競馬場！

I went to the horse races!

With a couple of friends I set out for a day in Kanazawa to see what horse racing was all about, and it was the first time for all of us. My friend kindly did his best to explain to me how the betting process works.  Although I was simultaneously grasping onto the Japanese gambling lexicon and it was my first experience of any kind of gambling I think I managed to get the routine down pretty quick.

It was lots of fun to go to the walking paddock and watch the horses walk, then try to judge and pick our "winners," with of course very little reasoning other than "Well he looks energetic, so, Ok!" During the quick races I sat on the edge of my seat silently rooting for my guy. We watched three races, unfortunately I did not win any of them. Guess I will need to spend more time at the track...

Later in the day, to my Japanese friend's extreme delight, he took us to a Pachinko parlor to try out Japan's most famous (infamous?) form of gambling. It was my first trip to a Pachinko parlor, and maybe my last... You sit down by yourself in front of a machine with a brightly lit screen, noisy with bright flashing lights. Once you put in your money, the machine pours out a certain amount of little gold-colored balls- these are your chances to win big. Next you barely turn the knob of the machine to direct how fast the balls shoot out and you hope that they hit all the obstacles just right to go down into the tiny hole at the bottom so they will go back into your reserves box to keep you in the game. While you sit still, hold the knob in whatever sweet spot you determine, you simply stare at the flashing screen with rolling pictures. When the pictures form a pattern like three of a kind, you win.

That is about it. I actually did win twice (a nice little rebound from my bad luck at the track), so I had a whole lot of new balls poured into my little box. At that point I had broken even with the original amount of money I spent, so I kept them in and continued play to see if  I could make any money. However I did not, so as soon as the balls were used up I declared myself done! I'm not sure that I will go to Pachinko again, however it was a quintessential Japan experience and I am glad I went!