The beer garden evening was a success!
The “beer garden” itself was indoors, a convention room like you’d find in many Vegas hotels. They decorated it with outdoorsy stuff (trellises and greenery) to make you feel like you managed to get into the rooftop beer garden (whose reservation slots are full a month in advance, hence our indoor digs). I was actually kind of glad to be indoors, as the heat and humidity are oppressive right now. There was a tasty buffet with a wide variety of Japanese food (surprise!), a small open bar, a few carnival games with silly little carnival prizes, and a projector set up playing music set to Japanese 80s cartoons (Gundam, anyone?). The atmosphere reminded me of a Japanese take on the Hofbräuhaus. The neatest thing was the automatic beer dispenser, though. You put your glass on the little metal platform, and push a button. The machine then tilts your mug up so the dispenser nozzle almost rests against the inside of the diagonal glass, and dispenses exactly enough beer and foam to almost crest the lip as it lowers the glass. Totally worth the Â¥3000 (~$30.00). 🙂
My Japanese however, was not so good. It’s much easier to compose an email in a foreign language than it is to speak it; I struggled to put about 5% of my speech in Japanese. But I tried, and what I couldn’t express, my Japanese teacher was there to translate. Oh, didn’t I mention that? There were four of us: my Japanese teacher, two of her Tai Chi students, and me. She was constantly trying to get her students to invite me out to do the things they like to do. I think I have plans for a sushi lunch next week, but I’m not 100% sure.
I guess I’ll have to put together another email and find out.
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