pachinko king

yesterday night I was quite tired for the long day, and today it was quite the same... we had a laboratory meeting from 2pm to 6pm, including 2 long talks (about Brownian motors... mmhhh...). Therefore, yesterday I went just for a basic dinner in a pub, where I had a too sweet white wine and a good sake. At that point, it was well after 10, I could not go to sleep since I felt a little stuffed. After going for the Bic Camera superstore, which closed at 10.30 (f**k), I passed in front of one of those humongous Pachinko game halls. Enter? Enter.
My first attempt was with the mechanical grip, 100Y each try, trying to fish some rag puppet. I was aiming at a little black cat with a crossed eye. Tried 4 or 5 times, then realized it was not the right moment...

So I went inside, and spent quite a long time watching people play the last cry from Nintendo, that is Tekken 6. It is basically a fighting game, some kind of electronic Kung-fu, the human player against computer characters. Leo is a nice-looking character who always wins over Feng Wei (supposedly chinese but with facial traits and a dress that made him look closer to a black ugly spanish pirate). One of the guys kept playing female roles, over and over, I thought he might have had some identity trouble. His favourite character was the sweet Lili, a slender blondie wearing a pink corset, black fishnets and pink sneakers (funny combination), she won against Anna, a chinese dressed in the typical chinese dress (that's how you could guess she was chinese), and against Julia, some indian-american looking squaw with long braids and prominent tits.

Then I started peeking people who played SpinFever, a very simple money-eating game. Basically, you get the equivalent of some money in tokens (I guess it's about 200 for that money). Then you throw your tokens in the machine by two slits, tryin to let them fall in a good position. There are three "floors", and you drop your token on the upper one. Tokens slowly accumulate, and fall down the three stages, and eventually they fall into a hole, and you "win" them. Of course, the whole game is designed such that at each run you get back much less tokens than you put in. However, I got completely addicted, and for just 1,000Y I had almost one hour of fun, before losing my last token.
Around midnight I got out, eventually, and since I had some change left in my pockets, decided to give it a try again with the rag-cat. I really wanted to get it. However, despite all my attempts, the cat is still asleep in its glass box.

Today was again pretty dense. However, for a change, at lunch break we (three) went for a little sushi-ya place. Holy cowwww. One can't imagine WHAT sushi did I had for the ridiculous amount of 1,400Y (about £8, just unbelievable!). For much less and of quite lower quality, I paid almost five times more in London. And again sushi in the evening, after the long lab meeting, because of some kind of farewell-and-welcome party. Plus some very good japanese beer (which was called "The hops", and indeed the taste was vaguely close to our flemish-belgian beers). Plus the local McDonald specialty, the famous Chicken-shaku-shaku. Now, why McDo doesn't sell this stuff in Europe? This is a medium-sized battered chicken cutlet, kept warm in a paper-plastic bag. It comes with a small box containing hot peppered cheese dry powder. You open the chicken bag, pour the cheese powder inside, and then shake-shake it (guess where the name comes from?). It's filthy piggish delicious :)) Obviously tonight I didn't had dinner anymore. And also felt a little out of place. So I went just to try out some night photos with the Nikon, and then back here.

Some friend made harsh comments because I wrote in the previous mail the thing about people with cranky legs... Now, when looking more carefully, one easily can notice that this ‘defect’ is quite widespread among older people, typically around and above their 40s, and much less frequent in the youngsters. So, my guess is that it must be something having to do with nutrition. Japanese had a very restricted diet until the war, and right after the wartime, mostly based on seafood, fish and algae. Red meat as a general food habit was introduced only in the beginning of the XX century and was not certainly available to the middle or lower class people. And to confirm that, it appears that since the 60s, the japanese have increased their average height by 15cm!! this is quite amazing.... it's just because of vitamines and yoghurt?

Also their sex life must have been challenged... because of those pink corsets, black fishnet stockings, pink sneakers etc. In fact, one of the most sought-after articles in those trash-selling stores around Shibuya, are such boxes with fake dresses, to make one look like a schoolgirl, or a airline hostess, or a hotel maid etc... I spotted several guys browsing across the boxes, and was thinking whether they were looking for a "present" to their girlfriend, or they wanted to wear it themselves!!! However, this proves that even the japanese, who did not have any christian, sexually-repressing education, can become true perverts ;)