Hoppy and a Cold
So today my energy was sapped by a cold. Usually they don’t slow me down, and they don’t tend to be bothersome like the occasional headache from staring at a computer screen too much. However, this one made me both tired and “blah.”
Tracing the events of the weekend I’m going to guess that this cold could have been avoided. My immune system tends to be pretty tough but there is good reason to believe my Saturday night weakened it 
And the culprit is probably this new drink that my senpai (”mentor”) and friend Sakuma san introduced me to. Its name is Hoppy.
We generally go out to drink 1 night a month and on Saturday we tried a new place along with this drink. Sakuma said this drink is popular with older businessmen, it was the drink of choice before the “Highball” whiskey and tonic became popular.
Hoppy comes in 2 parts, first a bottle of non-alcoholic wheat based drink and second a glass of ice with shochu rice liquor. Pour in the Hoppy until glass is full then drink up. It tastes like tea and I could hardly tell alcohol was in there, in fact I figured at first that this was a very light drink…
However, I am sure now that those 4 glasses of Hoppy precluded by 2 beers and followed up by three shots of whiskey was more than enough to put my immune system on vacation leave.
You may ask, sure you werent suffering from a hangover 2 days later? No, I learned long ago that copious amounts of water directly following my return to the apartment is the cure-all to alcohol consumption. However, coupled with the horrible weather (and maybe the raw horse I ate the day before… ok, that might be a stretch) and there is the most likely source of my cold… but don’t let that dissuade you from trying Hoppy when you are in Japan. 
