At the hop: All aboard...the beer train

Whilst reading this posting, or mearly marveling at my incredibly bad use of English, please have the following song playing or at least running through your head, it would also help if you could have random Japanese people stare at you through the window and someone gently prodding you left and right.
James Brown - Night train

(Note this song is to listen too, or, I suppose, for sampling reasons only, not to copy!! If you are the owner of this song and want it removed please let me know, although If I receive a phone call from James Brown I will be kind of amazed for a whoooollle number of reasons.)

Anyway, yes my friends Tuesday night not only saw payday (WOO HOO time to buy that hat!) but also my first and probably only trip on...(well actually the suspense is kind of redundant just by looking at the posts title) THE BEER TRAIN!

You see because me and T.O.H are embedded quite deep into Japanese country side (nearest convience store is a whole 7 minutes down the road!!!!) the only way we can get around is either the bus or the local train, both of which are extremely old, slow and offer a home for most of Japans insect population. But once a year the bunting gets unrolled, tables are set up and the old people of Yochaichi start limbering up, as for 2,900 yen (about 13 pounds, for those who want to know) you get a bento (lunch box, thankfully not this one) set, a bowl of peas and unlimited beer.

BEHOLD THE MIGHTY POWER OF THE BEER TRAIN, true it is our normal train with a sticker on the front but still, BEHOLD ITS AWESOMENESS!

Getting to the station we found lots of eager Japanese people most of whom seemed "older" men although it was heartwarming to see people bring their children along...oh no I mean worrying it was worrying.

On the left is the mighty bento box, on the mighty beer train in the errr mighty Yochaichi (mighty since 2005 FACT!)
Which contained the usual fried chicken things, fish things and various vegetables things. And yes after 2 years in Japan I suppose I should know what everything is, but hey the first step is eating everything, the NEXT is knowing what it is...
I think.....

on the right is our friendly waiter who when not making random
announcements "beer is good, drink beer, beer is life" ect ect was busy responding to our increasingly slurred shouts of sumimuuuuseeeeeeeeeeennnn (excuse me).
After 2 years of being ignored in restaurants due to an inibitily to shout at exactly the right pitch and volume, I think I've now found the correct way to which to bellow said Japanese word although not quite like this.

For some amazingly strange reason all the foreigners (us) were placed at the very front of the train, where we would occasionally have curious people wander on over to stare at us eating. YES we CAN use chopsticks, and YES we can eat fish.

I believe this man was on some sort of bet, "go on I DARE you to speak to those non Japanese people, I'll give you this fish"

After my holiday in England I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to settle back into the swing of things. Thankfully my gifts from England proved to be somewhat popular, my friend foolishly asked me for either Ray Winstons whisker (Of course everyone knows there's only famous people living in London) or a Sherlock Holmes hat. Well Thankfully/sadly I delivered one of these things, frankly whats better (and more appreciated) than to, after an hour of drinking, pull out the masks and presents.

"Elementary dear Watson. If you drink three cups of beer, what ever drink remains, what ever it is, shall be even tastier"

Sadly I forgot his smoking pipe so he had to do with a beer instead.

Halfway through we stopped off for a toilet break, where we found more than a few people on the train already quite wasted, in fact the staff had to wait outside the toilets so that no one would be left behind, although the speed the train went I'm pretty sure I could have ran and caught it up.

Here we can see a very blurry shot
(sorry camera phone + train + lots of beer = random slurring and shaky pictures) of a lady in a Kimono, nothing says traditional like an all you can drink beer train.

And of course nothing Say's BEER TRAIN better than bringing your children along Presumably so that they can learn at an early age the dangers of drinking or alternatively just so they can help you get home. at the end of the journey we (our group and I) descended down the carriages to shake hands with all the other passengers and gcongratulate them for not passing out . Although more than a few times I had this conversation....

Japanese old man to my friend: "Where are you from?"

My friend: "America!"

Old Japanese man: "hurrarrr America HURRARRRR!!!" to me "where are you from?

Me: "England!"

Old Japanese man: "........."

Oh well next year I'm saying Canada to see what happens.

Oh and if this wasn't enough the beer train (sorry I should say BEER TRAIN) also came with a 500 yen off voucher for the local Karaoke...Sadly the rest of the evening is kind of a big blurry mess with vague memory's of singing a German song (Despite not being able to actually speak German of course) taking some random far too drunk photographs with T.O.H, at some point feeling somewhat "ill" while finding the floor very comfortable and a thankfully very nice taxi driver. The next thing I wake up to find my clothes in various piles around the house, a (thankfully empty) bucket next to me and a wallet empty of cash so I presume I had a good time. Anyway I don't recomend going on your local bus and attempting the same experience but next year if your in Yochaichi then I highly recomend it.