04/06/2018: Lots and lots of crane game winnings
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Today was slow but busy, and we didn’t do a whole lot, so this blog will be a little different.
The morning is largely uneventful. I woke up too early and wandered downstairs after spending a few hours lying on the futon staring at stuff on my phone. Mom and I prepare the baked goods we bought from the day before in the toaster oven and I make us some coffee.
She told me to stay at home today while she ferried Oba-chan and Oji-chan off to the clinic nearby, which she said would take “all day.” After loading them into the car, she drove off and I was left alone. I showered and put on a little makeup, thinking I’d be going to the hot spring later (spoiler alert: we didn’t have the time or energy!).
After what seemed like only half an hour, Mom was back and told me that after her parents were done at the clinic, we could go out together for a few hours before she needed to come back home and help them with more tasks. She’s tired.
We’re on our way to my favorite clothing store in Japan, GU. It’s the sister store to the widely popular Uniqlo, which can be found in shops all around the world (unless you live in Frederick, Maryland). Shopping in Japan is nice because the clothes fit me length-wise, so there’s no need to roll up jeans or sleeves constantly.
The downside is that my perfectly average body proportions are deemed pretty unusual here. Just because the pants fit length wise doesn’t mean then fit properly around my hips. The tank top I really like may fit nicely everywhere else except for my chest, where I guess I’m considered *~above average~*
I bought a few things, as did Mom, and we went over to a row of fairly large machines taking the place of cashiers. A single employee rushes over to us and gently guides us over to the machines and instructs on the self-checkout process.
There’s a door in front of the machine that you open and place your shopping basket into. You need to remove hangers from all of your clothes first before sliding the basket inside.
After that, the screen displays every item you intend on buying and reads it back to you, asking if it’s correct. After confirming, you drop in your money and the door opens again, prompting you to grab your items and walk them over to the bagging station.
In Japan, you bag all of your own things (depending on where you are). Groceries, clothes, that kind of stuff.
Because I can’t read a lot of Japanese, it was nice to have an English option. As we left the store, I expressed my fascination over the machines to Mom, who nodded.
“Did you see there was only one worker there?”
“Yes. This will probably become more common in the future,” she adds.
For lunch we stop by Kurazushi, which is a conveyer belt sushi restaurant that’s operated in a similar fashion to the self-checkout robot of the future.
There’s a screen where you order your sushi (with the option to read things in English) and in a couple minutes, it arrives above you through the use of a conveyor belt. I like this place. It’s nice, and we’ve come here a lot since I was a teenager. I tell Mom to order a lot of food, because I’m paying.
“You don’t have to,” she tells me but I insist. She’ll be driving me around everywhere on top of running errands and taking care of her parents, and the last thing I want to do is have her pay for all of our meals too.
We eat a lot of sushi. Actually, I eat a lot — 10 plates all to myself. I usually eat more, but we were on a schedule and had to go to the mall. After we’re finished eating, I press a button on the screen and a worker counts all of our plates and hands me a receipt to take to the front so I can pay.
15 plates of sushi, one bowl of udon, and some weird egg custard Mom ordered cost us less than $20.
OK so I used to be really good at crane games as a kid. Insanely good. I remember winning a giant blue Pooh-Bear one year as a child and running back to Oba-chan who was patiently waiting on a bench nearby, keeping an eye out of my brothers.
She was amazed that I had managed to grab that by myself with the 500 yen we had for allowance. As I’ve gotten older though, Alex has taken the title of being “really good at crane games,” but I think I’ve started to get better.
The last time the three of us went to Japan together was about three years ago, and Alex basically won something from a crane game every time. He showed me the technique, which was way different than what I did.
“You want to push them in.” He said. Jostle the joystick and aim for the toy’s back legs — or if it’s round, try rolling it around until you can knock it over. I think crane games have gotten harder over the years, and his technique holds true.
So if you ever find yourself in Japan, push them in. Don’t try and pick the up straight on. I ended up winning five stuffed Shiba plushies, and I started getting a few looks after parading them around the arcade center.
At one point I was going for a giant Kirby plush and was this close to winning it, but a crowd had formed behind me after a few people saw that I had a chance.
“Whoa! Look! She’s almost got it!” I heard someone say behind me. I can’t perform under pressure, and so I quickly failed and scurried away.
For dinner, we ate somen which is a buckwheat noodle you eat with a cold soy-sauced based broth. It’s great to eat on hot days. We all ate together but I could barely manage to keep my eyes open while drinking some after-dinner green tea.
Our nextdoor neighbor Rimi-chan had brought me a box of very nice cookies earlier in the day while Mom and I were out running errands, and Oba-chan handed me the phone and instructed me to call her.
After a few rings, she picked up. I thanked her very awkwardly for the sweets and told her I’d eat them all in a day. She laughed and told me she was glad, and that she had eaten all of her chocolate I had gotten for her already too.
I didn’t get to go to the hot spring today but I really hope I get to go tomorrow. I’m not sure what we’re doing, but I’m very happy to be spending time with my family like this. It’s fleeting, and I think I’d like to try and take some video of my neighborhood.
