We went to a really old pachinko parlour and I thought that that night could have been the night but no, I am still a pachinko virgin. Five hundred yen each bought us saucers of small corks and time with the rifles, trying to shoot things off of these shelves:

I figured out that if I aimed for one of the bottom guys I could always hit a block from the middle shelf. Some of the blocks had cheesy 1970s portraits glued to them - kept going for this kid with a green shirt and shiny side-parted blond hair. Walked out of there with two trophies: a blue honey-dew melon-sized bouncy ball and a small hello kitty cloth bag.