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

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything, mainly due to being busy doing stuff (and my parents being in Japan for about 10 days), so a quick review of what happened before they arrived.

Last month we went to see Graham Coxon at Big Cat in Osaka. First time I’ve seen him live and he was great.
Really noisy and a great guitarist. Seemed a bit jet-lagged and made a few mistakes, which added somehow to the fun. Crowd were very lively and he played a long set, and mainly loud punk songs which sent the crowd moshing.

Mind you not as lively as the crowd for Hard Fi who were the liveliest crowd I’ve since since maybe the Damned or The Wonderstuff in the 90s. The “kids” went crazy. Richard had them eating out of his hand, even though his Japanese only stretched to “Domo” (thanks), they loved it. The encore “Living For The Weekend” made the dance floor quite a dangerous place! Great fun.
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Read the rest of Graham Coxon, Hard-Fi and a Baseball Game (356 words)

© Silentjim for Balloon Shapes By Cops, 2006. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baseball, Gig, Graham Coxon, Hanshin Tigers, Hard Fi

Just up the road from Ashiya is Koshien (2 stops on an express train to be precise, about 10 minutes), and Koshien is the home of the Hanshin Tigers one of the big baseball teams in Japan ( I say big, they one a few years ago, but are generally not to hot apparently).
Seeing as it`s on my doorstep, I thought I might try and get into baseball.

Coming from England, we don`t do baseball. We used to play rounders as kids, which is the English version of it, with a smaller bat, tennis ball and less rules, but never seen baseball before.
(...)
Read the rest of Baseball and the Male Cheerleaders (307 words)

© Silentjim for Balloon Shapes By Cops, 2006. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baseball, Cheerleaders, Hanshin Tigers, Koshien