Thursday April 10th Too early for sake?

 Trev's ideal hotel bedroom!

Before starting todays story, I thought I should post a couple of pictures of the view from our hotel bedroom in Kyoto - maybe not the most scenic, but if you are a train enthusiast, like Trevor, it's the perfect location!

Hopefully you can see a white shape going across the picture from the left side, that's actually a bullet train - if you are able to zoom in, even better.

We are amazed just how many come and go in a short space of time, as well as more local trains on another line. Fortunately, it's not noisy at all, as they are all electric.

Today we travel by coach to Nara, the ancient capital of Japan, but not before we have a visit  to a sake factory at 10.00.We all appreciate that as one of the 'tourist' visits, the main aim of the tour here will be to encourage us to buy some sake, but it proves to be an interesting and enjoyable hour.

During the tour, we learn that sake is made from fermented rice grains, it is a complicated process that takes from 4 - 6 months from start to finish. Most of us had no idea that it involved so many different processes and stages, and the informative video we watch at the start explains this very well. Nowadays, a great deal of the process is controlled by computer, although it still seems that some parts of the brewing process need a person to check the smell, taste, feel and look of the fermenting rice.

Our amusing guide has excellent English and explains that the company also produce beer, which being made from rice grains is gluten free, as is sake; something neither of us has thought of before.

The huge range of Japanese beer is shown in this colourful display, with those produced by the company we are visiting shown below. Maybe you recognise some of these Simon?

Before we have a little sample to taste, we learn that they produce several varieties of sake, ranging from quite gentle and mild tasting, to some with a much stronger taste and higher alcohol content. It sounds as though the company are trying to broaden the appeal of the drink, as the latest version uses some French wine brewing yeast in the process - we try some of this, but are not very impressed, to me it just tastes like a rather sweet white wine, it is in a pretty blue bottle though!

The other variety we try has a more complex taste, although I'm not sure about pairing it with cheese or chocolate as our genial host suggests!

Even so, the sales pitch is successful and most of us leave with a bottle of some size and variety!

Back on the coach we have an hours journey to Nara, where we visit the temple of the Great Buddha.

A huge wooden building, the oldest in Japan, hiwever once again, absolutely full of visitors, including several parties of Japanese schoolchildren, some wearing smart, but very old fashioned 'sailor suit' type uniforms ( no rolled up skirts at that school!)

The Buddha himself is enormous, measuring over 50 feet high, a very imposing figure.

and guarded by other enormous deities on either side

Back in the grounds of the temple we spend some time admiring the views of cherry blossom,

 but decide that as  it's so busy with people, we prefer to find a nearby coffee shop for some refreshment instead! It's from our first floor window in the little cafe that we can see the famous deer that roam freely all around the area and actually bow to the tourists to ask for food.

All the tourist brochures are full of pictures of these animals, but there are so many of them, we find them a bit of a pest, and they are quite smelly!

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