父の日

今日は父の日 (Today is Father’s Day).

Just as they did on 母の日 (Mother’s Day), my kids told my wife and I we should go out on a “date” and they’d cook dinner today. (Click here to read my post for last Mother’s Day).

So my wife and I went to 上野 (Ueno, Tokyo).

We walked around for a bit and stopped at a coffee shop for a coffee and talked for a while.
Then we stopped at a store and bought some things our daughters needed for school.

When our daughters called and told that dinner would be ready soon, we headed home.

Dinner was wonderful! As it’s 父の日 (Father’s Day), my kids made one of my favorites: 「豚キムチ」 (Pork and Kimuchi on rice) and a fruit salad for dessert!
美味しかった！ (It was delicious!)

After dinner, they gave me Father’s Day presents! One daughter gave me a ケータイ・ストラップ (cell-phone strap) that she made by hand! It’s very nice! And it’s black—my kids know my taste!
The other two gave me a notebook / pen set for my 日本語 (Japanese language) studies! Great!

It was an excellent day!

(When my wife and I went to 上野 (Ueno) today, we passed by 下谷神社 (Shitaya Shrine). Here are a few pictures I took of the 「鳥居」 (Torii Gate) in front of the shrine):

パチンコ

I’ve written an earlier post (click here to read it), Japan has many types of 「パチンコ」 (pachinko) machines.

If you want to know about what 「パチンコ」 (pachinko) is, you can read my earlier posts that I wrote about it.
(click here and here).

「パチンコ」 (pachinko) is often called “Japanese pinball”…and like pinball machines, 「パチンコ」 (pachinko) machines are decorated with pictures of famous people or characters.

In Japan, there are Spiderman, JAWS, Marilyn Monroe, 「ウルトラマン」 (Ultraman), and 「七人の侍」 ( The Seven Samurai) 「パチンコ」 (pachinko) machines.

That’s just an example. There are many others.
There’s even a 「パチンコ」 (pachinko) machine for the Japanese pop singer 「倖田來未」 (Koda Kumi):

(Click here to see the Koda Kumi Pachinko website).

As I mentioned in the earlier post I mentioned above (click here to read it), there are also KISS and Star Wars 「パチンコ」 (pachinko) machines:

(Click here to see the KISS Pachinko website.)

(Click here to see the Star Wars Pachinko website.)

Now there’s a new 「パチンコ」 (pachinko) machine. And it’s also decorated with images from American pop-culture.
It’s the Bon-Jovi 「パチンコ」 (pachinko) machine. It plays some songs by the band and has cartoon images in their likeness.

(Click here to visit the Bon Jovi Pachinko website).