Japan Railways Pokemon Tie-in

In Japan there are many ways to buy your train tickets but the easiest way to use the JR (Japanese Railyways) system is with the touch and go “suica” card. The card, which is about the same size as a credit card, can be used to pay your train fare by simply tapping it against the train entrance barrier, and also to purchase food and goods at certain stores and vending machines(indicated by a blown up penguin standing outside the store), also buy touching a small panel. In an effort to get more children to use the suica system, Nintendo is having a promotion where kids can use their suica to play a Pokémon slot machine type game at their Yokohama Pokémon center store, from the 22nd of this month to May 7th (which covers a week all Japanese students have off from school). I don’t know what pokémon goods you can win playing this game (stickers and a sun-visor are some lame examples) but if I’m in Yokohama over golden week I will certainly try it out.