Everything in Japan is the same as at home – only it's different. Take gambling in parlors like this. At the cash desk, you buy a basket full of metal marble-like things. They can't be overly expensive, because you get 200 marbles in each basket. You insert the marbles into the "pachinko" machine, where they drop, making a loud ping-ping-ping sound. Apparently, if the marbles fall in the right way, you win – or maybe not, I'm just guessing. The Japanese don't wait for their marbles to drop to the bottom of the machine; they keep pushing new ones in. If you win, you get – more marbles. So people sit there, robot-like, taking their won marbles, reinserting them, winning new ones, reinserting them ...You shouldn't try to make snapshots of the game addicts, though. When I'd taken this picture, some barking, gesticulating thug ran up to me – and I considered it a wise thing to get lost ASAP.
