The world isn't great at the moment. Things are just getting more
costly and our income just isn't catching up. I've been researching ways
to lower my bills and thought about solar power. Now I don't want the
hassle of getting panels on my roof as I've heard some bad experiences of
people who had to deal with unresponsive solar companies when they need
roof work done. So I looked into portable ones.
Which ended up
me finding that there are power banks with solar charging! I thought
this was such a genius idea! There's quite a few on Amazon and I opt to
get one of the best selling ones. It was affordable which was a bit
suspicious but I went and bought one anyways.
Its a lightweight
bank and it has mag charge which I do like as I don't need to carry a
cable to charge my phone. The manual says it recommends just charging it
through an outlet but I got it for the solar charging. Some of the
reviews I've read said they were able to charge by sun in a day. I tried and sadly I did
not get that.
I put it on a window that had direct sunlight. I
let it sit there for a week and not one charge bar went up. I did leave a
1 star review and was contacted by the seller telling me the solar is
just for emergency use. This explanation didn't make sense to me. If its
for emergency, it should still charge a decent amount to even power
your phone! It be useless in an emergency!
I had this thing for
months without charging it through an outlet and it still hasn't gone up one charge bar! I left it outside in the sun once it was warm outside and still no one charge bar went up. So I feel these solar
power banks might just be a gimmick. Its not the best battery pack
either as it charges rather slow. I do like how lightweight it is and it
is more weather resistant.
I don't think any solar banks like
this one will ever be able to do what I was hoping for. It might be just
too small of a solar panel surface to get enough of a charge. So I'll
be looking for portable solar panels instead.
Sometimes kitchen products aren't worth having but there are some that are. I find the Souper Cubes sets a huge helpful kitchen product for my lifestyle. Its designed to store and freeze soup but you can use them for anything. They are the most high quality kitchen product I've tried! Its super useful to help save extra food and leftovers and meal prepping. They have trays of different sizes so you can get one that fits your needs. I originally was sold when they got ceramic versions of the 2 and 1 cup sizes. You may have seen ads or posts on lego lunches with these. I find the stoneware too heavy for everyday work lunch use but I like using them for meal prep and storing leftovers so I don't do the lego lunch method.
The silicone is high quality too! I like that the ends are stiff so they keep their shape when you hold it. Its super easy to clean and easy to pop the frozen food out. The best part is that they are also oven proof so you can even bake things in it. The clear plastic lids are also really high quality. They can get stained from red foods so I like to put a layer of plastic wrap to keep it clean. The stoneware gets clear silicone covers which are really well made because its not a hassle to take it on and off. Its stretchy enough to get it on and off and thick enough to not tear or get damaged. They don't even warp and you can microwave them. They do get stained from red food but its minimal and it can come off slightly over time from washing.
I've stored a very fishy scented soup in one and it did hold onto that smell for a little while before I don't smell it anymore from storing other foods. So I feel it be better to store smelly foods in the ceramic ones instead.
Inside each mold are measurement lines. I got the ice cube tray one which are 2 tablespoons but the lines help if you only need 1 tablespoon.
The cubes shapes makes it easy to store and appealing. I tend to just keep the whole thing in the freezer since I didn’t want to use up a plastic bag. But it would save more space if you store them in a bag after it’s all frozen.
Overall I highly recommend it! High quality materials and product design. There are many knock offs but they can’t beat Souper Cubes. I definitely think it’s worth it. Best to wait for a sale if it’s out of your budget!
I've been using proxy service to buy things from Japan for years and there are many and they seem to continue to grow. Especially since the yen to cheap compare to the US dollar. I wasn't satisfied with Zenmarket so I wanted to try Buyee out. I find their service fee cheaper since it doesn't charge per item but per order. You have options to just pay the basic fee or pay more for inspection.
When I looked up Buyee to see other people experience with it, there are quite a few who were dissatisfied and it seems to they misunderstood what a proxy service is. They would buy and item and get it but aren't happy with it so they try to demand a refund. And they get angry when Buyee doesn't refund them. So here's a BIG warning on proxy service, you can't return items! They are just a middle man and aren't going to go through the return process over your items that you want to return. please keep in mind this risk! Don't go using it to buy something expensive or rare on the auction site or mercari since it might be a scam. Mercari now offers listings directly from Japan now and Mercari may be more willing to give you refunds.
What I find useful with Buyee is that they have discounts. Before mercari opened up internationally, I would use Buyee to buy from Mercari. And would take advantage of their discounts for Mercari as well as Rakuten. You can order from within their site or use their extention to add things to your cart from the shopping site itself. I personally like going through the actual site to shop since not everything gets listed on Buyee when you try to search for it.
Buyee has a separate page with all the items you put in your cart and it divides them by store. It also tells you how much it will be in your currency. This price does change with the exchange rate too.
Once your complete an order, the order will move to a different page with status bar for when they buy it to when its in the warehouse. Once it reaches the warehouse it will start a countdown timer on its free storage days. It will also tell you an estimated weight and price for shipping it internationally.
And once you paid for international shipping your order will again move to a different page to track your shipped items. So far I have good experience with Buyee. None of my items arrived damaged or missing. I do wish they had DHL as a shipping option. Most of my packages were shipped by EMS which is pricey sometimes.
You can also have them order from a shop not supported by their extension which I have done. Even on sites that have a competitor proxy service pop up on it. But there are some shops that don't allow proxy services. I tried to order from TORCH TORCH and it was canceled because of that. This process does take longer than buying from Mercari or Rakuten. And it put into its own cart page separate from the others. But it will go to the same Ordered and Shipping page.
Customer service so far I've had a good experience with. They mostly contacted me about my order that I'm missing a detail. Once was a shirt that had a personalized option that I didn't fill out. And another time was about chocolates I wanted to buy but since the weather was warm it required ice packs. If you have Discord, they have their own server and you can open up support tickets in there which I find to be a better way to get help.
One negative experience I have is that they wouldn't help me get mochi. The mochi I wanted is fine to be shipped but Buyee's agents told me they don't buy mochi of any kind because they deem it as perishable and told me their warehouse isn't equipped to handle such food items. The mochi I wanted to get isn't at all perishable since I've had it in snack boxes so it was frustrating to not be able to get it because I wanted to try their other flavors.
Overall I am liking Buyee and will continue to use it!
I have previously made a post about my experience with trying to preorder a fanmade merch on taobao. And Superbuy was what I used to help get it from the seller to me. Since then I've used them quite a few times to get more preorders and I have some things to say about it!
FIRST you don't really get emails for updates. I've only gotten an email when there's a "shipping deferment" so if you're waiting on replies from your agent you may have to check the site yourself.
SECOND if you're preordering somethings that's going to take awhile you may have to babysit it. The stuff I wanted to get can take as long as 6 months and understandably your agent may end up forgetting about your order. Its good to try to check the item's page or seller's page to see any developments. Do check the reviews section and see if there's any with photos which is an obvious indicator that the product is ready to be shipped. You can also message your agent to ask for any updates from the seller.
I do recommend messaging at least once because I've had an order that was marked "complete" despite it wasn't and the agent's name was gone from that order. If its gone I can't message them to fix it! Luckily I did message them before and was able to go back to that message and mention this mistake.
This has been the most annoying part to babysitting your orders! But so far the agents have been able to correct it and helped me get the products promptly.
English The agents English is pretty good! I would still advise keeping your messages to the point and as politely as you can.
Shipping They have a huge selection of shipping options! They even have their own shipping called Superbuy Air mail which is rather reasonable. I searched for it and people said it took about a week, well for me it took over 2 weeks! They only give you an estimated weight and price. They will adjust the amount once it shipped and any refund amount is sent to your balance. This is annoying since it will make it that you're always have some money left with them. You can Withdraw it back but I haven't tried that out yet so I will update this once I do!
FEES Fees are only applied to shopping in stores outside the popular ones. So taobao and weidian I can order without proxy fees!
I've ordered and managed to navigate through japanese and korean online stores, but taobao is by far the most confusing online store I've tried to buy from. And there's hardly any help online in english with it! There is a sub reddit and a website with guides, but they didn't help with my situation.
There was a fanmade thing I wanted to try to get and saw from that guide website that you can directly order from taobao if you're from the US. I made an account and proceeded to preorder it. Please note that doingit like this is like using a proxy because the item will be shipped to taobao's warehouse in China first. Then you have to pay for international shipping for it to be shipping to you.
If this product was in stock I probably would've had a easier time, but since it was a preorder then it became a headache. This is because taobao will automatically mark your order as complete after a certain time. Since the product I bought took months to produce my order got automatically completed. Why is this a problem? Because taobao will no longer recognize your order and will be rejected at their warehouse once it does ship.
For some reason there isn't a way to talk to the seller on a computer, but you can on their mobile app. There's no where on the site on the computer that lets you know if the seller has contacted you either. If you need to contact the seller you will have to get taobao's app on your phone. I used DeepL to translate my words into chinese to talk to the seller who thankfully has replied to me. If you were to talk to sellers please keep sentences as simple as possible because machine translation doesn't really make longer sentences make sense.
The seller didn't want to ship it before confirming the address with me because the address is a warehouse which is understandable. This is when I learned taobao had rejected the package. So I had to look up a proxy. I've heard people use Sueprbuy so I used them and told the seller the address superbuy gave me. And luckily it did reach Superbuy and they accepted it! And yes, shipping from superbuy is like double the price I would pay for shipping from Japan. My package was the size of a poptart box and it costed me $40! YIKES! But I am happy to have bought this so even though it was an expensive ordeal to get it I don't regret it!!!
I've been collecting doujinshi for years and they are kind of addicting. If you do not know, doujinshi is Japanese self published books. They are mainly known to be fan comics by fans for fans, and the majority are typically pornographic in nature. In Japan there are many events for doujinshi the biggest one being Comiket which happens twice a year. Many smaller ones are series, character, or couple specific. They can even be run by fans. Usually they are held during weekends, and are like anime conventions but just the artist alley. Hundreds of artists usually attend them, and either have half or a whole table to sell their books. More popular artists would have a wall table since it will give them space for the lines of people waiting to purchase their books (doujinshi).
Before each event artists will usually post their book's sample pages. Pixiv is the main site where this happens. It has an english version though it is a little funny in some areas, and it doesn't translate any of the Japanese users words into English. Finding things in pixiv is mainly done with tags. Pixiv also has a section listing all the events that are coming up. Each event page will have information on the event and artists' cut cards which are for the event's catalog for the attendees. When you see doujinshi's sample pages they usually have a event specific tag. This tag is the easiest way to look at all the available samples for that event. After the event is over, artists will sometimes put their doujinshi up for mail order. This means they have a mail order service to sell their books to those who couldn't go to the event in person. This is where we overseas fans will get these doujinshi from, but there's one big problem - no International shipping.
Where are doujinshis listed? eBay will usually have doujinshi listed so check there if you haven't. They are usually preowned and might be overpriced which is understandable since ebay fees are a tad high ($3 in fees for a $10 sale YIKES). I wouldn't buy a 20 page doujinshi for over $20. If they are listed to be shipped from Japan and still list their price as much as $15 then they are making quite a profit since doujins normally priced around $1-7 in Japan. There is one mail order shop that does overseas shipping and that is Mandarake but they don't always have everything or up to date stuff. A top mail order service Japanese artists use is Toranoana. Navigation on the site a bit poorly designed so its easier to just use the link the artist use to buy their doujinshi from their Pixiv. Melonbook (hentai), and C-Queen (yaoi/boys love) are also other mail order services artists use. If the doujinshi is sold out, they will often not be restocked and you will have to find if elsewhere like in Yahoo!Auctions Japan. Popular or rare doujinshi can get very pricey. Obviously, if you don't know Japanese it will be very difficult to find what you need. Sometimes artists would put out a collection book with all their past doujinshi works in it, but I don't see many that do this. These books tend to be obviously thicker, but the book size will tend be smaller than the usual 7"x10".
You can actually find doujinshi in digital format on DLsite though the selection can be quite limited. Pixiv has their own web shop service for Pixiv users called BOOTH PM. Artists may have their goods listed there as well.
How do I buy doujinshi? So how do we overseas people order doujinshi? Well we have to use proxy services. These are companies in Japan that will be our middle man. Meaning they buy the stuff for us, and then ship it to us. Along with paying the doujinshi, the proxy service fees, shipping to the proxy service, and shipping to you, the total costs is going to add up greatly. A 700 yen (about $7) doujinshi can easily cost you $30 in total to get. It is very important to read the proxy service rules and guidelines. It will save you from disappointed, surprises, and frustration. Some specialize in auctions while others in online shops. Fees can vary a lot for both shopping and auctions in each service company. If you plan on buying adult rated doujinshi, be sure to look up laws of your country to see if it will get through customs. Some proxy service may not allow adult rated doujinshi, and some even require your ID to verify your age. There's also forwarding service which is your mailbox in Japan so you have to order the doujinshi straight from the mail order store with your credit or debit card, and just use the address you get from the forwarding service. Please note that it is very possible the store may reject the forwarding service address. Toranoana is partnered with Tenso, a forwarding service for overseas customers. I haven't used Tenso before, but people say it can be pricey and they force EMS shipping so you can't choose a cheaper shipping option. There are also individual people that live in Japan that can buy stuff for you, and even go to the event or store and buy the doujinshi aka pick-up service. They typically charge $10 an order on one store or $10 per artist. They are usually on Tumblr or Livejournal. Of course if you have a friend in Japan who is nice enough or has the same interest as you to buy it for you, lucky you!
One proxy service I've used is Goody Japan. They have a 700 yen fee per order in one store. They are a little slow to my liking, but they have good customer service. Here are some other services:
Celga
Shopping Mall Japan
Noppin
Rinkya
Japan Shopping Service (cheapest commission thus far. Also accepts adult rated goods.)
There are others but I'm not familiar with them enough to list for doujinshi. Again, not all proxy service are the same so please read their rules and guidelines carefully and judge which will work best for you. In my experience, dealing with proxy customer service has been pretty frustrating. Not sure if its the language barrier or not. Even with simple things like forgetting to combine an item for shipping or checking a package, they would just say they can't do it or charge you for it. I really don't understand it.
Buying Doujinshi If you're like me, I'd be refreshing toranoana everyday after an event to see if the doujinshi I want is listed yet. Sometimes some are listed to be reserved before the event as well. For popular artists their books can get sold out as fast as a few hours. I wouldn't put hope in them getting restocked unless it is something the artist usually does. The frustrating part for me is that sometimes some doujinshi don't get listed right after the event ends. Sometimes the doujinshi will appear days or weeks later. Its very convenient to buy everything you want in one order, but some doujinshis can get sold out before one you want is listed. Its hard to save on proxy fees, bank wire fees, and shipping like this. Toranoana has the highest domestic shipping cost of 420 yen while C-Queen has 100-300 yen domestic shipping cost. Shipping from Yahoo auctions can be just as cheap as well but since its individual doujins the per auction proxy fees adds up overall.
Be responsible with your money though. Doujinshi collecting is not cheap despite the cost of the book itself.
To illustrate how much this could cost I will provide a sample:
Toranoana: doujinA ¥740 + doujinB ¥1000 + domestic shipping&tax ¥600 = ¥2340
+
Proxy service: Commission fee ¥700 + Bank fee ¥300 + 5% of total order service fee (¥2340+¥1000=¥3340)
¥167 = ¥3507
+
International shipping: EMS ¥2400 (1kg) + Handling fee ¥600 = ¥6507 total for 2 doujinshi
YES,
that is a lot for 2 books. Buying doujins is not cheap at all! Proxy
and forwarding services just don't have one fee to use them either.
There are usually at least 2 or 3 fees. Now its up to you whether
spending that much is a good idea or not.
If you're willing and can afford to spend the money, then go for it! It would take a proxy about a day or two before they confirm with you that they've purchased it. You may/will have to provide the payment first before they make the order. If you feel this is too slow, try forwarding. You will have to sign up an account on the store's site, and buy the items yourself with your own credit card. The only thing the forwarder does is give you an address for the store to ship it to. I like using forwarding service as it tends to be cheaper. Though there are a few online stores like Square Enix japan that don't allow foreign credit cards.
Doujinshi Etiquette Artists do this for fun and for fans, and typically lose money when they make doujinshi. They don't even make $1 per book sold since they don't think its right to make money off characters that don't belong to them. Yet doujinshi mail order service and auction sellers make money off the doujinshi. And then there are people who scan and translate doujinshi aka scanlate. Most artists do not like this at all for many reasons. Please do not scanlate their work or at least ask them for permission. Some may understand how hard it is to get doujinshi and may allow it. It is a bit hypocritical how people who scan them ask for their scans to not be shared and not take their credit off. Doujinshi are mainly made with the intention of having limited readers to avoid the possibility of getting in trouble with companies and copyright holders of the series the doujinshi is a parody of. Therefore, if a doujinshi gets scanned and get popular it would risk the artist themselves of getting noticed by the guys upstairs. This is also true for artists in the western world. If you're selling Star Wars or Harry Potter goods and it gets popular, the artists' might be charged if the guys upstairs don't like it. No matter if the artist has limited the quantities or was provided online for free, they would get the blame and not the ones who are twisted enough to misuse the fanwork. DO NOT BE THAT PERSON. To learn more, here's an article about the doujinshi world and here's one about Fan Art laws.
Commercial Merchandise If you want commercial merch like rubber straps, trading mascots, DVDs, etc they are much easier to get than doujinshi. AmiAmi is the main place to order merch. The prices are usually the same as domestic price since they are located in Japan and is one of the main anime merchandise stores there. Preorder is the same as well. They even have discounts on the items too. Another place is Big in Japan which is good for figures and scales. The one big problem is that these stores can only sell each item in a certain amount internationally. Which means they won't restock sold out items for us international customers even if the item continues to be on sale in Japan. CDJapan is a site that sells cds, dvd, bd, magazines, etc. Some items like special items are listed twice as much there so please look the item up and see if the price difference from the original price and CDJapan's price is worth it for you. There's Yesasia which have a big selection of video games, and is a good place to get international gift cards. I go there to buy Japanese iTunes cards since Japanese iTunes doesn't take foreign cards. These companies have better customer service than the proxy ones. If there's something that none of the above sites have then you will need a proxy like From Japan and Zenmarket. They are good for anything else like regular anime merchandise or other Japanese goods. Sometimes some merchandise have store specific special extra items that you can't get from Big in Japan, Amiami, etc so using a proxy or a forwarding service can help you with that. From personal experience, I use Japan Shopping Service and Zenmarket to buy doujinshi and other anime/video game goods.
Hope this guide helps. If you have any questions please feel free to ask me by commenting below. Or if anything is incorrect let me know that as well. Thank you for reading!
