About sake...

Sake is the national drink, there are some 300,000 producers apparently. But on the way home after dinner, we hit a sake festival. Pay 500 yen ($6) and you get to choose 3 of the 10 or 12 producers to sample. This is just off the main railway station, people heading home, kids around, no qualms about alcohol here. A lovely young hostess corralled us, maybe she sensed Ted was just the guy to evaluate their sakes...Along with a bag of teeny dried fish (great accompaniment) and nuts, you trekked around the stalls sampling dry or sweet, cold or hot. You could have got blind drunk on $18...in fact some ladies seemed to be getting there rather fast.

  Ted filled in his evaluation sheet and off we stumbled back to our hotel. Now if we can only remember the name of the 3 he liked...they are often packed in lovely woven casks (like Italian Chiantis used to be) maybe we will bring some home. 

  We have good wifi here in the hotel so we are hearing about all the culinary and drinking delights of Barcelona, Córdoba and now Seville from the young Elders who are touring there right now. But they are doing it far cheaper than here in Japan. 

  Uhoh. After the beers, the sake and now we find cheap beer in the vending machine down the hall, Ted has passed out twice already at 9pm so it's off to bed tonight and hope we can sleep through.