What a fabulous box of Japanese wonderment!

When I got home late, I found on my doorstep a box the size of a piece of carryon luggage, with return address an APO address. It could be from ANYwhere in the world! And THANK YOU for your service. The girls (my guinea pigs) gave it a thorough exterior inspection, but once I gave them the first interior layer of brown wrapping paper, they settled in to munching on it. (Who needs expensive pet toys? That'll hold them "between meals" for a week!)

The box further held a dizzying assortment of penguin-, Santa-, and reindeer-wrapped packages. Nestled among them was a postcard from Okinawa. Here's the child of the 80's emerging -- my brain went straight to Karate Kid II and started singing "Glory of Love". BTW, never say representation doesn't matter. As a Chinese-American kid, seeing all those Asians onscreen was a big deal.

Hubs and I took to tearing into things and discovered a fan, a waving kitty, a snowglobe/toothbrush holder, some edible goodies including one with angry ninja grapes?!, Minnie Mouse biscuits, and strawberry-creamsicle gum. A jade bead bracelet, some desk ornaments, including hand bell chimes and a ceramic cat. Hubs was particularly delighted to find a spinning hand drum, "Like in the movie!" he declared, as he immediately started spinning it. Fortunately he didn't expect me to defeat the reformed-bad-guy's still-evil-spirited nephew with a brutal "Whonk!"

The packages just kept coming! What I thought was perhaps a pencil case turned out to be a beautiful kimono-patterned reusable shopping bag. Some grey not-quite toe-socks with kitties were actually meant for use with flip-flops!

And the piece de resistance, beautiful ceramic bowls with contented, well-fed kitties adorning them. As we're well into the comfort food season of the year, these will be constantly full of soup, stews, rice bowls, popcorn...

Thank you so much, /u/DippyMcDumbAss!