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Sake Festival, Saijo

1. Sake Matsuri, held at Saijo every October bills itself as “the biggest Citizen’s festival in Higashi (East) Hiroshima”, which I’m sure it is. But let’s just get right to the point — it’s just an excuse to get absolutely, totally, unequivocally blind drunk.

2. And with that in mind, I and an equally enthusiastic friend hopped on a local train for the 40 min journey to Saijo, a relatively small town (pop. about 170,000) east of Hiroshima. The festival spread itself over most of downtown Saijo, but the real fun was at the temporarily walled central park, stoically named “The Japanese Sake Breweries Assembly”. Upon entry you are given a small tasting cup and a list of exhibiting Sake breweries, all of whom had a number of different brands of Sake available for tasting: there were in total more than 900 different brands available. Oh boy.

3. We had arrived a couple of hours late, so the first order of business was to play a bit of catch up. The different breweries were arranged by area, from Hokkaido to Okinawa, in pavilions where eager patrons lined up to choose a shot from the available selection. After the first few my friend and I decided the lines were a bit too long, so we concocted an ingenious plan: we would line up one after the other, with the lead carrying both cups. They get their fill, turn, quickly down the contents, and pass the cups to the next person. Worked brilliantly, except we were caught in the act by the lovely Japanese girl pouring the Sake — who laughed and gave us a thumbs up. Officially sanctioned, then.

4. The afternoon slid away on a cloud of Sake-fuelled haze, punctured only by the realisation that the Sake was running out. All around us tents were shutting down, and patrons flocking from tent to tent for the next shot. We found a pavilion that did not was not so crowded, but was still serving, and pitched a tent (as it were). More and more people appeared at our tent, and the obviously intoxicated manager of the pavilion did his best to get everyone as drunk as inhumanly possible. (He produced a funnel at one stage — a funnel.) We were joined by a few more people we knew from work, who’s English was not the best, but one of them managed to goad me into a drinking contest anyway. The staff found it hilarious, and I was starting to wonder if they, like their boss, were dead drunk as well.

5. But, alas, all good things had to end, and end it did. Which was probably just as well since even basic animal skills like walking had deserted a lot of us. Staggering, if it could even be called that, out of the park was a struggle indeed, but in the liquid haze that followed (and the monster hangover that ensued) I came to realise that while the Japanese may value things like politeness and self-control, they are probably the world’s pre-eminent alcoholics. The sheer amount of alcohol put away in such a short time was, err, staggering. I’ve never thought of myself as being a big drinker, but I felt humbled in the presence of Giants.

6. I think I’ll be back next year.

• Posted in Hiroshima, LeftBrain on the 12.10.2006 @ 4:57:53 PM, Permanent Link
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