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Broadcasting to an audience of three (and a goldfish)...
Comment, ramblings and musings... life through the eyes of a Japanologist...
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Saturday, October 12, 2002 |
 Cooked chicken curry- Takedomi came round- drank until late
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The train back to Hiroshima was, mercifully, less crowded than the journey from Hiroshima; we were even able to sit down, which was most welcome. The Sake Matsuri was interesting in a way, but I don't think my life would be significantly impoverished (or, indeed, impoverished at all) if I never went again. Still, it was good to go back to Saijo; it always is. It never fails to strike me how much Saijo has changed (and continues to change) since I was at Hiroshima University there. I was there until only five years ago, but the place has changed immensely, almost beyond recognition in some respects. The big change this time was that the Boulevard- the broad avenue from the centre of Saijo to the university campus- had been extended right to the station forecourt, which makes a huge difference to how the centre looks, because a whole block of buildings has had to be levelled for the road.
I sometimes think I'd like to be back in Saijo now. It's so much more pleasant than when I was there, and in addition I feel that with my Japanese now I could really make the most of living in a university town.
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I don't know about Todaka-san, but I was feeling that the whole Sake Festival had in fact been a bit of a let-down. However, determined to make the most of things, we looked at the map and discovered that there were a couple of breweries on the other side of the station that we hadn't yet visited, and moreover that they were breweries whose names I hadn't even heard of. Somewhat heartened by the prospect of discovering a little-known but delicious brand of sake, I led the way over to the 'wrong' side of Saijo Station. Well, neither of the breweries were particularly memorable, but on the way to them, Todaka-san noticed a little shop advertising bisho-nabe. To be honest I could have lived without more sake, but Todaka-san was not to be deflected, so we went in.
Well, I have to say that the nabe was damn good indeed. Sake is savoured with pepper, and then meat and vegetables are half-cooked, half-steamed in this mixture. Actually, I think our bisho-nabe was stronger than everyone else's, primarily because Mr. T refused to listen to the instructions, and left our stove on full rather than turning down as much as possible. This- of course- meant that the sake boiled away in the blink of an eye, and so we had to be refilled not just once, but twice...
Anyway, we finished off with tempura ice-cream (ice-cream deep-fried in batter, which means that it doesn't melt), and then wandered down to see the two remaining kura, after which we called it a day and headed back to the station.
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However, I am nothing if not a stoic, and so, having got to Saijo, it was natural to make the most of the festival. We wandered around the various sake breweries along the main sake street, and sampled their offerings (the free ones, anyway). Most of the breweries were open to wander around, but, somewhat surprisingly, there was very little to see: basically, just lots of big metal tanks. Slight disappointment there- I was expecting to be able to see the various stages of sake production, like in a whisky distillery (although obviously, in a whisky distillery you'd see whisky, not sake, production...).
Afterwards, we wandered back to the main festival area, and, ignoring the Sake Hiroba (a sake-tasting extravaganza- but the length of the queue meant that it would have taken well over an hour to get in), we headed to the area where bisho-nabe was being served. Bisho-nabe is wrtten with the kanji for beautiful-sake-stew, and is (unsurprisingly) a sort of stew made with sake. Anyway, the lady at the reception informed us that had we been queueing from before 10 o'clock we might have stood a change marginally greater than that of a snowball in Hell of getting a table, but now, well, we'd be lucky if we got served before next year's festival. That was what she said, anyway. The look on her face proclaimed something more along the lines of, 'Are you completely crazy?'... We gave up and went for ramen instead.
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Fortified by coffee (things have come to a pretty poor pass when a mere three beers can still be felt the morning after...), I went into Hiroshima (by the Kure line- I must be a glutton for punishment!), where I met Todaka-san, and then on to Saijo, for the Sake Matsuri- the Sake Festival. A sort of 'hair-of-the-dog' situation, really.
Anyway, obviously nobody at JR had been told about the Sake Festival (a huge event), because while the train from Kure was eight carriages long and so empty that it was almost scary, the train to Saijo (reasonably enough, people chose to use the train so they could drink... you know, Sake Festival) was just four carriages long, and so full that it made rush hour in Tokyo seem positively comfortable. I didn't feel at my best anyway, and this, coupled with a train approaching Black Hole of Calcutta conditions, and the fact that I'd stupidly worn a jacket (it was cool when I set out), meant that by the time the train arrived in Saijo, I'd gone way, way past having second thoughts about the wisdom of bothering to travel all the way to the damn Sake Festival... It was just a shame I didn't know until I passed on the bus that the boys in the Naval Base were holding their 'Seito Matsuri'; I'd have gone there instead.
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© Copyright 2003 Nathan Duckworth.
Updated: 8/1/03; 8:47:06 pm.
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