Ok, this was easily the most disappointing part of the weekend, in part because of how Maruya Gardens advertised it. Back in September, Dolphin Industries and MG teamed up to promote DI's "Craft Beer Spray," which would be a few local breweries offering their beers at MG's rooftop garden. There were a few posters set up at MG's entrances for a week or two, then as the date got closer all the advertising disappeared, to be replaced by ads for the Wine Picnic the following week. And this happened as typhoons were coming in and causing other events to cancel in advance. A few days before the Spray, I discovered that MG had an events booklet, and the Spray had been moved to the back page of that, while the Wine Picnic was on the booklet cover. To me, that showed me where MG's priorities were. Anyway, the Spray weekend comes and goes, and I'm still unsatisfied, partly because the food was so over-priced, and partly because I didn't like the beers that I bought.
One week later, the Wine Picnic starts on Saturday, when I have to work. I have a one hour break in the middle of the afternoon, and I hop over to MG to check it out. Lots of people lounging about, curry rice for sale, along with some other foods, and again, everything costs too much ($9-$10 for a small plate of something). What bugged me the most was that to get the wine, you had to buy tickets. The food was cash, but the wine was ticket-only, $7 for a set of tickets that would get you three glasses of wine. I'm there on my own, and if I only wanted one glass, I'd be out of luck. Granted, $7 is not that bad a deal if it's good wine, and you want to drink a lot of it, but I'm in the middle of a break, and the event would end before my last class finished. Obviously, I'm not going to get wine right now. Not if I want to keep my job.
The band is Vacation Three. They did soft pop, which wasn't worth recording. So, Sunday, I'm walking all over the place. I start at the Volunteer Center, down at the other side of City Hall, for the Jiman Ippen Fair. I walk the 2 miles to Amu Plaza for the non-existent Halloween stuff, then continue to the Kotsuki River for the Meiji Restoration Fest stuff, and cutting through Tenmonkan to see if anything is still going on there (it's not). I've had three cups of sampler beer at Jiman, and that's wearing off. I've skipped the food and drinks at Amu and Meiji because I have decided to commit to getting the wine, and something to eat, at the Wine Picnic. I arrive at Maruya Gardens at 4:45 PM, and I'm told that they've stopped selling the tickets. Actually, I could buy one strip, but it's now last call, and I'd have 5 minutes to make my choices and place my orders. And then I'd have to leave at about 5 PM or so, so that they could tear down the tables. Absolutely brilliant planning. Shut down things just before dinner, so that... what? People will go somewhere else and not spend money at an event selling food and wine? Stupid.
Anyway, with all the build up, the screwing around with the advertising and then killing the event that early in the afternoon, especially when the weather was near-perfect for being outside, I was glad I hadn't given them any money at all. I went home, got dinner, then returned to the Meiji fest to watch live jazz music at the river, and I spent my money there on shochu. And, it was a much better deal (to be honest, I prefer craft beer and distilled spirits over wine anyway).
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