I saw Japan’s #1 mascot, drank free sake, & was returned $50 I dropped – all at a Japanese festival
Woohoo! Riding through the Japanese countryside on my way to a rural Japanese festival and fireworks show. Hi. I’m wearing my Jimbeay. Perfect for, you know, getting the uh festival atmosphere going on. Japanese summer get up. All right. So, I believe the town is just a couple curves down this road. They should be serving some local beer brewed locally. Uh, so I may be walking my bike back, but that’s all right. The little Onen town back there has a lot of hotels. I got a cheap one for 5,000 yen. Uh, the little town where the festival is doesn’t really have any lodging, so not staying there. Folding bike power. This is a sweet little bike. Oh boy, this is Oh, look. We got a little shrine. Howdy dudy. Uh, yeah, this is going to be a uphill ride back. Okay, there is the tiny town of Tsunagi Machi. Tsunagi town insagi. That’s uh where we’re going. Yay! It’s me. It’s me. Byebye. Happy mama. Checking in from Tsunagi Machi. What do we got? What we have is a festival in full swing. Sage is somewhere over there. Maybe back there. 20 minutes to until the fireworks show which will be over there. introductory. Hey. Hey guys, Hey, hey, hey. Woo! Get out. So this place has nihonu sake for free. Unlimited refills, no money. Hey, hey, hey. So, this is my fourth. So, I haven’t I haven’t paid any money uh for this. So, uh free free sake. Free sake. So, this town has a brewery, a sake brewery, Nihonu. Uh so, it’s quite famous in Kumamoto Prefecture. So, this town is hosting a festival and hence the uh local brewery has a little promotional thing going on. So, all well, all you can drink until it’s gone for free. For free. Uh nihonu. Oh, and it’s good. This is good. Nihonu. Good sake. Yeah. So, I had my first free cup uh an hour and a half ago, and there’s still free sake to be had. Can you imagine? This is speaking from an from American standpoint. If there was free alcohol at a festival, how long would that last? And look at how many people are here. We love Japan. We being everybody that visit. Okay, it has been a uh fantastic evening and let’s uh finish off this video here in the light of a Japanese vending machine. Very appropriate kind of Oh, have a good night, guys. Yeah. Later. Uh so um I was talking to actually uh these nice gentlemen over here. Good night. Uh they have very good English. And while I was talking to them, a police officer came up who I had spoken to earlier because I had informed him that I had lost 5,000 yen from my pocket. This thing is not very secure. Stuff just floating around. See that? So earlier in the evening, I had dropped this 5,000 yen. That’s like $50 American. And I told the c call the police officer that uh I had lost some money. Uh the fireworks finished, the raffle finished. I was talking to those nice uh junior high school or high school kids and the police officer came up and he’s like, “Hey, somebody turned in 5,000 yen.” It’s so Japanese. So, um, I went over to the lost and found area and sure enough, uh, a crumpled up 5,000 yen bill was waiting for me. How How Japanese is that? I dropped 50 bucks on the ground at a festival and somebody turned it in and uh, I have it back. You know, I wasn’t even bitter about it. I had four glasses of free super fantastic uh Japanese sake. So, I was like, “Yeah, whatever.” You know, like I’ve been enjoying the night. But that’s just like little cherry on top. Just a fantastic Japanese experience. So, this is Tsunagi Town, Tsunagi. It’s south of Kumoto City in uh Kumoto Prefecture. and they have a lovely festival every year uh around August 2nd. This was the 39th annual event. Uh so 40 is next year. The 40th annual is next year and uh the announcer said next year they’re going to try to do something good. I don’t know if it’s going to be returning 50 bucks, but yeah, baby. Japan Japanese festivals. Love it. Peace out. I got to have a long walk back to my hotel. Hotel that I’m staying in was extremely cheap, which I’m all about. I don’t I don’t If it’s not nice, I don’t care. If it’s cheap, sweet. And it has tons of massive spiders, which though they creep me out, I like them because you know what they’re eating? They’re eating things like cockroaches. So, this guy is big. This is as big as my palm. That is a big ass spider. Look at this. Oh boy. Oh, so fast. But you know what? I don’t care. I I really don’t care, man. Suck it up. Um, and by the way, I am about to be the only person in this hotring. Hey, hey, hey. Excuse me. Oh boy, that was. Oh yeah. So all right. So this is how I am going to end my evening. So nice.
I went to Tsunagi town’s summer festival and had some unfathomable experiences.
Kumamon, Japan’s most famous mascot, did his thing on stage, including a like butt slapping (oshiri pen pen); I had 4 glasses of free, all-you-can-drink sake -what?!; and dropped 5,000 yen sometime during the event and had it returned to me at the end of the festival.
Only in Japan! 🙂
Here is the location of Tsunagi: https://maps.app.goo.gl/MMf4qKHEDA8cBReF8
