Sake, Sake, Sake: 18 of the best!

We were so lucky to have Koichiro as our guide for this amazing tour.  He met us at Bank Soft Shop. This was our second challenge.  Luckily in Japan people are always ready to help so we managed to find it with the help of a travel agent.  We had already walked by it.  Our first challenge was how to get to this spot.  We chickened out and took a cab which was expensive but got us there.

Koichiro met us and promptly took us in hand and our tour began at a fountain from which delicious sake is made.  The fountains which are found all over the Fushimi area have water pumped up to the surface from the many underground waters.  My favorite water was the first, White Chrysanthemum. We stood in a short line while people from the area filled their bottles.  At one of the fountains, the people who were next in line let us go first as we were only tasting a sip.

Koichiro at the White Crysanthemum Fountain

This was followed by visits to a couple of distilleries, a restaurant for a huge and tasty lunch, and the Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum.  The sake is served in a glass sitting in a small shallow saucer in a puddle of sake.  This, to me represents the generosity of  Japan.  You are given a generous pour and can then add the extra to your glass as you have room for it.

...finally a large sake bar where we had 18 different kinds of sake.  Yes, 18 but we shared them and Dennis assures me that we really only had the equivalent of two glasses of wine.  Really?!

All 18 were finished!

To get back to our hotel Koichiro took us to the train and got on with us, assuring us that this is how he was going to get home.  We got out two stops after him and made it back all in one piece, stuffed and happy.  Dennis was asleep in about 15 minutes and I followed after about two hours.  We slept for most of the night though Dennis was up to read in the wee hours and we were both up and moving about by 6:00 AM.

Today we’re off on a cultural tour and are hoping we have a guide who is half as good as Koichiro.  This is a tour we should have had our first day but due to my inability to understand AM and PM we had to reschedule.  

The World According To Dennis...
:-) Today was the sake tour!  We set aside 3 hours with Koichiro and he was kind enough to stretch it  to over 4!  What a guy! His English was excellent as he spent about 10 years in the U.S. (Seattle) working in management for Microsoft before leaving to open his own French Restaurant.  Why French?  He thought French offered a broader client base and he had extensive experience with wines.  Koichiro taught us as much about Japanese culture as he did about sake.  About sake—we learned about how it is made and most importantly, how it tastes. Our last stop offered us a tasting of 18 different types, all delicious! Glug, glug, glug.

We shared a train ride back to our hotel, thanked him, and wished we could have utilized his experience touring other parts of Kyoto.  But time has run out and we leave for Vietnam on Tuesday at 4:00 AM.  At breakfast this morning Cindy said what I’ve heard so many times during past visits and adventures—“Dennis, I love this place.  We have to come back.”  My thoughts? So many places we haven’t seen...trying not to run out of money so we don’t end up living under a bridge somewhere in the world where it’s always warm.  And how to discreetly ask her to get a job so I don’t have to! :-)