Saturday morning in Kamiyamada, I woke up early and spent the morning walking around, being cold and taking pictures of old buildings. The weather was beautiful and clear, but the day-onsen only open at 9 or 10 AM, and at some point I just got too cold. Fortunately there was this kissa…which was very ordinary, but this was a very ordinary sort of trip. And if you’re an overseas reader, you might be amused by these pictures.
Normal enough exterior, but nice. What you can’t see is that this is joined to a larger shop selling souvenirs – either dolls or candy, I can’t remember which! Looks like they had some extra space in the family store and stuck a coffee shop in.
If you have any interest in retro games or Chinese gambling (and who doesn’t love at least one of those things?)…this is a vintage table-style video game that plays mah jong! How weird is that? It reminds me of this one time when I went to the Antenna Shop building in Yurakucho (Kotsu Kaikan, I think – the building with the big round thing on the top and the JNTO offices. In the basement was a really retro arcade with lots of table games like this (except playable things, like Frogger or Galaxian).
Mmmmmm, coffee. Actually it was terrible. Who ever would have guessed?
But the Olympics were on – giant slalom – so I settled in with my buddies and watched for a while before heading out to find a bath. You always wondered what went on in these places, right? Now you know – nothing much.