On our first day in Japan, we ambled from the ferry port into a Fukuoka shopping mall. For a moment we stared in strange amazement at how identical the place seemed to a typical North American shopping center. The eerie feeling turned slightly surreal when we spotted, in the middle of the corridor, a monk clad in only a loincloth, burning incense and chanting. Shoppers bustled past him, barely noticing or occasionally stopping to drop some coins in a box at his feet.
Politeness prevented us from snapping a picture of that strange and wonderful sight, but here's a collection of some of the other things that made us stop and scratch our heads in Japan.
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How much is that dinner in the window? We'd seen these plastic entrees often enough in Korea and even back in the U.S., but they were so omnipresent on the streets of Nagasaki that Rob snapped a photo. |
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Beer from a vending machine. Oh yes. |
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After you've spent half your change on that beer, take the rest into a "pachinko parlor"--you can find them all over Japan's major cities. |
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Though pachinko is often called "Japanese pinball," these gambling machines are much closer relatives to the Vegas slots. |
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This was the first time we'd seen one of the "Dance Dance Revolution"-style video games. Cheris instantly (and correctly) predicted that these games would be a smash hit in Korea within two months. |
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Here's a sampling of Japanese Yen. What's the culture shock here? The speed at which this money flies out of your pockets in Japan, one of the world's most expensive countries... |
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