Happy New Years!!
So I took off to Hong Kong to see my girlfriend Carol for 10 days. Getting there was a real pain in the ass because I missed my flight by about 5 minutes. Of course because I had bought the cheapest possible ticket I couldn't change the seating and due to some kinda international rules I couldn't get a refund and had to buy an entirely new ticket!!! Gah so that was an additional $1,200 bucks down the drain. Oh well better than spending Christmas alone at the brewery eh? Hong Kong was fun, met John Melford for lunch, hung out with Carol's parents, got engaged to Carol under the happy lucky orange hurling tree (see photo album, it's really quite an interesting spot haha). When I flew back into Japan the return trip was almost as bad as going. I forgot that the subways in Japan are not like NYC and they stopped running at 11:30pm so I missed the last train out of Nagano by once again, 5 minutes. Had to rent a hotel room, and catch the first train out to the brewery at 6am, which ment that by the time I arrived back at Masuichi I was late for work by about an hour (7am).
So when I arrived back at Masuichi on December 28th things were winding down for the New Years. The first four batches of Moto, or yeast starter cultures, had been finished while I was away. Also since New Years is a big deal here in Japan, everyone was going to take off on holiday from January 1st until the 4th. So basically all we did for the next couple of days was make sure everything would be ok while everyone was away. Of course somebody would have to come in and periodically check on the Moto and make sure no unfriendly bacteria had invaded it but this would only take one person a few hours to do. When December 31st came, everyone packed their things and went home
New Years here was pretty tame, nothing really happened around town. I heard that there were a few minor festivals around but I was so tired that I fell asleep at 11pm! haha I didnt even make it until midnight, maybe next year I will have enough strength to go out.
For New Years day we of course made mochi! Mochi is traditionally made every new years because it is every sticky and stretchy which symbolizes long life and family and friends sticking together. Mochi is made out of this special rice which has extra starch in it to make it more elastic. We made our Mochi the traditional way with giant wooden mallets which we used to pound the crap out of the mochi rice. People from Sarah's office were there and we steamed the rice in these stackable wooden crates over a boiling pot of water. When it was cooked we pounded it to the great excitement of tourists who happened by, then formed the giant mochi mash into smaller balls, which were then either rolled around in a shoyuu/daikon mixture, or a chestnut topping. These were handed out for free to anybody who wanted them.
Oh wel also had this stuff called Amazake which is a sweet drink made out of sake lees (th estuff left over after you press the fremented rice) mixed with water, a ton of sugar, and some salt. You then heat it for two days and serve (Although I thought it was just as good after an hours heating as 2 days). It is soooo unbelievably good I almost made myself sick from drinking so much of it. Later on in the day I was in charge of handing out the Amazake which was a terrible mistake since I drank about as much as I gave out haha. Back when we were cooking this stuff in the warehouse the brewers were drinking it every chance that they got.
The second day was pretty much the same thing, although more tourists were around so everyone had to wear the Masuichi happi coats. We ran out of amazake (not entirely my fault haha) so we had to resort to serving sake instead.
Then today was the president's speech, where everyone at Masuichi stood around outside in the freezing snow and waited for the president to make his remarks for the upcoming year. Later on that night all of the brewers went off to a yakitori bar and we had a special new years party dinner which was pretty cool. Shinohara, a young brewer who is now staying with me in my room, drank a bit too much haha. Tomorrow the hard core brewing begins, we start at 5am so I should rest up! More later.
To be continued...