kirin ichinban, pocari sweat, gokuri and more drinks - japan meals part 2

when traveling abroad, it's important to stay hydrated. all that sightseeing, adventuring, and foreign land frolicking can really dehydrate a joyous visitor who just wants to cram as much tokyo tourism and underground escapades as he can in seven days. so to combat the nasty effects dehydration can have upon a happy camper, we found plenty of opportunities to get liquids while roaming the streets of japan.

japanese drinks are awesome. these people not only know how to make drinks of all flavors and textures, they know how to package and market them. ok so yes, you'll see a lot of beer in the pictures on this post. but hey, we were on vacation and beer is GOOD. take a looksee.

what better way to start a trip to a distant, foreign land (and wash down mushy acidic airplane pasta) than a can of kirin ichiban beer. light, bubbly and burpy, four of these on the 11 hour plane ride did very nicely, thank you very much.

once at our hotel a couple blocks from shinjuku station, we picked up a huge bottle of pocari sweat from the 7 eleven across the street. i liken pocari sweat to a lemonade flavored sports drink. it has about the same consistency and flavor.

small drink bottles kept us hydrated on the go. here, christien has a suntori brand drink. i think it was peach or something.

this bottle of gokuri was my favorite. grapefruit juice with real grapefruit bits in it. not too sour, not too sweet. super refreshing in an awesomely designed aluminum bottle with wide mouth twist cap.

as you walk around tokyo, there are tons of vending machines dispensing drinks. japanese vending machines seem to have a much wider selection per machine and each drink is nicely displayed. it's also just a lot of fun trying to figure out what the hell was in each bottle or can. sometimes we were right, sometimes totally wrong. as we were walking around shinjuku district, we passed by this sloping alley chock full of vending machines. made for a great photo. notice all the ads.

and what do you know! as we were walking past the machines, christien spotted his favorite j-pop star, namie amuro! she was quenching her thirst just like us foreigners!

while visiting the ginormous residential-business-cultural complex that is roppongi hills, we stopped in a modern, western cafe for some rich and delicious iced lattes. to sweeten the coffee, there were little pods of simple syrup (much like half & half creamers).

and as the evening set in, we settled into some innovative (and expensive) cocktails in the bar atop roppongi hills tower to watch the sun set and experience the tokyo lightscape come alive 100 floors below.

dinner at our first izakaya meant beer, beer and more beer. i can't remember how many pints of asahi we or i had that nite.

i know it was A LOT.

more mugs of asahi at a casual diner chain known for its gyoza (which were excellent by the way).

ah yes, another izakaya, another drunken nite. this time courtesy of two bottles of suntory whiskey for the five of us. yes, two. we finished all of it. curiously, the whiskey was served with ice spheres. they looked like crystal eyeballs. a little disturbing.

another beer. yebisu, which is a rich, malty premium japanese beer.

and more beer at another izakaya. i think there's a theme here.

on our super fast train to hakkone to experience onsen, japanese bath houses, we decided to cleanse our systems with some herbal and green iced teas, in preparation for our "spa" treatment.

but of course, asahi had to creep in and steal the show again.

and on our final nite in tokyo, at aria blu, a luxury 7-course, all-you-can-drink, all-you-can-karaoke in 3 hours establishment, we drank and sang our sorrows away with endless pitchers of beer, vodka tonics, and gawd knows what else.

so you see, we did a great job of making sure we stayed hydrated during our japan excursion. one thing to note though. japanese people do not walk and drink at the same time. people actually go into little cafes and quench their thirst while politely seated at a table or bar. they don't walk around with drink in hand like them heathen westerners. same thing goes for food. no walking and eating. in fact, we had the most difficult time finding public trash cans to dispose of our bottles and street food. yet the streets of tokyo are amazingly and clean and spotless.

oh you japanese. how do you do it?