I’m no help, but I’d love to find out how to buy things from this site…there are so many cute things! Does anyone know how to convert Yen to US Dollars?

They don’t mention about overseas shipping. Probably, they don’t expect order from anybody outside Japan. There is a envelope icon on upper right corner, which link to their email address.
But good news is, in the description, it says the wine rack is from Modernica / Case Study. That means it can be purchased in US.

There’s a little envelope on the upper right hand corner of the page, click on that to email them.

I havent tried with this particular site, but usually if you google “babelfish” a translation site comes up. Ten all you have to do is copy and paste the URL and select the language to translate to and from, then the site will come up translated. Well…roughly translated, sometimes there’s some pretty funny stuff on there. I do speak Japanese but its a little rusty as its been over 10 years, and reading is tough!
Anyways, I hope that might help.

i clicked on the little envelope icon and got this e-mail address:

info@bg-shop.net

Actually, there’s the envelope icon in the upper-right-hand corner, which is an e-mail link to info@bg-shop.net. :)

The “how to order” link walks you through the order-making process. However, they only have info available for people buying within Japan (money transfers from customers’ local Japanese bank or post office accounts to the company’s account, COD/credit card payments to the deliveryman, etc.

The fact that they have correct English on their site is a good sign, but chances are you’ll get a reply message that was run through Jpn-Eng Babelfish. ;P

As MN said it does say Modernica Case Study in the description – you should contact Modernica to see if they offer it, as I didn’t see it on their website.

(to lena) go here to convert currencies: http://finance.yahoo.com/currency

thanks everyone for all the help!
I will email both bg-shop and Modernica and let you know if I get a positive response.
In the meantime, my helpful boyfriend found one on the below site for me, which I think is similar, but not as nice (if anyone else fell as hard for this piece as I did, it might be a good substitute!).

http://www.hiandlomodern.com/LightingMain.html

OK in Los Angeles, CA carries this, and Tortoise in Venice, CA probably carries it too.

Even just the handle is really handy. The wine rack I currently have really doesn’t look stylish at all. In fact i have to keep on drinking all the wine just so that nobody sees it!

thanks so much, margaret! I didn’t see it on either site but have emailed them. fingers crossed!

The easiest way to do a quick currency conversion is to type it into the Google searchbox. E.g. try typing in “15000 yen in usd” right now. (This works for many other conversions, e.g. metric to non-metric).

About ordering things from Japan: most Japanese merchants are unwilling to ship directly to you overseas, for various reasons: language issues, fear of fraud, etc. But there are now some companies that can act as your representative, for a fee of course. On my ( mostly Japanese food) site there are a couple such sites listed, with reader reviews. It may be of interest to D*S readers who are Japanese design fans – http://www.justhungry.com/handbook/just-hungry-handbooks/japanese-grocery-store-list/worldwide-mailorder (scroll down to Overseas shipping services)

to anyone wanting to convert money, google does it. just type in (for example), 65 USD in AUD. so yen would be #JPY in USD… ta da!

this site has the wine rack with rounded housing – bet they could get the square one

http://www.zincdetails.com/shp/shopexd.asp?id=453055737

thanks everyone for all the great leads! no reply from BG shop yet.

LOVE it!

oh I wish I could help. Bg-shop only sent me newsletters in Japanese, which I can’t read as well. But I always use Google Translator and Yahoo! Currency Converter on jap sites. Unfortunately I haven’t bought anything fr Jap online shops just yet, well, other than Amazon Japan.

Recent post on apartmenttherapy:
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/chicago/ravenswood/shopping-in-chicago-ravenswood-antique-mart-0208-040860
shows the wine rack at Ravenswood Antique Mart in Chicago!

A little late to jump on the bandwagon since so many people have seen this sold in the US, but for future reference there are shopping services that will buy for you within Japan and ship to you, if the seller is unable to work directly with you and ship overseas. I believe one such service is called “Crescent Shop” but Googling “Japan shopping service” or the like should bring up a few. The problem with these services is the fee they charge, so it is usually better to try to work directly with the shop/designer.

i know i’m late to the party in discussing this, but i saw this at tortoise this weekend on abbot kinney venice and had a mini ‘aha!” moment. just checked the online store (http://www.tortoiselife.com/) and didn’t see it there but i suppose an old fashioned phone call might do the trick.