At least there's no Celine Dion....

Domo. Domo. Domo. Imagine I am bowing twice for every domo. That is how sorry I am for this late update. I’m sure you’ve been climbing the walls thinking about the poor man’s Reno and wondering what I could possibly mean by that. Well, let me tell you...

Pachinko. I don’t know what it is either. But on every corner in every town there is a Pachinko Palace. Yes, you heard me. Pachinko Palace. They’re everywhere. In a ghost town, the Pachinko Palace is the last place to go out of business. Stewart said no bank has ever turned someone down when they are investing in a Pachinko Palace. Apparently, there are just no bad locations or over-saturation of these shadowy businesses.

Now, to give you a better idea of Pachinko Palaces: think The Sands in the late 70’s. That will give you a visual of the outside. Inside, imagine the smokiest, most crowded, loudest casino you’ve ever visited or seen on television. Well, that’s close enough. And here’s the kicker, there is only one game: Pachinko, and it’s a slot machine game. You heard me, that’s it.

How can these be so popular? There are no shows; so on one hand, I guess that means no Celine Dion or Toni Braxton which can only be a good thing. But it also means no Wayne Newton which I consider a tragedy. No clubs, restaurants, or bars. No poker or roulette. I’m sure you can come up with a few more things Vegas has that I won’t mention because I’ve been warned that kids are reading this blog. But we both know what you’re thinking about and no, none of those either. So again, I ask. How can these be so popular?

And popular they are. They open at 10 am every morning and appear to be packed just about around the clock. All of them. I would guess that Kumamoto has maybe 50 Pachinko places in the city limits, maybe 75. All of them are busy. And these are good size buildings. Three or four floors full of slot machines. I just don’t get it.

To make things even more shady, gambling is illegal in Japan. Technically, Pachinko Palaces get around this by operating something like Chuck E. Cheese. You don’t win money, but tickets which you can exchange for prizes. I can hear your outrage from here. After you exchange your tickets for a stuffed animal or something, you take that prize to the back door, where “they” buy it back for probably about a fourth of what they paid for it and about a tenth or what you actually spent playing the game. And that’s if you do well. But , it gets better. “They” are actually North Koreans sending the money back to North Korea straight into the hands of Kim Jong Il and his cronies. And like many things they don’t like, Japan just don’t think about it. Actually, maybe I am more like the Japanese than I think….

So, that’s poor man’s Reno. These things are everywhere in Japan. To give you an idea, a town like Lawrence would probably have about 10 Pachinko Palaces, maybe 15. It’s disturbing if you want to know the truth of it.

Also, everywhere in Japan are vending machines. They all sell drinks, though. No food or candy. Just drinks and occasionally cigarettes. And most of the drinks are very small. Because apparently, it’s considered bad manners to walk and drink at the same time. So, Japanese buy these small cans that cost just as much as the big ones and stand by the vending machine and drink it all before continuing on their way.

A few more odds and ends. I’ll talk about my first few days teaching English in my next post.

Nobie and I had lunch yesterday at a traditional Ramen shop. And whatever you are thinking in regards to the instant ramen you can buy at any grocery store or gas station, forget it. There is absolutely no comparison between the two. This was just mouthwatering delicious. It was called ‘Sapporo style’ ramen, and consisted on a pork broth with lots of vegetables and ramen noodles. Just fantastic. We also had a small plate of what I call potstickers, but Japanese call ‘gyouza“. It was all fantastic, which just made the musical choice all the more head-scratching. I'm eating amazing homemade ramen, when suddenly I listen to the music and hear, "My milkshake brings all the boys to the bar..." Odd.

Later that evening, Nobie made stirfried pork with kimchi – spicy fermented cabbage, which was very good. And for dessert, we had small doughnuts called ‘Okinawa doughnuts,’ but Stewart and I call ‘okie-does.’ We’re going to patent the term and make a ton of money off of it. How the Japanese never thought of it, I’ll never know.

I’ll post again soon with the details of my school days. Thanks for reading!

- Jenny