Nomihodai and boozing in Japan for cheap

When you first arrive in Japan the price of a good drink can be a bit shocking. Luckily it doesn't take long to figure out that if you're buying your drinks one at a time you're doing it wrong.

Actually getting drunk is one of the few things where westerners get a monetary break in Tokyo, because many bars offer a nomihodai deal. Instead of buying drinks one at a time, with nomihodai you pay a flat fee for all you can drink for a set amount of time, usually an hour or two. Fortunately all these deals seem to have been priced for people with significantly less body mass then your typical western male. Finding nomihodai for $10-20 for an hour isn't hard to do.

The Japanese write nomihodai with Kanji as 飲み放題, rather delightfully combining the Kanji for drink 飲 and liberate or freedom 放. The last one just means topic or something. If you're planning on coming to Japan you might want to commit at least this word to memory.

Now you would think the economic incentives at play with nomihodai would just encourage people to get really wasted all the time.

Actually, as it turns out, that's pretty much exactly what happens. The streets are generally filled with amicable drunk people, especially salarymen as work drinking parties usually include nomihodai.

Last night I checked out a deal for 1000yen ($12 USD) for an hour and a half nomihodai. The place promised over 100 drink types. However, when we showed up we were a little surprised to find out that at this place you were supposed to serve yourself. So this bar was a room on the fourth floor of a building with a few tables, a wall stacked with booze, and a guy who collected money. Genius.

Although I should also add they had a kitchen. But you aren't going to this place for the food. The walls seemed to be just plywood with random words and pictures drawn on them, we figured this must be what passes for a dive bar here.

Now those of you recoiling at the thought of having to pour your own beer needn't worry and who hasn't fretted one time or another about getting the perfect balance of head/body on a draft beer? This place came equipped with a rather ingenious device.