liquor
noun
1. An alcoholic drink. – Merriam-Webster1
2. Something Nutty Hubby can’t stand, therefore WOOHOO, MORE FOR ME!
– The Nut
You know what’s nice about Japan? Public drinking.
Can I get a HELL YEAH?
It might seem like kind of a strange thing for me to be excited about, because in truth I don’t actually drink all that often. Mostly because my husband hates the taste of alcohol, and it feels weird polishing off an entire bottle of wine all by myself on a weeknight.
Doesn’t stop that bottle from occasionally still following me home from the liquor store, mind you. Luckily, the fourth glass of wine really helps take the edge off the fact that I’m drinking it alone.
Anyway, every summer in Vancouver we host the Celebration of Light, a three-day fireworks festival held over English Bay. And every year, the VPD patrols the beaches and pours out all the many myriad containers of alcohol that the idiot/noob portion of festival-goers didn’t take the time to cleverly (debatable) disguise as Slurpees or Vitamin Water, because even though everyone knows that pyrotechnics and alcohol are always a winning combination, there’s this silly little thing called “the law” that forbids drinking in public areas regardless.
Which means for those of us who don’t bother to try and sneak a little somethin’ somethin’ past the local authorities, staking out a good spot to watch the pretty ka-booms means several hours of sitting around stone-cold sober in an environment that otherwise screams “party”.
It’s not that I feel any kind of pressing need to be absolutely shit-faced during this prolonged stretch of sparkly light limbo, I’m just saying the time might go by a bit faster if I had a nice cold brew in my hand.
Japan understands this.
Which is how I came to be day drinking on a Sunday under a canopy of cherry blossom trees on a bustling Tokyo street corner overlooking the Meguro River. Because crowds are stressful and hanami just wouldn’t have been hanami without sucking down a bottle of discount wine from Don Quijote with two floating cherry blossoms in it.
Kanpai, motherfuckers.
Today’s blog post was brought to you by the letter L, the number 160, and the I’m Not An Alcoholic, I’m A Gardener Challenge, AKA the Blogging A to Z Challenge.
1 “liquor.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2016. Web. 14 April 2016.
Spoken Like A True Nut 
Public drinking is something I’d never associate with Japan because I associate Japan with courtesy and cleanliness.
Then again by having down the courtesy and cleanliness the Japan have shown they can have public drinking without the belligerent assholes who ruin it for those of us who could have a few during the fireworks without turning into total jerkwads about it.
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I am consistently impressed by how clean the streets are in Japan despite it being moderately difficult to find recycling bins and damn near impossible to find a garbage can.
Vancouver is absolutely peppered with trash cans, but I guess it’s too tiring for us to walk that extra three feet to reach one because not a day goes by I don’t see at least several half-empty Starbucks cups and a smattering of takeout container lids abandoned on our block in the gutter or on whatever flat surface was apparently most convenient at the time.
Hell, I’ve watched people go to great lengths to dispose of their trash on highly inconvenient surfaces, too. It’s amazing how someone will gladly play five minutes of garbage Jenga on top of a slightly sloped newspaper dispenser when it would have taken them twenty seconds tops to get to the nearest garbage bin and back.
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Wow, the cherry blossom pictures are gorgeous!
Day drinking is an art form liberally practiced in the South. 🙂
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I want flowers in my alcohol so I can be that classy! I would simply HAVE to drink it straight from the bottle so ever time I too and oh-so-classy gulp my world would be full of swirling pretty flowers. And then I would probably start an argument with a figure on the nearest movie poster and fall into a gutter. But classily.
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Always classily.
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Had a serious chuckle over the title of this post. Thanks for that. This reminds me of a trip I took to New Orleans with my first real boyfriend and his family. He and I were 19 and that was the drinking age in the US at that time. He was tickled beyond belief that you could walk along Burbon Street with a beer in your hand, just going from club to club. I think it was probably his favorite part of the trip! His plastic cup of beer was no where near as pretty as your day drink, though.😊
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It’s oddly freeing.
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I don’t like taste of alcohol either but I sure do wish to get drunk and run riots on road!
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I don’t get out much any more. Last time I was really out, here in Texas, you had the right to be pretty much anything you wanted to be, so long as you weren’t loud enough to disturb someone and you weren’t starting fights with someone. You could even drink while driving as long as it was your 1st or 2nd and your motor skills were not compromised yet.
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I just LOVE the tradition of hanami – I’d always had this idea of the Japanese as being so serious and hardworking all the time, and super conservative! THAT stereotype flew out the window when I saw my first group of be-suited businessmen skiving off work to sit under the cherry blossoms skolling enormous cans of beer and singing karaoke. The Japanese do work hard, but they play hard too!!
Too bad hubby didn’t want to drink with you- but surely if you can disguise beer as a slurpee you can disguise a slurpee as a beer?
And ps I absolutely love your photos and am practically foaming with envy.
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I was totally going to mention those huge beer cans they hsve!
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Play hard is right!!! I have never in my life seen anything as crazy and hectic as when I was in Shibuya for Hallowe’en last year. We would’ve had better luck trying to crowd surf from place to place instead of walking!
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Do you like cold sake or hot sake?
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Cold, all the way.
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The Japanese certainly do know how to enjoy their flowers. I clearly have a thing or two to learn.
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This is a late reply, but I enjoyed your blog. I love the public drinking culture here too. Fireworks cry out for booze. There’s only so many ‘sugoi’s you can handle sober. Carrying a heavy float in a loin cloth in 30 degrees plus at a summet festival? Have a beer! Perfect.
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I wish they’d lighten up about it around here. Lord knows the cops don’t enjoy pouring out citizens’ liquor any more than the citizens do. IMO if people are going to drink anyway on the day/night of an event, better to allow them to do it in public at a relaxed pace than continue to encourage the current trend of people irresponsibly slamming down as much alcohol as possible before going somewhere it’s prohibited.
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