As much as i enjoy ordering stuff online, i have never order from Amazon before up until the Okami Official Works was translated and released by Udon books. Amazon was the only online store that i know of which was carrying it as Play-asia only had the original Japanese version. I had no idea what the shipping rates and delivery time would be like, having grown so accustomed to HK online stores. In some ways, ordering and getting this book was like an adventure itself much like the game.
As you probably know Amazon does not provide free shipping overseas and shipping for books aren't cheap so i actually talked my friend Andy into ordering one for himself in order to save on postage! One problem solved then came the day when it would finally arrived, about 10 days after it was shipped from US. All that came was a little pink slip asking the recipient to pick it up from the post office collection centre in downtown. Being a bit of an otaku, i had no idea where is this collection centre so getting there was going to be a bit of a problem. So in the end, i got my dad to drive me down on a Saturday while i navigate our way with a roadmap. When i finally got there and went inside their storeroom, it looked like the warehouse where they stored the ark in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Apparently the parcel could not be shipped to my home address as it was encased in a M-bag (which looks more like a fishnet to me) and the post office had no authority to open it.
So i got home and open the parcel only to discover that the book shipped all the way from US was actually printed in HK! Oh the irony of that, Play-asia could have stocked it so i wouldn't have to go through all that trouble just to get it.
