Sake no Jin (Sunday, March 15, 2009)

Unfortunately, Courtney, Jenelle, and I had to be checked out of our single hotel room by 10am.  Fortunately, this time there was no lifeless bloody body lying on the ground outside of the elevators (last time we stayed at the Toyoko Inn, this was the case L).  We met up with Ruu, Futoshi, and Tomoko (moon moon child), and headed out to SAKENOJIN!!  All of the most delicious sake makers from Niigata Prefecture get together for two days a year in a Convention Hall (Toki Messei) to serve all-you-can-drink sake samples, all for the miniscule price of 1500 yen (~$15)!!  One of my goals in Japan was to be able to enjoy sake, and on Sunday, March 15, that goal was achieved!!  We drank strong sake, sweet sake, plum sake, and on and on and it was spectacular!!  At one point, us foreigners were even invited on stage to pound rice into making it mochi – ‘mochitsuki’!!  In the end, Jenelle’s craving for Pizza Hut prevailed, and we ordered pizza to the lobby of Toki Messei (a pretty wild idea in this country).  It took Ruu 3 times to get it right, haha.