The Yebisu Museum

I just arrived in Nagoya and I'm now writing on Alex's computer, the same one he uses to write his blog. If I told you I was sober right now, I would be an うそつき, or liar. That's thanks to a successful day at the Yebisu Museum in Ebisu, Tokyo. If you're looking for something to do in Tokyo, I highly recommend this museum. Yui, Chris, and I left Yui's house around 1:00 and wisely decided to buy my ticket to Nagoya first, while we were still sober enough to do so. Then it was off to the Yebisu museum. The museum consists of a large central room with a tour going from the left-hand side and a tasting room on the right. First-timers are encouraged to take the tour, while repeat visitors can head straight to the prize on the right. The museum itself is free, and tasting costs about 200 yen for a 350ml draft beer. But we'll discuss that in more depth later. The tour was kind of fun, but all in Japanese, so somewhat difficult to understand. They had some neat old-fashioned brewing machines as well as some attractive glasswear and computer quizzes on beer knowledge. Here are some pictures I took from the tour:





But really, the tour pales in comparison to the tasting room. It's 200 yean for Yebisu Black (the best ever) and regular Yebisu (also awesome) and 250 yen for Weiss, which is actually really good and I think only sold in the museum. You can get some other Sapporo products and Guinness too for more money, but don't. The Black is where it's at. I had nine beers total, 5 Yebisu Black, 3 Regular, and 1 Weiss. It was delicious. With each beer you also get some complimentary beer snacks, which are pretty tasty. We spent a couple hours drinking, talking, and playing Nagano Snatch, and it was great fun. I don't have any pictures of this, but I'll show you some great shots I took while enjoying the black for the first time yesterday. Just imagine these pictures times 5.





Finally it was time to leave, and we headed to Tokyo station to catch my shinkansen. We got to the station in time to drunkenly devour some tasty curry, then it was time to say goodbye. I had a great time with Yui and Chris, and I can't wait to hang out with them back in the Minnie-Min. I rode the Shinkansen drunk, and it was sort of difficult because I was paranoid about missing my stop. So I read some Dostoevsky and The Cat Who Lived a Million Times again. I arrived in Nagoya safely, and now I'm ready ready for bed.

Children's Books and Beautiful Black Beer

Let me start things off with this video.



This is one of the funniest South Park clips ever. For those of you unable to translate the Japanese, it goes something like this:

A wonderful penis thing
The testicles have hair
Is that sound a baby monkey?
No, it's Ninjas!

Hey, Hey, Let's go, there's a fight
The important thing is to protect my balls
I'm a badass, So let's fighting
Let's fighting love

That being said, I have discovered my favorite beer and my favorite children's book. Both today. First was the children's book,
hyaku-man kai ikita neko, or The Cat Who Lived a Million Times. It's about a cat that has a million different lives with all kinds of people who love it very much, but it always hates the people. Then it becomes a stray cat for one of its lives and loves it because it gets to focus on itself all the time. This cat then becomes really popular with all the other cats because of all the stuff he's learned in his million lives, so he starts to get really full of himself. Except there's this one beautiful white cat that never even notices him. He keeps going up to her saying things like "i've lived a million times i can do all sorts of tricks" and she just says "that's true." Finally, the cat realizes he's not gonna impress this other cat with his previous lives, so he just humbles himself and asks if he can sit with her, and she says yeah. So then they get married and have a bunch of kids and eventually all the kids leave home and the two cats get old. Then the white cat dies, and the cat who lived a million times cries a million times for days on end, and dies and doesn't come back to life. It's an awesome story, and I could actually read and understand it in Japanese with just a little help from Yui. I highly recommend children's books, especially this one, for practicing reading Japanese. I bought it at Village Vanguard, which is basically a spencer's gifts of Japan, with tons of really weird stuff. It was such an awesome purchase, i think I'll read it again tonight.



From Village Vanguard we headed to a small bar named Harmonica, Chris knew which served Yebisu (king of Japanese beers) on tap. We were expecting just regular Yebisu, but we discovered they had Yebisu Black (like Guiness) on tap. We each ordered a glass at what we thought was an overpriced 530 yen. Oh how wrong we were. It was the most delicious beer I've ever had and we took some great pictures of ourselves enjoying it, which I will hopefully put up tomorrow. We happily ordered a second glass of the dark ambrosia then took the train home. While walking home from the station we stopped at the konbini and bought yet another Yebisu Kuro (black), and discovered it was almost as delicious from a can as it was from the tap. I'm going through some anxiety over this because I know it will be nearly impossible to get this beer in the states. If anyone knows where you can get Yebisu in the states or online, please please please let me know. It's just too delicious.

We ended the day drinking beers and eating snacks (I recommend Cratz) in the park. Tomorrow we're going to go to the Yebisu museum, which happens to have a tasting room. Hell Yes. I'll see you tomorrow if I'm sober enough to remember.

Tonkatsu Snatch, Nagano Snatch, and Other Fun Card Games to Be Played Without Women

Right now I'm at my buddy Yui's house in Tokyo, and I am unable to upload any pictures, oh wait, Yes I am, he has an SD reader built into his laptop. Suh-weet. So me, Yui, and Chris spent just about all of today traveling from Nagano to Tokyo, and I have to say it was the best day of travel I've ever had. We got up late this morning mainly because of the large quantity of beer we consumed the night before and the late hours we spent playing Tonkatsu Snatch.

Which brings me to my main point, Tonkatsu Snatch is the greatest. Any invented card game that is still fun after 2 hours will likely be fun forever. I'm pretty sure that'll hold up. Anyways. Tonkatsu Snatch was born on Chris and Yui's bus ride up to Nagano. It started out as a version of war, except when you have two cards of the same value against each other you can try to "snatch" the card from the other person's hand. They then upgraded it to any time there are two cards of the same suit, the lower card can try to snatch the higher one. Only one snatch per card. If any of these snatching rules are broken (multiple snatches, snatch from high to low), the rule breaker receives a backhanded slap. When Yui and Chris arrived in Nagano, we soon adapted this masterwork game into a three person variant, where any time there are two of the same card or two cards of the same suit a snatch-for-all occurs, in which any player can snatch a card greater than or equal to their own. If no snatch is successful, the highest card wins. If a successful snatch occurs, the other player keeps their card in hand below the next card, to be snatched, won or lost on the next round. All of the same slapping rules apply for misdemeanors. The game ends when one person runs out of cards, at which point he is slapped by both other players, and then the player with the most cards wins. Don't be perturbed by all the rules, as the game will still be fun while most of these are bent or broken. The name tonkatsu snatch comes from Chris's habit of accidentally calling the kotatsu (heated table) where we play, tonkatsu (pork cutlet) combined with the given snatching nature of the game. Also, this is what I would look like if I were Jesus:

Next is Nagano Snatch, which we invented on the train from Yamanouchi to Nagano. Although Nagano Snatch is a much simpler game, it requires some special equipment, namely a deck of nude playing cards. The game is played similarly to spades, where all the cards (including the Jokers) are dealt out to the three players. The players must follow suit, as in hearts or spades, and the MOST ATTRACTIVE card wins. This is subjective, but it isn't hard to reach a consensus. If it is between two cards, the third player not involved in the dispute is the judge. If you do not have any cards of a certain suit, you can play any card, and jokers are every suit. For additional fun you can play with the scoring system of spades, making it a really multi-faceted game. Try different decks and players to change the experience. We played this game for 4 hours on the bus to Tokyo amidst downing a liter and a half of delicious Japanese beer apiece, I highly recommend.

We're currently working on some more games to incorporate into some kind of Todd, Chris, and Yui olympics. That should be pretty sweet. Also, has anyone seen that awesome kimchi commercial on fujiTV, I think. It's where this guy adds a bunch of green onions to a pot of kimchi in slow motion, then he reaches in his chop sticks with his mouth wide open ALSO in slow motion, then eats it. All the while, in the background the music is a bunch of men yelling "Kimuchi Kimuchi, Kimuchi Kimuchi". It's probably my favorite commercial ever. I will be forever indebted to anyone who finds me a link to it online. I looked hard, but this is what I found instead. Make sure you watch to the very end, that's the best part.

Engrish around Nagano Station, and a Little Something on the Side

I know, I know, I already posted today, but this is important. Last night I went to pick up two of my buddies from Tokyo at Nagano Station. I noticed as you head towards a more populated area, the concentration of Engrish greatly increases. For those of you not familiar with Engrish, it's basically any hilarious use of English by Japanese people including replacing l's with r's, improper grammer, and bizzare word choice. For hilarious examples, click here. Anyways, I found some great stuff around Nagano station, try to find it if you're ever in the area:

Then let's go to the beach!

Yep.

I hope I never get one of those.

These are my friends Chris and Yui from Tokyo. They're thuggin thuggin thuggin. This picture was taken right before a kickass day of skiiing and boarding that happily ended with Chris fucking up his ankle.

And this is what I had for dinner last night:

That's right, it's a steak donburi. Really awful idea. Really all you have is a mediocre steak and a plain bowl of rice, and then your out 1000 yen. Gotta love Gusto.

And I have one more treat for you, this is a video Yui showed me today when we got back from the mountains. It's basically hilarious. I give you, "Taking Off All of My Clothes Off."