Japanese mortar and pestle

There's a small Japanese grocery and gift store near campus call Sakura http://www.sakuragroceries.com/. It's inside the same shopping center as this place to buy cooking stuff so I wandered in after wanting to buy a empty glass drizzle bottle to make some Piri Piri oil (basically just chili oil). The place doesn't have fresh vegetables, fruit, or meat, it's almost like a Japanese 7-11. I don't have an affinity for Japanese food in general so I don't do much cooking in that area. Though I went to one psychic randomly who said I should eat more miso soup so maybe I should stock up on that. There was some macha green tea I might buy sometime and bought some organic soba noodles since I figured it could be useful someday.
I've been meaning to get a mortar and pestle since I've been stocking up on spices and stuff to use and I wanted to get this Thai one that I saw in a magazine http://www.saveur.com/gallery/SAVEUR-100s-Kitchen-Gadgets-and-Books which is around 25 bucks online (I couldn't find one at the local Asian megamart). Th smallest Western style mortar and pestle went for as low as 40 bucks at the kitchen supply place. I saw this small Japanese mortar and pestle and it was 8 bucks for the bowl and about 4 bucks for the pestle. It's kind of neat looking because it has all these ridges going along the sides. The bad part is that spices do get stuck in the grooves, so it doesn't grind super well. Good enough for me though, I don't care that much and it's relatively cheap.