WasabiJoe

gray_fox224

AroundTheFur

MoreTypingOfTheDeadPlease

Its total BS I know.

They are pretty much authorized to perform legal theft if they want.

Witzbold

Its most likey becuase customs went through each and everyone one, viewing the contents.

Yes I am 100% certian this is what they did, becuase US Customs and I are "good" friends.

Seriously though, either he acted odd or said something to tip them off to warrenting the search / viewing.

Either that or it was the usual bad day, and his luck ran out.

Witzbold

A friend of mine was held on the airport for several hours because he had lots of DVD-R and unmarked VHS-cassettes (which were perfectly legal for his work)??

retronaut

I really like weird buildings like that... not to like go there repeatedly but to stop in once to see what it's like. Mostly to see the types of people that go in there.

Jim on the Wall

In order to get to Nevada from my home in Placerville, Californa, I have to drive through Lake Taho. I had recently watched Smoking Aces and decided to stop at the Horizon casino for lunch since it is so visible in the movie (its the hotel you see from the penthouse). I was surprised to find that the casino was almost deserted. There were only a few trolls scattered about mindlessly pushing buttons on the slot machines. A "troll" is the word I coined years ago to describe those short 50+ glassey eyed people you see hunched over slot machines in Las Vegas.

The Nevada casnios have become particularily bleak places lately since the slot machines no longer accept real coins. It used to be that you would hear the happy noise of cloins clinking into the pan when someone wins a prize or cashes out. I always go into casinos with a few quarters in my pocket but lately all I have been able to use them for is tipping the waitresses. All the slot machines have a piece of metal covering their coin slots. The next generation of children will probably wonder why they are called slot machines.

In the buffet that could easily hold 200 people, there were about 10 people eating Sunday brunch. While walking to my table, I asked the waitress what times of the year were most busy for the casino. She told me that it was never busy any more. I guess that all the new indian casinos combined with high gas prices have made the long drive to Nevada a lot less attractive for California gamblers. To make matters worse, this winter there was not enough snow in the mountains around Tahoe for them to open the ski resorts.

After my depressing lunch, I drove over the mountains and into the pristine desert landscapes of northern Nevada. My Google Earth mystery container turned out to be a watering hole setup by the Deptartment of the Interior for the local wildlife.

grangerfx

But, yeah, that's one freaky-ass place. Those shots of completely deserted hallways remind me a little of Silent Hill 3. And, of course, all. that. mahjong.

Blah8

To me it sounds like a place to avoid the reality of home-life (whatever that may be). Mahjong is mentally taxing and a good distraction. I can understand why it's the game of choice.

I hope you went home to some warm embraces from your family. That place sounded cold... real cold.

Qube

alby13

Rayzak

You should come back there with holy water. And a shotgun.

MonsterKingRen

Great piece though。I love the stop-go writing style. Ashcroft's style. About Japan.
And stuff.

fecalchaos

The thing is, and this is why I'm conflicted about articles like this, is that you're not really getting an accurate representation of Japan or Japanese culture through an article like this. I mean don't you agree that a deserted building and the few people that hang out in it are inherently not representative of the culture in which they exist? It would be like exploring the inside of the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, on the Brooklyn side, and then proclaiming "boy, America sure is a strange place."

I think that outsiders to any culture have a tendency to latch on to the fringes of that culture because they're weird and different, and then having no central point of reference they just lump all those things together along with the Studio Ghibli museums and Sega Joypolis's and Sanjusangendo Temples and fast food restaurants and other things that are really representative. They end up carrying equal weight. But they don't carry equal weight within the culture itself.

Mahjong is certainly a big part of Japanese culture. But the context of it in the setting of this article is not. This is the fringe.

badasscat

Can we see some pics of the people you've seen? Like the fat-waitresses, hot nurses etc.

Area seems like a den for old people who likes to gamble or get "extra service".

Mahjong is really big in Asian countries. Bigger than Texas hold'em.

excaliburps

But creepy as hell. Felt like I was reading someone's trip into Silent Hill. Thanks for the warning though. Now I'll never head to Japan expecting to play some games.

Tiger-Fever

Witzbold

I swear I love the internet eh? :D

A 100 yen soapland sounds more scary than cool. D: I dont even want to know what kind of people work in there.

Witzbold

http://mfeed.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY20070421005...

Also, a short blurb from Wikipedia:

The New Shinbashi Building, the triangular (and certainly not new-looking) building on the west side of JR Shinbashi station, has a multitude of dark, smoky, cramped izakayas in its basement levels. Not recommended if you don't like the smell of broiled fish.

Finally, from http://blog.q-taro.com/Snapshots.php:

On a side note, that building to the left is called the New Shinbashi Building and it's worth visiting if you have nothing better to do. There's some weird shops in here including, I kid you not, a ¥100 soapland. For ¥100 they probably just wash your hands for you...

Elly

Reminds me of some parts of the underground Tokyo station. Although Im not sure if it still looks like that, since I recall they had a huge renovation fixing up a lot of stuff to look nicer.

Witzbold

caster

Ashcraft you have some serious kahones my friend, and I salute you.

Witzbold

Over here, since it costs a stupid amount of money to go blowing the thing up, and doing all the paperwork and such to do such a thing. People just tend to leave them standing there, unless another "medium" steps in buys the property then does all the work with either renewing the place or building a new one.

That might explain why that building looks like that.

Ive seen a few places like that also in my wandering travels here in Japan.

As with any big city, there will always be places like this.

Im sure it might be a front for the Yakuza too. Since where there is gambling and women, the Yaks are usually involved in some way or another. If they arent, they are sure to arrive to take a cut once they find out about it.

From how our brave adventurer Ashcraft describes it, it doesnt sound like thats a place the cops or normal people would visit all that much either.

---

Elly I do agree with the part about wanting to find out more of the building itself.

Reading the story makes me want to wander down there and see whats up with the place.

I could imagine more odd things happen at the later hours and such.

Witzbold

Protector one

PENI_MASTA

Elly

Maybe it's a front for a very large brothel or the Yakuza or Tom Cruise. Seems very eerie nonetheless, and I was getting a rather depressed vibe from your writing so I'm not sure what to think.

8-10,000 yen seems like a lot for that type of place, especially for a half hour. I've seen soaplands offering lower prices at all times of the day, and I'm pretty sure those last longer than 30 minutes.

Point being, how do they get off (no pun intended) thinking they can charge that in such an empty place? How does anything there, for that matter, turn a profit? Was it just an incredibly slow day or does it really operate that way all the time? I'd really like to hear some about this. Please follow up sometime, it's really interesting!

I don't think I could've left the building without shouting, "what the hell is this place?"

Elly

D00mM4r1n3

Dark-Pen

So many mahjong...

Dark-Pen

"There's something like thirteen arcades in this building. That's a lot. Too many, even. Do you know why?"
"It's always been that way."
...
"Why all the mahjong arcade games?"
"Because it's popular."

That is so totally Franz Kafka! I need to go there real soon.

"KE"

StrikerGold

jaz

Adult Mah-Jong games have been in existence for a dozen? 2 dozen? more? years now. Pick up MAME and you'll see an incredible number of Mah-Jong games.

They even have adult video pachinko games. Why is it mostly men that play Mah-jong? Because men love titties.

hell, I learned how to play mah-jong specifically so I could see the titties in the MAME emulated Mah-Jong games. Some of them even have simulated contact mini-games.

It is surprising that there are so many arcades in the one building. The fact that they all offer mah-jong is simple though. Mah-Jong makes a lot of money, why would you not add that cash cow to your floor plan. Eventually economics will drop every non-mahjong from the arcades. As that happens, the arcades will gain the reputation that they are not children's arcades, so less kids will come, more adults will come, more mah-jong ad infinitum.

Maybe there were arcades there that were 'upstanding' non-mah-jong arcades. If they survived, they moved to some other building though. It's like saying why don't people play Go at the cafe on the corner anymore, when the other buildings on that corner are all pachinko parlors, and the cafe added a couple of pachinko machines too.

austinpoet

pillow

execrationist

Anyway, a great article to read. Not much to learn about, but still a fun timewaster on my Friday night.

Collins1990

Seabass

Zyzex

3inst3in

Witzbold

Akvan

Yeah, that place seemed pretty damn depressing despite all of the arcade machines. As popular as Mahjong is though, you'd think stuff like Star Horse or Pachinko would outnumber the Mahjong games considering the demographic.

Do Kesubei

Arcades to me are now nothing more than sad graveyards of what once was, and will be no more. That and Dance Dance Revolution and its ilk, within a ten-foot radius of which I'm not going.

Ketsuban

Strange experience.

Rukusa

johnny_ultimate

spot778

Ghede

Btw, great feature. I hope you can make features about more arcades around Japan. As fan of arcades it always gives a good feeling seeing an arcade packed with people... it's a shame that they're become scarce around the world... :(

Lider

thaKingRocka

thebluick

N-Bomb

I plan on going to Tokyo again this summer, and I'd like to visit the Shibuya kaikan. Could anyone give me directions to that place?

y2kenjination

There's one quality that I did notice about this 'arcade', and that's that there weren't a lot of children/teenagers around. No matter the popularity of arcade games or mahjong, I would think that the older the population that uses the building, the more mahjong would be played, generally.

PratzStrike

WanderLink

bird1988

It is pretty strange to have some many mahjong places in one area though. There were usually one or two in an arcade and that's it.

Zim

dantheman1000

BPMο

bird1988