The next day a television crew came to Masuichi to film a bit about Sarah Cummings, my boss and the assistant director here. At first I thought it was exciting but television crews seem to be the norm here since another crew is supposed to be arriving next week!! I dont think that I made it onto TV but it was interesting anyway. Everyone had to put on the company Hapi coats, instead of our usual white shirts and caps. We also had to do some film-worthy work so instead of the usual scrubbing we filled one of the wooden barrels with boiling hot water to cleanse it in preperation for brewing. This is alot harder to do than it sounds.
The water we filled the barrel (not an ordinary barrel, a huge, 2,500 liter barrel) with was boiling hot. So hot in fact that we could not use a pump to move it. Instead we had to build a ramp up to the top of the barrel and dump the water into the thing by hand using buckets!! Four people line up, buckets in hand, in front of our boiler and one person hauls water out of the boiler and pours it into the waiting bucket. You then carry your bucket up the ramp and pour it in! The resulting scene is straight ouf of Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentance. Fill the bucket, walk a bit, pour it in, go back for more water. Soooo tiring, the whole process takes a couple of hours and by the end my arms felt like led. But it was good TV and the film crew was happy with all of the sweat and steam! In all we have three 2,500 liter wood barrels so I can look forward to doing this again tomorrow and the day after that, tho next time it will be in casual work clothes :)
Soon its off to Hong Kong and a 10 day vacation!!!
To be continued...