Enjoying, with the heart of a child, Motomachi Night Market at the fair on Motomachi shopping street

Good evening. It’s Fukumoto here.
I’m going to introduce to you the Motomachi Night Market today.

The Motomachi Night Market is a fair held annually on the shopping street of Motomachi.
This year (2015) it was held on July 28th.
We can’t miss this! Was what my wife and I thought and we rushed to the fair.

When we arrived, they were having a concert in front of the kimono shop “Marutaya.”
This was a regular thing every year at this night market.

By the way, the violinist Taro Hakase has been to the shop twice.
I was just at Taro’s concert that day so I got so excited thinking that I might have been able to meet him.

After having listened to nice music, I became hungry so I grabbed some hamburger at “Igrek Vega.” I eat like a horse.
It was good with tomatoes in it. (a brief comment)

And the beef! Fresh off the grill!

My wife and I took turns in eating the beef topped with just a little sauce.
I somehow felt that there were many booths selling meat.

Thanks to that, it helped stimulate my appetite LOL
I just love being surrounded by the smoke and smell of food being cooked over the grill at night fairs. Don’t you?

And next I discovered delicious-looking pork in front of “Twinkle,” a dress and jewelry store!
Meat juice, the smell, salt and the sauce! How can I resist?
I alternated eating the salted one and the one dipped in sauce, and in no time, it was all gone.

We ate stewed beef tendon and devil’s tongue, and it made my wife and me very happy.

We were stuffed, and now we were ready to enjoy the ambiance. Looking around, we realized something.
・・・we didn’t do the superball scooping!

Believe it or not, I’m good at superball scooping.
It’s not that I was keeping it a secret, but I never had the chance to show it to anyone.
With my eyes wide open, I searched for the booth. I was desperate.

And I found one!

I finally found one in front of “Shiseido,” an eyeglass shop!
As a superball scooping professional, at first glance, the place was in top condition.
My standards for “top condition” is as follows:
・the water is stationary (no current or waves)
・there are no superball that are not spherical (or there are only few)
・it is not windy (we are in the arcade, so this is basically not an issue)
・there is a good amount of space between balls.

The first one is critical, but even if there is no wave, a professional can create a different kind of “wave” being in the same spot for a long time.

Here I go.
I am dead serious, and I know I’m being childish.

I could care less that I, in fact, am starting to take “childish” as a compliment.

My wife was getting tired of waiting for the unstoppable me.
She started to hint me by saying, “Scooping 1 in x-seconds makes x-seconds for 100.” indirectly telling me how much time I’m spending scooping the superballs.

I spent 15 minutes after all and was satisfied so I aimed for the biggest superball (the white one on the bottom left in the picture) and let it go through the scoop. Game over.
My wife was laughing when I let the ball go through. Childish!

So, that was the Motomachi Night Market, a fair where you can eat, play, enjoy concerts and drink.
Anyone interested should check it out next time.
It you see a man incessantly scooping superballs, that’s me.


-----
About　Shinya Fukumoto
An engineer in Kobe who is crazy about curry and MINIs (the classic ones). Usually a serious person, but when writing articles, becomes playful even during photo sessions. Writes mostly about curry and other foods, occasionally about sightseeing. Won’t ask for more if you will just have fun reading the nonsense posts.