It's Thursday morning here now.

The day before yesterday I gave Chi a ring for our sixth mensiversary, then left to hang out with my friend Yutaka. We went to a famous park, ate some ramen, played some pachinko, then went to his house to talk to his girlfriend and play some ps2. It was a lot of fun.

Pachinko is a kind of legal gambling here in Japan. There are pachinko parlors everywhere. You can't walk far without finding one. I've been wanting to try it for a long time now. Yutaka taught me how to play it.

It's kind of a mix between pinball and slots. First you buy a bunch of pinballs. Then you fire balls into the machine at whatever speed you desire. Those balls then trickle down through a bunch of nails. Your objective is to get a ball into a little hole near the bottom. If you get a ball into the hole, then you're able to try your luck at the slots. If you win the slots (any three numbers in a row), then for a few minutes afterwards, for every pinball you get into the hole at the bottom, you win more pinballs. It's kind of fun, but pure luck. You really have no control whatsoever of the outcome. It also seems like it's very unlikely that you'll win any money.

Lots of people lose lots of money on Pachinko. I think it's one of the main reasons why Japanese people commit suicide all the time.

Yesterday Chi went to tutor Ami. I went shopping with Chi's mom.

Today I'm going to go to a Go salon in Kawagoe to play Go. Chi and Chi's mom went to the hospital to see Chi's grandpa.