greengate

I saw these latte cups on a website for a bakery. When you buy baked products from their bakery you receive a sticker for every 200 yen (about US$2), when you've saved up enough stickers for items from their catalog (one of them being this cup), you can redeem them.

Since the bakery in our area closed down, I don't have much access to collect the stickers, so I surfed the web and found a Japanese online shop for these Greengate latte cups.

Greengate, a Denmark company, has different items for the home. The online catalog kind of reminded me of Pottery Barn.

So, I ordered two from the site and I was lucky, they were having a sale, 30% off.

The shop was quick too, as soon as I ordered (which was a Friday), they sent me instructions by e-mail for payment.

I went to the bank (on that same Friday) and asked for help in putting the payment into the shop's account. Did you know that the security guard was the one who helped me use the bank machine? I don't think you'd ever see that in the States.

In Japan you often deposit monies into other people's accounts. We do this for our rent. And even if the banks are of the same name, they still charge you a handling fee (banking in Japan is a total rip-off!)

So, the cups were sent out on that same Friday and I received them the next day...talk about fast!

The cups are a nice size, holds about 2 cups, it is easy to hold in your hands, a nice way to warm-up.