Yebisu Beer Museum

Yebisu Brewery is now part of Sapporo, however the name lives on in museum adjacent to Sapporo headquarters. The first thing I did here was to give away the flowers from ikebana class to the girl at the Yebisu gift shop. After some charades, I managed to convey that she should take the flowers home with her if she liked them. Judging from the smile on her face, I'd like to think they didn't end up in the trash.

Having toured a decent number of breweries, I'd say this museum's display were lackluster (some timelines on the history of beer, old advertisements, a giant brewing vat), but the tasting room at the end lets you try four beers for ¥500. Overall, Japanese beers tend towards the light, crisp, one might even say, bland, side of the spectrum, but then again, we're not in Germany so I won't complain.

The more interesting part of this excursion was when I plopped my tasting tray down on a table and took my camera out. A voice emanated from behind: "Say, would you like a photo of yourself with the beer?" I acquiesced and the gentleman introduced himself. "Hey, I'm John, would you like to come sit over here? Because I hate drinking alone." We were both clutching copies of Lonely Planet Tokyo (my bible for this week). John, as it turned out, was a seasoned traveler who was in town for a few days while his wife was on business. He was Canadian, currently living in Munich, and heading to Sydney and then somewhere in SE Asia in the next week. Among other stories, he regaled me with this anecdote from Egypt (amounts are approximate):

"I was in Cairo talking to a cab driver, and he mentioned that he needed to save money. I asked, for what? He said, well, to buy a woman. I said, wait, what? He replied, well if I have $750, I can get a woman who is widowed with two kids. If I have maybe $1000, I can get a woman who is widowed with one kid. And if I have $1500, I can get a woman who is single without children. So, I asked him, what would you do with $2000? He looked at me and said, well, then I would buy a camel."