It's not much whether it is a .net, but the fact that only names of places in Japan and China have sold for more than $1000 and their valuation have increased steadily across the board in the matter of months.
That is something which many of us have overlooked, especially those of us who never blinked an eye spending thousands of dollars on junk drops and OVT names.
We've come a long way from my "maiden sale" of 25 Japanese city .COMs last December -
http://www.dnforum.com/f5/25-idn-xn-...ad-124572.html
The 25 .COMs were on the market for more than 2 weeks at $45 each with no one biting, until Bill came - he was smart enough to see that they are worth much more than that.
At the end of the day, city names are still the most valuable, and just because you do not see a Denver.com or Seattle.com being announced sold on DNJ doesn't mean they are not valuable - they are so valuable that transactions are rare and even if there are, would be private sale to big investors and companies. OTOH, you would find plenty of lesser valued dictionary names sold for 5 or 6 figures announced on DNJ.
Finally, all i can say is that the buyer did the right choice - if i had the extra cash, i would also take the domain at 10k. Com'mon what's 10K, can it buy 1/2 a square meter in Ginza?