Day Eight: A Lesson In Pachinko

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Tokyo is city of Pachinko. I had no idea what it meant until today, but Pachinko places are everywhere, people always giggle when you ask them what it is and I think the word sounds really cute. Pa-chin-ko!! To me it sounds like the kind of place you go to to be cuddled by smiling, furry animals under a sea of glittering rainbows and shooting stars.

However, when I went exploring today with the german girls we discovered that there were no brilliant rainbows, it was certainly not the place for animals (smiling and furry or otherwise) and whilst there may be a chance of a shooting it most definately wouldn't be from a distant star.

Pachinko is in fact a grim, dingy casino type place, where all the machines are these odd contraptions, kinda like a pinball machine, but with no common sense to it. Of course, after being cooped up in class all day we were thrilled nonetheless and tried to play pachinko.

Some might say we successfully played pachinko.

Others would say we tried our best, hitting random buttons and wondering what was wrong with it before realising we had put money into the machine next to the one we were sitting at.

Most people would probably say we irritated the crap out of the business men pachinko-ing in all seriousness and should've saved our money for some sushi for the long trip home.

Anyone who said either of the last two options would've been bang on the money and would've received their weight in pachinko balls - because you don't get money or tickets, or coins you get little round gold balls, that you can exchange for food. Apparently its illegal to actually win any money at pachinko, which means I have no idea what all the business men in their suits and their briefcases with their mountains of shiny gold balls were trying to do. Have an addiction and still feed the family? Melt the little gold balls in a pot to make some authentic cheap rings to sell at Gaijin joints for unreasonable amounts? Maybe they're all just in a competition to see who has the most balls. To be honest I have no idea, and after 5 minutes in the loud, scary pachinko hut we'd all had enough. We disposed of our balls, scraped up our dignity, packed our cameras away and went and sat in the cafe next door drinking hot chocolate and bitching about class.
It was a lovely afternoon.

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Photos

Pachinko
Us with our dirty little hands on the balls of the mighty pachinko!

Comments

[Jake]

You can get some money from pachinko.......
If you want to gamble at a pachinko parlor. First: Look to see if the parlor has small gold plated bars for prizes. Second: Get you balls together. Third: Win more balls. Forth: Exchange your balls for fake gold bars. Fifth: Look for a small merchant window around the parlor. It will be a small box of a room, which strangle secure. It has a window. Sixth: Go to the window and exchange your fake gold bars for real money. If they look at you wondering why you want to give them gold bars, when you’re at a bicycle parking lot vendor box then repeat step 5.