SANDAKAN, Malaysia -- The last thing I ever expected to find in Sandakan was the Doraemon Drinks shop.
Yet here it was, with that cute, roly-poly 22nd-century robot cat grinning over the door. Of course, I snapped a picture of my 8-year-old son, a diehard fan (as I am), sipping a drink under the sign.
A few minutes later we found a bookstore with a stack of Doraemon comics in which our hero spoke Malay. "He's very popular. Everybody knows him," the shopkeeper assured us.
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