Pachinko

Jared and I finally went to play Pachinko before leaving Japan! We decided to go to the parlor on the corner right outside of Kadena Gate 5. As you can see, they also have slot machines in this particular parlor.

We had heard there were non-smoking sections, so we arrived with the hope of leaving unscathed from cigarette smoke. What a joke! We were within 15 feet of the front door and the air already reaked! We did, however, sit in a non-smoking row so smoke wasn't blowing directly in our faces while we played. Look how many people there were!

We spent 1000 yen per person, and received 250 pachinko balls per 1000 yen. In the picture above, Jared is pointing to one person's extra backup container of Pachinko balls!! If you can see in the below picture, this man next to me must have had $200+ worth of metal balls!

Quite honestly, this Wiki page explains the "game" better than I ever could: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachinko

What I do know is that when you are running low on balls in the top slot, you move them from the bottom slot to the top so they can continue to trickle down the machine. Since you are touching the metal balls the entire time, they have two sinks conveniently located inside of the entry/exit with soap and hand dryers. Use the sinks at the end, or bring hand sanitizer!

Jared and I were both out of balls in about 20 minutes. AND, we didn't win any prizes. Speaking of prizes, I tried to sneak a picture of them, but I wasn't able to because the Japanese attendant was making an "X" motion with his arms towards my direction when I pulled the camera out. Instead of a picture, I will describe the prizes: SPAM, Vienna Sausages, Cigarettes, light-up pens, candy, and other various junk. This attendant below is helping the gambler to check out and receive a coupon to cash in for prizes.

Glad to have done it for the experience, but this will be one of the rare times I will ever say this--live this one vicariously through us!! It is not worth your loss of money or your gain of stinky hair!

Three guesses...

As to what these are. Any takers? *HINT* They are NOT underwear!

Give up?






They are tissue-box covers! Why there are so many assorted colors and styles, I do not know, but I do know that this is the case only in Japan!

Ode to the Toyotas

We sold our second and final car today--a black Toyota Exiv. We are very grateful that we sold both vehicles before we left, and essentially for each asking price. We did acquiesce to a lower price for the new Toyota Town Ace van owner (how could we not accept $700 for that 20-year old piece of junk when we only paid $1K to purchase it?!), but there was no haggling on the sedan since it had lots of JCI time left and is in great mechanical shape.

I think we felt guilty for selling the Exiv for the same price WE purchased it for three years ago, but only for about 2 seconds! Wow it was sure nice to not have any car payments for either car! But you could only do that painlessly in Okinawa...and those who live here know what I mean.

We are looking forward to purchasing out a nice "family" car in Arizona and picking up our trusty, paid-off, F-150 back from Jared's folks when we visit Alabama for Thanksgiving. Thank goodness for generous mother-in-laws and great grannies who hoard money before they pass!

Express Shipment

In a total of 58 minutes, the Japanese moving company came and took our rather large express shipment today. Amazing. I have a few tips for future Okinawan movers:

1) NO LIQUIDS>>>ZERO. I kept hearing "no opened cleaning products" and "no aerosols" at all the moving briefs. Guess what?? Those phrases are UNDER-STATEMENTS. What they really mean is no Body Shop bubble bath, no astringent,no swiffer sweeper cleaner. No Aunt Jemima's Syrup, Purex, Palmolive, or Bugspray. The little man packaging the bathroom items politely took my liquids, opened and unopened, out of the containers they were in and placed them on the table. Got it?

2) TAKE YOUR PICTURES OFF THE WALL IN YOUR HALLWAY TO THE FRONT DOOR. Obviously I forgot to do that--it makes it easier for them to move your stuff out. 'Nuff said.

3) DON'T HOUND THE MOVERS. They really do know what they are doing over here. Matter of a fact, they don't even want you touching things or helping pack. Get out of their way and stay out. They disassemble and wrap faster than you can say "arigato." They even wrapped my plastic plates individually. What service!

4) THEY SPEAK AND WRITE ENGLISH. I was impressed. They listed all of the items I had, in English, on both the boxes and paperwork. Have no fear, no language barrier here...

Before

After

Shisa Dogs

The Freeman Family joined us on Saturday morning for shisa dog-making up at Sachi's Antiques in Nago. For 2500 yen, you can make your very own clay shisa if you have a group of 4; if you bring a group of 6, it is only 2000 yen per dog! You may choose to make your shisa sitting or standing, and you may choose yellow, red, or white clay.

There are two basic molds that Sachi's husband makes prior to you showing up. The one on the right is "sitting" and the one on the left is "standing." Everyone in our group made a "sitting" dog.

The first thing you do is cover your model with clay.

Next, you add ears and a tail.

Then eyebrows,

claws,

and decorations...

I think we were all quite proud of our finished products!

Since we had to wait 2 hours before we could return to pick up the dogs (Sachi's husband was not happy with us wanting to take them with us later that same day--he would have preferred we waited until Tuesday to pick them up so as to ensure not damaging wet clay figures on the drive back to Chatan...), we ate at "Pizza & Sky" for lunch. It is really close--about a 5 minute drive.

The trip up to Sachi's Antiques is about 75 minutes long--even if you take the expressway--so if you bring the kiddoes, you are in for a very long day...I don't recommend you bring them!

You will need to call ahead 24 hours in advance to reserve a spot, so when you call her, make sure to let Sachi know what color clay your would like to use! I didn't articulate that very well over the phone--we had asked for red, but when we got there, yellow was already set out. Despite the change, they still turned out super!

JoJo H20's Birthday By The Sea

THANK YOU JOHN AND JOANNE FOR A WONDERFUL REASON TO ENJOY A NIGHT OUT ON TOWN!

YUMMY!


HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GIRL!

IS IT ME OR ARE THERE A LOT OF CANDLES ON THIS CAKE?

WE WILL MISS YOUR CHEERFUL SMILE WHEN WE LEAVE!

Moisture

Thanks to all the rain we've received during the last few days, we had a little gift in our birdfeeder this afternoon!

Moving back to America

I think it is time to start a running list of things we will miss once we leave Okinawa:

1) Genuine customer service
2) Fresh, authentic sushi
3) Snorkeling and clear ocean water
4) Our sweet van, i.e. "The Brown Bomber"
5) Vending machines located approximately every 50 feet
6) Not having to think because there are no other options
7) Fresh vegetable markets
8) Coco's Curry
9) Buying inexpensive Chinese antique furniture
10) Roller slides
11) 100 YEN stores
12) ...more to be added later

Arizona, here we come!

Japanese Love Motel 101

In Japan, due to three or more familial generations living together in a home constructed of wood, tatami mats and paper-thin walls, couples go to "Love Motels" when they need some quality time.


To Americans, the idea is at first funny, then creepy, then kind of novel. So Jared and I finally took a peek at Hotel Mint House.

The cheapest rooms here cost $15.00 per hour, and cost $45.00 if you stay from 10pm until noon the next day.

To protect your privacy, there is a tarp that you pull across the parking spot when you park your car. Here we are in room 105. Jared liked the yellow hearts printed on the side of the tarp facing the street!

When you enter into the door in front of the parking spot, you can see the price listing for your particular room. Some rooms have pools and jacuzzis in them and others have Karaoke machines and Pachinko pinball games, and depending on the ammenities, they cost different amounts.

On the right side of the wall, there is a box with a picture of the room we selected lit up. We pressed the green button selecting the room, and then the room darkened on our screen and a big screen of all the rooms at the hotel entrance. That way, people would know our room was occupied.

Next we entered into a long, dark corridor. Thankfully, our room's light was lit up and we knew to enter that room.

Of course we had to remove our shoes and replace them with slippers before going upstairs!

Once we were at the top of the stairs, we had to take a left turn to enter into our room.

The bathroom amenities were clean and we even had a bidet!

The tub was oversized (particularly rare in Japan--and you know what I mean if you have ever stayed in a Japanese hotel in Tokyo!) and had jet streams that lit up with different colors. They even provided us with Mint-flavored bubble bath!

There was a "Rub Massage Mat" in the bathroom with cartoon characters that made us laugh out loud.

Here's the room in all its glory. Like the mirrors on the ceiling?!

Japanese "mood" lighting:

They had a T.V./DVD player, Karaoke machine and Nintendo gaming system in the room to keep us busy.

When we wanted to leave, we simply dialed "9" on the phone. A sweet Japanese woman came on the phone and said "One hour." A little box on the wall that looked like an alarm system displayed how much we owed.

Then we used something similar to a bank deposit system to insert our money and pay. We pressed the little red button to suction it back to the front desk.

Within 3 minutes we received our change back through the same tube.

When we exited our parking spot we noticed the sign on the wall said "under preparation."

All in all it was a fun adventure! We recommend you try it at least once while you live in Japan to be able to say you did it and to get away from the kids!