Blingy keitai straps

I have long been fascinated by the plethora of straps for keitai cell phones here in Japan. I've seen some seriously blingy ones before. I was even tempted to buy one with real Mikimoto pearls at the Mikimoto pearl shop in Ginza. Thankfully, I thought better of it and didn't buy one of those elegant yet distinctive straps for my keitai. I hardly appreciate the straps I do have, never mind one that would have set me back a couple of hundred of dollars. I already have 4 different straps - but none of them blingy.

With this blingy strap I managed to zoom in on it from about 4 people away. She's got more than one strap on her cellphone but the one I wanted to get on film was the stylized one of Minnie Mouse. Japanese women are known for loving all things kawaii (cute). Famous characters from San Rio (Hello Kitty), Disney (like my own Stitch strap), DreamWorks, etc, are popular sources for strap themes. I showed this one to my husband and he didn't even recognize the Minnie Mouse figure out of the "ball of beads." Admittedly, it's way overkill for anything that I would want to carry on my keitai, but I'm not the norm. I have 4 straps on my keitai and this is a conservative number compared to the other bundles of keitai straps I see dangling from cell phones here in Tokyo. I also have only practical things on my straps:

• Stitch on a Mikasa volleyball (okay so I lied, this is my one indulgence to kawaii-ness)
  
• a compass
• a thermometer
• a mini dual blue gel pen/highlighter

I figure when in Rome (or in this case, Japan), do as the Romans do (or as the Japanese do). To date, I think my 500 yen Stitch on a volleyball was the best investment yet. I get so many comments on it. The worse investment was the thermometer - not sensitive enough. Besides these days, all I need to know is that it's "too hot out," the exact degree is irrelevant. The most practical and best life saver of all was the compass. I use it all the time if I've previewed the area I need to get to on an online map beforehand; I won't use it if I look at a map once I arrive at the destination. Most Japanese maps don't give you a bearing for North, but you can bet it's usually not pointing up like all good, geographically correct maps should. The pen has been handy for jotting down phone numbers --- not that I get a lot, just that it's come in handy at those 3 specific occasions.

To get into the culture more, I'm thinking of ditching the 700 yen thermometer strap and replacing it with one that's more flashy. Think bling on a strap.