Redditgifts is an international Secret Santa gift exchange with different themes throughout the year. Recently, I participated in their “Rilakkuma and Friends” exchange, which was San-X themed!

My Secret Santa (G-Honey) sent me a shiny new Rilakkuma phone charm, and an adorably soft Tonkatsu plush coin purse!

His bottom swings around when you move him!

Look at this fluffy Tonkatsu plush coin purse with a Hokori zipper pull!

What a lovely gift – I’m so grateful!

Oooh the Rilakkuma is really so cute and shiny – anyone know exactly what he’s holding in his paw? Looks a little like a jug of milk to me haha.

Also the Tonkatsu coin purse is so soft, dirty old coins don’t deserve him! Haha maybe I’ll put little Starbursts inside of him or something ;)

This is my first time participating in Redditgifts, so thank you so much, Santa! Check out the other San-X gifts people received at the Redditgifts “Rilakkuma and Friends” gallery!

In international Rilakkuma news, the San-X Net Shop server crashed during the Dr. Yellow / JAXA release – yikes!

I anticipated the server being slow because it’s a big and exciting release, but I’ve never seen the site quite like this before! I bookmarked the products I wanted ahead of time, and I refreshed my page exactly at 10:00AM JST (9:00PM EST on Friday for me)… the loading time was super slow which was expected, but what was the strangest was that I couldn’t get to the payment page.

The first time around, I was online waiting for pages to load for about an hour when I finally got to check out, logged in, and confirmed my address – when my cart would be mysteriously cleared! This happened about 5 more times over the course of several hours (I was adamant to get these bears haha) until 3AM my time, when San-X released an official statement that their site was unable to handle any orders.

The San-X Net Shop has informed the public and apologized via Facebook, email, Twitter, and their website:

Screenshot of current San-X Net Shop webpage

7月19日10時頃からサンエックスネットショップが非常につながりづらい状況となっておりました。 サーバーメンテナンスでの復旧作業を行いましたが、7月19日16:00現在、抜本的な解決には至っておらず… http://t.co/4us481yIOB

— リラックマごゆるりサイト (@rilakkuma_gyr) July 19, 2014

Wow, the server must have been really overloaded from all the kuma fans!

I really appreciate their transparency, and I wish them luck to get their site back up and running soon – get well soon, San-X Net Shop!

Anyway, here were the three plushies I was planning on ordering:

JAXA Rilakkuma, Dr. Yellow Rilakkuma hugging pillow, and Dr. Yellow Rilakkuma plushie.

Hopefully I’ll get my hands on them soon! Another attempt will be made next week :)

The San-X Facebook page has been posting really cool photos of the JAXA / Dr. Yellow collaboration, which makes me extra excited! Can’t wait to finally place an order next week because they look great!

Wow, look at that mountain of JAXA kumas!

I always love these Rilakkuma statues!

Also, be sure to check out Reddit Rilakkuma fan angelacarpediem’s personal photo album of the Rilakkuma Factory Tower Records Cafe in Shibuya! Wow!

According to angelacarpediem, each table there has a Rilakkuma plush – they are really lovely and high quality photos, so definitely check them out! I really want to go someday!

Sneak peek! Lots more incredible photos from the cafe in angelacarpediem’s photo album!

I hope one day my kuma photography skills will be that good, too! Thanks so much for sharing these great photos with the Rilakkuma community, angelacarpediem!

In other news, I’m heading off to the Dominican Republic next Friday for medical service work, so might get a little quiet on this end. I might try to squeeze in another post before I go, but if not, see you in August!