Yoko and Mario

Yoko being the cool chick she is, came to Tomioka with azuki (anko) sweets, Mame Daifuku (white) and Waribimoshi (brown). 

 The day started off at about 2.30pm, when we left home on my day off to pay my rent for the month. 

 The mission was to get an O-furikomi Kado, a bank transfer card which automates paying my rent without having to ask a japanese person to "hold my hand" at the ATM every month. 

 We were too late to get to the bank by 3pm at Yokohama, so we went to Kamioka and did the procedure just in time. After doing that we went to Macdonalds for a free iced coffee before taking the next train to Yokohama. 

 First stop was the Gelato Firenze where I had a mango, kiwi yoghurt and double berry gelato and gf had a tropical fruit, strawberry cake and something else that I have totally forgotten. It must have been good.

  We did a round trip around the Yokohama Minato Mirai area making our way to the Red Brick Warehouse precinct, which had mostly homeware shops so it was a little ordinary. We followed the area in a circle until we got back to Landmark Tower again.

 

We walked back to Yokohama station, a 20 minute walk from Minato Mirai and I we stopped in a Taito game arcade that had a lot of UFO catchers. 

 I played a 100 yen machine for a Disney bunny I have called "Yoko". It took about 1000 yen to win. The damn thing would just not go down the friggin' shute! On the last try I put a coin in (my sensitive trigger fingers), before it fell down finally of its own accord. 

 Because I put the coin in after I had already won the prize, the staff gave me a free credit on another machine. I wisely chose the Super Mario machine and only put in one 100 yen coin and got it first go! 

 It was pretty close. The claw pushed the toy against the side of the shute, leaving me in suspense for what felt like more than a few minutes, then letting gravity pull it down all the way into my tense hands. 

 I am addicted to these machines, but to tell you the truth I enjoy the challenge of winning SOMETHING. I only have to figure out now how I'm going to get these stuffed toys back to Australia.