Like winning the Lottery!

[Meathead]

An elderly woman buys a run-down building in Chiba prefecture, Japan, and finds a 90's arcade.

See the pictures here. Over 200 pictures!

The story here.

Arcade.jpgarcade1.jpg

[hanabi]

wow

how fantastic is that!!

[ballsofsteel]

I guess it's better than finding that the previous tenant collected old refrigerators.

[naha13]

Except most them are the size of a small fridge!

I guess it's better than finding that the previous tenant collected old refrigerators.

[MrGneiss]

Thats Rad!!

[Drunkenclam]

But there is no where to keep my beer cold

[Meathead]

But there is no where to keep my beer cold

That's odd. I didn't think Brits drank their beer cold.

[ballsofsteel]

Old fridge cost many Yen to haul away. Maybe someone might actually buy them darn vidiot games. (Does Japan even have vidiot game collectors? - that Victory Lap dual cockpit could fill one of their apartments)

Except most them are the size of a small fridge!

I guess it's better than finding that the previous tenant collected old refrigerators.

[hanabi]

That's odd. I didn't think Brits drank their beer cold.

I'm sorry but I just had to 'groan' that comment

can't imagine anything tasting worse than warm beer

[MrGneiss]

All beer is equally gross!!

[Meathead]

All beer is equally gross!!

Oh no. Apparently you haven't tried Heineken. That stuff blows.

[Drunkenclam]

That's odd. I didn't think Brits drank their beer cold.

A strange American misconception that UK beers are warm. The lagers are chilled first through a cooler consisting of spiral pipes running through a block of ice, all the way from the celler to the tap with chilled water pumped through pipes adjacent to the beer lines all wrapped up in a thermal jacket, the whole lot is nicknames the python (if memory serves me right) some beer taps continue the cold water all the way up the neck of the tap.

Real ales are not as cold but should be served below room temperature ( around 54 deg F) Ales need to be looked after carefully as served to hot or to cold kills the flavour. Also the cask should be vented, then tapped and left to settle before being served. Then ideally consumed with in 3 days or it starts to go off.

In the Pub

I spent to long working for the Bass Brewery.

[Meathead]

Well, a lot of the standard American beers you had to drink cold just so you couldn't taste how bad they were. In the mid-eighties, though, microbreweries started popping up and got big in the nineties. It was a very good thing because at that time, Miller, Anheuser Busch, Coors, and all the other standards began to compete and actually produced some much better beers.

I think the American perception of British drinking warm beer revolved around a joke that Lucas Electrical also made your refrigerators.

[Drunkenclam]

Ah yes. But as far as I'm aware Lucas never made any components for the domestic electrical equipment market. Only automotive and aerospace.

Ask a Brit what they think of domestic American Beer at any temperature
Oh and the light switch in my old mustang sucked. I updated the whole lot with Lucas 9" headlamps and relays running 55/100w bulbs. I like to see the road in front

[luckydog]

when I was 22, we had a big 40th anniversary picnic for my parents with a keg of beer, after everyone left, my buddies and i filled 6 one gallon glass milk jug with the beer that was left

we went down to the local beach and drank most of it before it got too warm

[heima]

Too Kool!
But considering the cost of land and property in Japan, I cannot believe that Grandma never knew what she was buying.

But lets have some speculation fun. So just how did an arcade:

1. Up and close mid-operation? Like the turned off the lights one night, and the next day, never opened again.

2. That supposedly closed mid-90's have games from 1997 inside? Time warp?

3. How was the building purchased, that you did not know its purpose or contents? Missing inspection reports? ???

4. What will happen now to the building?

Provide your own creative/logical answers.

I'll go first.

1. The arcade was a Yakuza front. The first two floors were arcade, but the rest were used for "other" purposes. The police caught the gangsters in a sting operation and had the place closed the next day. The trial took so long, several years. All the while, the building was kept closed, "sealed" as evidence. The trial finally ended, the "owner" of the building was found innocent. But he was actually a gangster as well, and because the building had become tainted, he had no need for it anymore.

2. Though closed, some of the employees still had access to the building. The police did sloppy work and did not get the keys from everybody. So the building sits during the trial and ex-employees would come in a play the games. Bringing a generator of course. The ex-employees brought some of their own games to the building for a place to keep it, and to have parties.

3. When the Tsunami hit Japan, many records were lost to the flood. The records for this building were stored in the basement of a building in the Chiba prefecture. Though the Iwate and Fukushima prefectures saw the greatest damage from the tsunami, parts of the Chiba prefecture did experience flooding.

Locally, the building was known to have been seized by the police, but then returned to the owner. However because the deed and records of the land and property were lost, its actual owner could not be identified anymore. (and he had skipped town years before) Through an eminent-domain clause, the Chiba prefectural government assumed ownership of the property and as in typical governmental efficiency, did not bother to inspect the property, but instead labeled its condition unknown. (cheaper that way) The government auctioned off the land in an unknown, unadvertised, auction held in a small, inacessible town. Of course the property went for pennies on the dollar.

4. The grandmother was one who had always wanted her own home. She had been living in apartments, and renting homes when her husband was alive. That was years ago and she had saved up a nest egg for herself. It was serendipitous that the government was having a land auction in her own town. She had known that the building was some sort of Yakuza hideout, but it had been abandoned for over a decade. They would not be coming back. But she also knew that the Yakuza were not "cheap", and had their buildings made of quality materials and filled with luxurious amenities.

She was the only person to bid on the building, partly because she revealed that the building was used for drugs, prostitution, and who know what all, in idle talk before the actual bidding. She may have even dropped a gangster ghost in there as well. The final price was extremely reasonable, but the grandmother would have to restore the building to a liveable condition, that would have to pass government inspection. The discovery of the arcade was a godsend, as the money from the sale of games would pay for the necessary repairs. Grandma will turn this into her own apartment building, and live on the top floor. The income from tennants rent will make her life much easier.