Japanese Arcade

Today I took (aka was talked into taking) the kids to San A (three A's) which is a Japanese department store / grocery store / big box store similar to Jusco (you might remember previous postings on Jusco). Anyways, because of some challenge by Stevie to the boysat the soccer games yesterday, we somehow as parents owed our two boys a Bakugan a piece. Don't ask.

We found the aforementioned Bakugan at the BX, but Cannon decided he didn't want the BX Bakugan and needed to go to the Japanese store for a more exotic Bakugan and I got the pleasure of taking him today. (How did this happen? This was Stevie's challenge ...)

While wondering through San A trying to find the toy department, we passed the arcade, which seems to be standard fair in one of these Japanese Big Box stores. For the first time, though, we actually got sucked into this noise-blaring, lights -flashing, bells-and-whistles-abundant arcade. What can I say, I was curious and a little nagging by the kids led me to drop my guard.

The boys immediately decided on their choice of games - Cannon chose a flight simulator game and London a race car game. I sent Cannon off to his machine with his 100 Yen (about $ 1) and tried to get London set up with his game which included a seat belt (Huh? The Japanese don't strap their kids into real cars, but have shoulder belts for video games???) Before I could drop the coin into London's game, Cannon was back saying that he had been shot down and the game was over. Well, that was a hundred Yen well spent. And since London's game was half over before he was able to reach the peddles, his was also another hundred Yen well spent. I won't tell you about Emmy's. ..

But the neatest game in the joint (in my opinion) was the claw game. You know these types of games (if not, pay attention next time you enter WalMart and you'll see one). You drop in your quarter, maneuver the claw over a mound of stuffed toys and try to grab one and send it down the shoot. Well, the Japanese version is the same in concept, except their prizes are containers of rhinocerous beetles. I'm not lying - real, live, breathing rhinocerous beetles in a plastic cage! Have you ever seen one of these things? They're wicked looking bugs about three inches long with a big pincher thing sticking out. But they're legitimate pets here; I've seen them in the pet stores. Needless to say, I did not let the kids try this game for fear they would win!

(Note the claw in the upper left corner and the plastic boxes with the beeltes in them!)