Sushi, Pachinko & Sumo

It's a fairly regular weekend, but I guess these three topics were part of it. Last night, Ayako and I went for conveyor belt sushi. I remember I had this style of sushi on the second day I was in Japan. But since that time, I think this was only my third time. It's a cheap way to get sushi...only $1 a plate. I had 11 plates last night and I was pretty stuffed. At the same time, now that I've had more expensive sushi since I've been here, I can see that the quality of last night's sushi was only so-so, but the price was nice.

As for pachinko, I didn't go into a pachinko parlor, but found a silver ball outside of one:
I've never gone into a pachinko parlor since they are super noisy & smoking & an easy way to lose money (like slot machines). The ball is put into a machine like this:And if you win, lots more silver balls come out of the machine which can be traded in for money. I had one student who played quite often, and so I gradually have learned how the game is played without even having to go into a parlor.

I actually found the pachinko ball on the way to the library. The library is actually a new one and is the most beautiful one I've ever seen. It had interesting architecture and allowed lots of light throughout it. I went there to get a book that explains sumo. After watching a few tournaments on TV, I've gradually started liking sumo more since I can understand more of the strategies, rather than it being just 'two fat guys shoving each other'. There's a tournament in Osaka now, and so I'm hoping to watch some on TV today.