Pachinko

Pachinko Parlours are through out the city and through out Japan.  Pachinko is the equivalent of a games arcade and gambling pokie machine place combined.  In Fukuoka there is a whole street full of Pachinko Parlours.  As you walk in, you are surrounded by the noise and rows and rows of people playing what look like slot machines.  To play Pachinko you really don’t need to much skill...at least I didn’t!  It is a bit like a pin ball machine and you just hope everything lands in the right place.  Because gambling is illegal in Japan, you only win balls, that you can then change for tokens... but if you go next door you can swap the tokens for money or use them to buy prizes, so that way nothing is illegal.  I have just read online that the Japanese government estimates of the annual turnover of the pachinko industry is in the region of 29 trillion yen (try writing that number! Then see how many $NZ)  Pachinko makes twice as much money as the  Japanese automobile industry!

Pachinko Parlour:

Pachinko Machine:

My school day

Just like you, I am off to school everyday! I can take the train to Tenjin which is one of the city centers.  Even though I leave the house at rush hour there are not too many commuters on the train.  Not at all like Tokyo, where you have to be pushed on board by a station official, and are then jammed in like sardines!
It takes about ten minutes to get to school and by the time I have stopped for a koohii (can you translate?) I am ready for class.  The teachers are great, they only speak Japanese in class so if I am not paying attention it is easy to get lost! All our reading and writing has to be in Japanese so it has been a confusing time, fortunately there are only 6 students in my class... or maybe not so fortunate as the teacher soon notices if you don't understand.  At lunch time everyone goes to the obentoo shop for lunch and then back to class for another 2 hours. It is all very tiring... because you are always trying to understand what is going on around you.  I am sure my Japanese must be getting better, if not because of the classes, then just because I need to be understood if I want to get anything done!

Dazaifu Shrine

This weekend I was a very good tourist and I took myself off to a very famous temple. Dazaifu is an area just outside Fukuoka and was once the center for the Kyushuu government offices. Later it became a place where nobles were sent in disgrace. One of those nobles was Sugawara no Michizane, who was later became a type of God. The shrine stands on his grave and students go there to worship as they believe he can help them succeed at school. Students write down their wishes and leave them outside the shrine for good luck. I probably should have tried something like that myself to help with my Japanese lessons!

Walking up to the Shrine the streets are lined with shops selling omiyage おみやげ, or gifts. It was great to see all the women wearing their kimono on their way to the shrine.

Afterwards I visited the Kyushuu Museum which was very interesting, although the lady that was snoring in the theatre next to me may not have thought so! It made me realise what a young country New Zealand really is, especially when you are looking at artifacts from the 4 century and earlier!

Talking about food...

Last night I went to a great restaurant... well maybe not the greatest but very cool for those who can't speak Japanese because they had plastic models of the food outside. This is a fairly common feature in many restaurants, in fact in Tokyo they have a who street devoted just to selling plastic food for restaurants... and it is not cheap. And it really does look real. Check out these pictures...

I had the tempura from the first photo and yes it did look just same... and tasted great too! おおしい！ So all my ordering problems are taken care of now just as long as I choose the right restaurant. Although there is another style of restaurant that makes my life easy as well. At many ramen or noodle restaurants they have a vending machine out the front, choose your dish, you pay your money, take a ticket and then wait inside. I love it when life... or at least eating, is made so simple!

Can you work out the prices in $NZ?

What's for lunch?

On e of the great things about Japan is the food and the fact it is so easy to get take aways. They do have Makudonarudos and Kentaki Chiiken but that isn't as good as an Obentoo おべんと box. You can pick one up in any convenience store, supermarket or from 100s of tiny restaurants. They are boxes divided into small parts and each part has something different to eat. For the most part they are delicious. And the good thing if you cant read a menu is at least what you see is what you get! I have only had one small mistake so far... it looked like chicken but definitely wasn't chicken! I am still not sure what it was but I will not be picking up that one again soon. You usually get some vegetables, meat? or chicken, some salad and some pickles and of course a good helping of rice.

I found this video on the net of some children singing before they sit down and eat there bentoo... maybe we should try this before lunch?



The last bit of the video is where they say Ittadakimasu いただきます, it is like saying thanks before you eat. Also you will hear Gochiso-samadeshita ごちそさまでした which means thank you for the meal... listen carefully you should be able to work out who they are thanking!

Money Money...おかね！

My pockets are rattling with coins, I am yet to see the equivalent of an eftpos machine as everyone just peels off the cash. The coins are 1,5 10,100 and 500 and then you hit the notes.

Things are generally more expensive but I will let you work that out... see if you can find the exchange rate and calculate the price.
One of the best ways to buy a drink is to use a vending machine. No matter how far you may be away from the main shops you can always find one, usually drinks, or cigarettes, sometimes whiskey and beer (I don't know how the machine knows if you are old enough?!) Some even sell eggs or rice, although I haven't seen any of those around my neighborhood yet!
A can of drink will cost you 150 yen from a machine... I noticed that cigarettes are 410 yen for ten. Is that cheaper than at home? Do you think that could be why many Japanese people smoke? It costs me 250 yen to take the train to school everyday... so you do the maths!

Vending machines around my hostel:

Home sweet home!

I have just had Whaea Janice on Skype taking a tour of my new room. There is very little to see as you can really only turn around but there are parts of the room that do have a definite Japanese feel to them. As you walk into the room there is a step where you stop to take off your shoes, it is very bad mannered to wear your shoes inside and even at school today we removed our shoes and put on slippers for class. (Then if you go to the loo you have to change into special toilet slippers... I did spend a bit of time obsessing about whose feet had been in there before mine!) The other very Japanese part of my room is the bed, I have a futon mattress, which is a little bit like a slab of concrete and a special pillow, only small, that is filled with beans, which is like another slab of concrete, I am sure it is all very good for my back!
The bathroom is very small, about 1.6m x 1.6m. In Japan they have small but very deep baths (well compared to NZ anyway) The idea is that you wash yourself before you get into the bath. Many Japanese people would be disgusted to know that NZ people just sit around in dirty bath water and then think they get out clean! They could be right!
So that is my little space in Fukuoka. I had another walk around the town and you can see some pictures. Check out all the bikes. I have almost been run over several times as people ride all over the place then leave their bikes at the train station. There is very little crime here and many people don't even lock up thei
r bikes... and they are still there when they get back!

Bikes outside the station

Department store window, selling kimono for the summer festival

Lost in Fukuoka

I made it! It was a long way here but planes, trains and then getting very lost in a taxi, I was finally delivered me to the door of my hostel. I had forgotten the address system over here that makes finding your way around a bit tricky, there are no street names just a series of numbers and if you are unfamiliar with how things work you can get a bit confused, just ask my taxi driver, and he was a local! Anyway I have since made several trips back to the train station, all taking a different route and think I may have finally nailed the way out of this rabbit warren, at least I have knocked a good 10 minutes off the walking time! The main streets are just like at home but once you get into the residential area they are very narrow and one way, as a driver you spend a lot of time backing up roads or tooting to make sure you don't meet anyone on a hairpin bend.

The train "home"

The view from my bedroom window

Click here to learn more about Fukuoka City