I love a bit of wine, and since I’ve been in Japan I’ve been keeping notes on the wine I drink (and taking the occasional photo).

We’ve been going nearly every week for 3 years to a great wine bar in Ashiya, Petit Emillion, so been trying different wines each week.

So, I decided to make a wine review website so I could keep track of what I drank, and liked and disliked, and then I thought, why not let other people sign up and keep track of what they like, dislike etc.

A couple of weeks ago it went ‘live’ as they say, so why not check it out if you have time (and like a tipple or two).

It’s at www.moippai.com Wine Reviews (just click this link).

I’m in the process of adding a beer, whiskey and sake review section too, which should be up and running in a couple of weeks.

So please join (it’s free of course!), and start adding your own reviews or commenting on my (unprofessional) ones

Related posts:

1. Ashiya Festival and some Wine Tasting
2. Is That Beer?
3. Sake Tour of Kobe

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Post tags: Asahi, Drinking in Japan, Sake, Wine

At New Years shops, etc sell what are called Lucky Bags. Basically a closed bag containing who knows what, which you buy for a set price and hope to get lucky!

Similar to those bags you get at dodgy markets I guess, where the first one has something of value and all the rest have broken toasters or what not. (At least I assume that’s the scam). Anyway, these are not a scam, but like a New Years Blind Sale.

This year for the first time I bought one! In fact, I kinda bought two, but I’ll explain that later. The bags range from, I guess, 1000Yen up to 100,000Y or more in boutiques in Ginza, Tokyo, etc where you might find gold jewellery or something inside.

Well, we were wandering around the Ebisu festival in Nishinomiya the other week, and as well as all the food stalls they also have lots of game type things, like a fun fair in England. Darts, catching ducks, fish (live ones), lucky tickets, etc etc.

They also have these stores that have hundreds of PSP, PS3, DS games on display and lucky bag looking bags, supposedly with one of these games inside. This time (probably always), they were half price! Down to ￥500! Well, for £2 you got to haven’t you?

I scanned the bags, picked the one containing the best prize and….

My lucky bag..no DS game

I’ve not had a BB gun before, think they’re illegal in England, but here they’re very popular and you can buy them easily. They have machine guns and all sorts. I tried it out later and managed to shoot my hand. Bloody hurt. Put that back in the box pretty quick.

Walking around a bit more, we came across an off license with Asahi Beer lucky bags! Now these were bound to be better – the guy promised us that there was at least ￥1000 (the price) of beer in there. So I tried my luck　again…

Asahi Lucky Bag

Gonna stick to the off license lucky bags in future, but have to wait till next year now…

Related posts:

1. Free Stuff
2. A Very Pleasant Friday
3. Is That Beer?

© Silentjim for Balloon Shapes By Cops, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Asahi, Free Stuff, Lucky Bags, New Years

Things have been a bit difficult financially recently, mainly due to getting “married” in England in less than two months, which as everyone knows is very expensive, plus the extra cost of including a “holiday” to another country (and I don’t mean the honeymoon), so not much surplus cash kicking around.
Therefore I’ve cut down my beer intake

The other day, really fancied a beer on the way home so bought a can of happoshu from the vending machine near my house.

What’s happoshu? I hear you cry. Well, pretty sure it’s only a Japanese thing, but here there are 3 types of beer. Beer, fake beer and even faker beer.

When I say beer, I mean lager (not ale or bitter like in Europe), although you can get dark beer which I guess is like a stout. Anyway, so there’s beer, like Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo, etc

Then there’s the fake beer. This is called happoshu. It’s about half the price, only ￥150 for a can, but this is because it’s made of peas, or beans or god knows what.
Has a bizarre metallic aftertaste, and fairly undrinkable, but despite that it’s pretty popular here. The best one I’ve found is called Diet (low calorie happoshu). Used to actually drink that a lot, and eventually got quite used to it.

The can I bought the other day was made by Sapporo, and, well, it sure wasn’t beer, but ￥80 cheaper than a can of Kirin

Then there’s the even faker beer. And I have no idea what that is made of! Probably grass or something, not barley and hops, that’s for sure. It’s even cheaper and I haven’t risked any yet. Should do in the name of research though eh.

One (of the many) good things about Japan is that not only is the food seasonal here, so’s the beer, so every month or so you get a new kind of beer, or a limited edition beer. Always good to try.

I’m in the process of putting together a website, mainly for wine, but also for beer and sake that will have reviews on it. Another good excuse to try them out! (After the wedding that is!).
(Here’s a link to the website – www.moippai.com )

Related posts:

1. Is That Beer Pt 2
2. Is that a Meerkat?
3. My Wine Review Website

© Silentjim for Balloon Shapes By Cops, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Asahi, Drinking in Japan, Happoshu, Kirin, Sapporo

A very pleasant Friday was had the other week.
In the morning we had a tour of Asahi Brewery in Nishinomiya (about 20 minutes away), which culminated in free beer!

Free Asahi Beer

Easy Does It

Then we had a tour round the factory although no cameras we’re allowed so no photos of inside

The best bit was the crazy big robot machine in the canning and bottling section, so fast and so complicated.
Also discovered the cans are made from 2 parts, the top (lid part) and the bottom (where the drink is). They are folded together in a split second by a cool machine.
Then we were led into the bar area and given 20odd minutes to drink free beer! Aki doesn’t like beer much, so I drank hers for her. Managed to get 5 in, just in time.

Left slightly tipsy clutching souvenirs; a couple of free glasses, a phone strap with a beer can on, a beer towel and an old beer jug. Stopped myself buying the t-shirt, hat and beer cake!

Outside we saw the Asahi Brewery shrine! There’s a shrine for everything here.

Asahi Brewery Shrine

Then we went off to the highschool baseball at Koshien! Twice a year there’s a big highschool competition,which amongst many people is much more popular than the usual league.

It was the first day today and very crowded.
Aki was being very nice to me, and let me sit next to the cheerleaders (who were girls this time – see last year for the male cheerleaders).

Highschool Baseball at Koshien

Schoolgirlman

Related posts:

1. Lucky Bags!!!
2. Is That Beer?
3. Baseball and the Male Cheerleaders

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Post tags: Asahi, Asahi Brewery, Baseball, Cheerleaders, Highschool Baseball, Nishinomiya