Slides show update

Hello and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com,

We have updated the top page slides shows. This time, we include the photos of a traditional Mikoshi festival that were held in September 2012, and the photos of a Kiku flower garden located in Gunma prefecture. Both themes are regional and traditional.

A Mikoshi is a portable shrine. At several coastal regions, there remains traditional festivals in which men carry a Mikoshi into the sea wishing good luck and peace.  This kind of festivals are often held even in cold sea in winter time. Travellers from foreign countries may find it hard to reach to this kind of festivals, because all information is often listed in Japanese nor the information may not be listed in travel guide books. The information of the Mikoshi festival we took photos is listed at :
http://www.city.isumi.lg.jp/miryoku/bunka/matsuri/post_53.html
(You may need Google translation to read!)

Thank you for visiting our blog!

New Chirimen silk mufflers added

Hello and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com,

We have added three new silk mufflers. They are stripes design with pink, gray and green background. The dimensions are 165cm(Length) x 38cm(Width) (65"L x 15"W).  These mufflers are thin, light, smooth, elegant and warm.  They are hand-woven and hand-dyed.
These mufflers are manufactured by an authentic Chirimen silk fabric weaver of Kyoto. "Chirimen" is a weaving technique and also a brand name of silk fabric products developed in Kyoto, Japan. The mufflers are not Japanese traditional items, but Chrimen are traditional crafts so we are introducing these mufflers at our web site.

By the way, the Japanese Yen has gotten weaker against US dollars and Euros by 7~8% compared with the exchange rate one month ago.  I hope the shopping get easier for international customers.

Pink stripes

Gray stripes

Green stripes

Thank you for visiting our blog!

New noren curtains added

Hello and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com,

We have added new noren curtains on our web site. These lineups are casual as compared with other ones.
Please let me add a notice here that you need to confirm the dimensions of noren curtain listed on our web site before placing an order. Especially, the height has several types of length -90cm, 130cm, 150cm and 170cm. The photos don't tell the dimensions, we list them on the web site in "cm" and also in "inches".

New lineup

 


Gourd design

 

A tiger in bamboo forest

 

Green bamboo forest (Tapestry)



Sunflower (Tapestry)



Tairyo-bata flag design (Tapestry)

Bamboo and sparrows

Thank you for visiting our blog!


 

No delay seen at other airports customs - London, Sydney, Chicago

Hello and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com,

Currently, I don't see any delays at London, Sydney and Chicago airport customs.
Before London Olympics, it seemed 7 to 10 or more days were taken for customs inspection there, but it is taking only 2 or 3 days to go through customs.
Anyhow, customs inspection at each airport is the longest duration of the shipment from our warehouse to your delivery address. However, the customs inspection at Narita International Airport in Japan only takes several hours to one day at longest.

Thank you for visiting our blog!

Some delay at LA customs

Hello and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com,

For your information, there seems some delay at Los Angeles Airport until inbound into customs. I presume that the customs is getting busy toward the Christmas season. So, the shipment entering from LAX from Japan (bound to CA, NV, AZ, CO) may take one or more for customs inspection.  When not busy, it takes only one or two days based upon our previous experiences.

Thank you for your patience.
- Ken Yoshimura

New tenugui added

Hello and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com

We have added some new tenugui.

Also, please read our proposal (PDF file) about utilizing tenugui for western life. Tenugui can be used for wall decoration & room interior, table placement for light meals. We have wide variety of tenugui designs!

 

New Tenugui

 

 

 

 

Thank you for visiting our blog!

PayPal "WebPaymentPlus" Recovered

Hello and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com,

PayPal WebPaymentPlus solution has been recovered on our web site. I have changed some of the configuration settings on my PayPal business account. I did testing by myself and I have verified that the system is working correctly and properly.
So you can now make VISA, MASTER, JCB credit card payment continuously just after your order. You don't have to wait for our billing forms arrivals.

Thank you for taking your time reading the article,
- Ken Yoshimura

DO NOT select PayPal WebPaymentPlus

Hello and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com,

As stated in our blog yesterday, please do NOT select PayPal WebPaymentPlus as your payment method in our web shopping page. This system currently has severe screen problems that all credit card info's you entered are ignored just after you click "Pay Now" button. All disappeared and the screen reverts to the original page. You can never proceed your payment. I once again reproduced this error today. This error is also announced at the top page of PayPal Japan.

PayPal WebPaymentPlus offers continuous transition to the credit card payment after your shopping order even if you do not hold PayPal account.  Without the WebPaymentPlus, you need to wait for your payment until we invoke a billing form from our business account, as we don't have integration of direct credit card payment module in our web site. However, with this severe errors of WebPaymentPlus, it cannot be helped. We need to make you wait for our billing form arrival. Sorry for this inconvenience and taking your precious time, but please select "Pay by credit card" option on our shopping page, if you wish to pay by credit card. 

I have been talking with the merchandise tech support team at PayPal Japan to escape from this error, but the tech team has not yet given us good enough support to us.

Thank you for taking your time,
- Ken Yoshimura

Refusal by comcast.net domain recovered

Hell and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com,

Our emails to comcast.net domain recovered. Our email sever was accidentally listed in the block list database, and our server administrator asked the comcast to be removed from the spam list.

Thank you for taking your time,
- Ken Yoshimura

Emails to comcast.net domain refused

Hello and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com,

I am trying to reply to emails from comcast.net domain in US, but my emails are refused to be received. The comcast.net domain seems to detect my email server IP address as a spam.  I am now asking the datacenter company to ask comcast.net to remove from the spam lists.

Thank you for taking your time,
- Ken Yoshimura

Credit cards payment problem

Hello and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com,

We have credit card payment screen problems through PayPal.

Our payment system incorporates so-called PayPal Web PaymentPlus, and if you choose to pay by MASTER, VISA or JCB card,  the payment screen automatically transit to the credit card payment screen created by PayPal.

However, for the past weeks, the credit card payment screen never accepts the card holder's address, email, phone number inputs. When you fill such info's, the screen reverts to the same state without nothing left you entered and you cannot go beyond. You can never make your payment.

I am asking PayPal engineering team in US to solve and fix this problem. I don't know how long it would take for this problem fixed.
So if you happen to encounter this problem, please contact us at support@nipponcraft.com and I will invoke a payment bill in alternative way.

Sorry for this inconvenience.

Thank you for taking your time,
- Ken Yoshimura  

Shipping temporarily closed on Nov. 5th & 7th

Hello and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com,

We temporarily suspend shipping operations on November 5th (Monday) and 6th (Tuesday) due to an office maintenance. Sorry for this inconvenience.
You can place an order, but the shipping from our warehouse will be delayed until November 7th.

Thank you for visiting our blog!

Tenugui for table mats

Hello and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com,

A tenugui is a Japanese traditional thin hand towel made of cotton. Typical size of tenugui measures 34cm X 90cm (13.4 inches X 35.4 inches). Other than for hand towel, a tenugui has a wide range of usage such as for dish towel, bandanna, head towel, and home decor.
Also we could propose a tenugui as a table mat for western living. Tenugui has wide variety of designs and they will add colors and enjoyable moment to your dining.
Although a tenugui is very thin, it is made tough and you can wash it every time after the meal. It dries very quickly and you can keep it free from bacteria.

Here we list several photos of our proposal, and if you are inspired by these, please take a look at our tenugui shop.

Thank you for visting our blog!

Mail to Yahoo domain recovered

Hello and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com,

For the meanwhile I could not send emails to Yahoo domain, but I could finally fix the problem. Now we can send and reply emails to Yahoo domain.
I changed my smtp server setting. There was a mismatch between our email account name and smtp service name, by that our emails were detected as a spam mail by Yahoo DNS.

Thank you for visiting our blog!

REPLY to Yahoo mail deferred or undelivered

Hello and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com,

For the past several weeks, we could not reply to customers' questions coming from Yahoo emails. Most emails we replied to Yahoo were either deferred or undelivered due to timeout errors. This phenomena  looks happened especially to Yahoo EU/UK domains. These may come from recipitients' anti-spam firewall settings.
If you didn't get a reply from us for a while, please have a try by Twitter or facebook.

Here I would like to answer today's question regarding our shipping to French Polynesia.
We can offer shipping via a small parcel service, but not via EMS (Express mail service), under the following conditions, because Japanese EMS does not offer delivering goods to Tahiti.

1) Please allow 10 to 14 days before arriving to French Polynesia.
2) The parcel's insurance equipped with the delivery service is limited to 6,000 JPY (~60 EURO).
3) The weight of a small parcel service is limited to 1 kg, approximately equivalent to 10 pieces of tenugui.
4) Nipponcrafts sets the delivery fee 1,800JPY(~18 EURO) to Tahiti, which is the same to France mainland.

Thank you for visiting our blog!

New products lineup

Hello and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com,

We would like to announce that we have added new products lineups on our web shop.
Besides textile products, we have started to deal Japanese traditional potteries, wooden trays and cups.

Kutani-yaki ceramics

 

Kutani-yaki cup



Kutani-yaki are Japanese traditional ceramics that have 350 years production history in Ishikawa prefecture, which is facing to the Japan Sea. Kutani-yaki is light but still solid. Kutani-yaki are beautifully painted cups, dishes and ornaments. This time, we have select beautifully painted small cups (each about 300cc (10 fl oz) capacity) suitable for drinking sake. These cups come with wooden boxes that are also painted by the same artisans who painted the cups. The drawn pictures are birds, flowers and Japanese traditional motifs.
Please take a visit at Kutani-yaki category.

Kaba-zaiku wooden tray

Kaba-zaiku tray

Kaba-zaiku wooden crafts are made of Japanese cherry trees' barks. Thin cheery barks are pasted on wooden trays. This bark crafting is the traditional work in Akita prefecture, which is the northern part of Japan main island (Honshu). We have selected some Kaba-zaiku trays and listed on our website.For maintaining the crafts, please don not wash the product in a dishwasher.

Yamanaka lacquerware

Yamanaka lacuerware cup

Yamanaka lacuerware tray

Yamanaka lacquer wares are traditional craft products in Ishikawa prefecture. They strive to keep the natural tastes of woods. This time, we have selected some trays and cups that are made of woods grown in Japan. It is true that many Japanese wooden products are made from woods grown in North American continent these days, but we have selected regional products to offer Japanese local taste.
According to a study, lacuerwares  have a strong antibacterial effect and they restrain the growth of bacteria. Lacuerwares made from100% natural strongly fight against E coli and aureus, and are free from environmental hormones.
Again, for maintaining the crafts, please don not wash the product in a dishwasher.

Thank you for visiting our blog!

 

More new noren curtains added

Hello and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com,

We have added 14 new design noren curtains. These ones are from a noren producer at Asakusa, Tokyo. They have been producing various design noren curtains for years.
Please take a look if you find new ones that interest you.
http://www.nipponcraft.com/index_en_jpy_3.html

Thank you visiting our blog!

New noren curtains added

Hello and Welcome to www.nipponcraft.com,

We have added new type of noren curtains. These noren curtains come from a producer in Asakusa, Tokyo producing authentic noren curtains of many designs. Ishizuka-san, the chief producer, sticks to good dyeing noren curtains. He also runs his own noren curtain shop called Bengara in Asakusa, where we have many visitors from all over the world.

The noren curtains depicted below are wide width of 170cm (70 inches).  A wide noren curtain could be used as an interior decoration over a kitchen sink viewing to a living room.   

170cm width and 45cm  height, fishes design

170cm width and 45cm height, bamboo design

This one below is also wide width of 120cm (47.2 inches). The printed design is a Japanese hiragana letter meaning hot spa. This noren curtain is originally meant to be a doorway hanging in front of a public bathhouse, but it could be used for your purpose.


120cm width and 140cm height

The designs below are ordinary off-the-shelf 85cm (33.5 inches) width. Please take a look if they interest you.
When purchasing a noren curtain, please make sure if its size fits to your interior and your purpose. All sizes are described in each section of the items.

Welcome to our shop design

Fish design

Kanji letter "Mai" dancing

Squid design

All Kanji letters describing fishes 

Thank you for visiting our blog!