many people have already purchased at least one deal from one of these websites before.  Some of the deals are great!  They offer big discount (sometimes over 80% off) on food, entertainment, accommodation, beauty and more.  I’ve purchased once before, and now I’m waiting for a good deal on massages.  There’re so many similar deals and I don’t know which one to pick.

I was browsing Groupon Japan today.  They have deals on each prefecture across Japan (Tokyo has the most), from Hokkaido to Okinawa.  Tokyo has the deals on almost each cities.  Nice…