Ze Germans Are Coming!

Don't mention the WAR!!
Originally uploaded by sab-chan.

Friday was a holiday in TKO so I took the morning off to laze in my flat and look forward to the lazy weekend ahead.

After completely wasting the day by wandering around aimlessly Mochan called me up for a spot of light supper at the Oktober fest in Hibya park. Lets not forget, it is still September, so quite why they are having Oktober fest now is unbeknowest to me.

I was in the middle of making dinner though so I said I'd be there in an hour. This was about sixish, and since the celebrations were to end at eight o'clock, I knew I was going to miss the majority of the thigh slapping fun. Thank God. However, in the moment I tried to drain the water from my pasta most of it went down the sink. Oops, there _is_ a food collector down there, but since I hadn't emptied it since I've arrived I was hardly likely to attempt a resue. Not to worry, I was sure I'd get to suck on some sausages (as it were) at the party.

Side note, I'd been watching Blackadder Goes Forth at the time. Specifically the one with Baron Von Richthofen and Captain Flash-Heart (Woof!)

Hibya park seemed pretty empty at first sight, but then its big enough to hold a couple of concerts so I took off round the park and eventually heard some of "the birdy song" and thought "Ah, only in Germany would that be considered a party tune". I was right. I found a big tented area next to the fountain. Within it were about 200 revellers, some with *gulp* lederhosen, some with fraulein outfits and some just pissed as farts. It was actually quite an impressive affair with plenty of beer on the go and plenty of sausages. There were only two problems

1) the queues were about 20 minutes long
2) I couldn't find Mochan

A quick inventory later I was standing in the Beer queue with a 1000 yen note in my hand ready to buy as much beer as I could carry. Lets be honest I can get bratwurst any time. After managing half a pint I eventually got throught to Neil and joined the motley group of Gaijin at the fountain side.

There I met Chris - I'm madder than a Mad hatter who has just lost his favourit hat, Stuart (an Aussie), Dave, Some other guy I can't remember his name, Eamon and a bunch of Japanese girls that were 'studying' English with Dave. I wont go into too much detail, but they were cute and drunk. Which I suspect is exactly what Dave had intended. Its only a pity/mercy that Dave himself was absolutely legless.

About an hour passed, along with four beers, two renditions of "the birdy song", and Dave's ability to talk before we started on the War jokes. The classic moment was when the attendents started walking around with the big 'Deutschland in Japan' banners as if the Nazi's were back in fashion. Chris (think Rab Hitchen on a mix Cocaine and coffee) started marching along behind them executing a fairly accurate Fawlty Tower's style Nazi march with appropriate finger come Hitler moustache. Funny, but inappropriate. Shortly afterwards he was swimming in the ornamental lake (by choice). We had to stop him teaching the japanese kids how to play American Football - they were only about 5 feet tall afterall - before heading on.

So what could top all this fun? Ginza's collection of 'Three Coin' bars. Or three hundred yen bars. That translates to $3 for a beer (or 1.50 in Sterling). Now, at this stage people were getting drunk. I had the ignoble advantage of having arrived about four hours after everyone else and had to play catchup a little but I don't think I can match Eamon's attempts to defoliate the bar's expensive potted plantage.

Anyway - It goes a little blurry at this stage, and there is no photo evidence on hand. I remember Stuart II getting a deserved punch in the balls but I'm not sure who administered it.

Oh now I remember, we ducked out of that place at around 10 and tried to find another bar. After 40 minutes of wandering aimlessly through Ginza and chatting up street performers I decided to head home.

All in All a succesful evening.