Here is the entire group including our factory tour guides.
Before entering the facility we were required to remove our shoes and put on inside slippers. I have toured a handful of factories through work and about 1/3 of them require separate shoes inside the facility so this is not so unusual for factories in Japan.
Immediately after stepping into the building you could smell the Sake. There are a number of different processes during the making of Sake. First the rice is polished. This process removes the outer layer of the rice. Next is washing and then on to steaming. The picture below is of the steaming process. There is no one in the photo to give a size reference, but it is a huge container. It is similar to making rice for mochi, but on a much larger scale.
Next the rice is cooled and stored in a vat where it molds and ferments. The cooling machine is pictured below.
One of the critical steps is the filtering. There were two methods to filter. This machine was used to produce the expensive Sake. It presses the fermented rice into a screen that separates the Sake from the base rice.
The separated rice doesn't go to waste. It is used to make a number of products including soup, ice cream, and even soap. Next up was the Sake tasting. Kate and Chizuko san got to sample a variety of different types. One of them was blueberry Sake, and another was more than 20 years old at about $400 a bottle. They appeared to enjoy the tasting, Taka san and I were driving and so we were not able to partake.
Next up was a tour of the cave were the Sake is stored for aging. We drove up a small winding road that led us to the cave. The cave was in the side of a hill and the opening was lined with wood to support it. Our tour guide unlocked it and led us in.
Up front was a rack of Sake that is being stored for special occasions.
There were pictures on all of the bottles to designate who's they are and what the occasion will be. The one below was purchased at the birth of a families baby and will be opened and shared when the child turns 20 (the drinking age in Japan).
There were cartons of Sake lining the cave walls at various stages of storage. One area was fenced off and locked. It contained Sake that was more than 40 years old.
There were also a number of bats hibernating in the cave. The children all enjoyed touching them as they slept. I am not so familiar with bats so I was a little uncomfortable at first, but the bats just continued to hang there and slept through it all.
From there we drove to the Karasuyama paper factory. Kate had gone there one time before, but it was the first time for me. It was pretty interesting to see in person. The paper is made from what looked like a shrub. First sticks about 12 inches long are boiled to separate the the wood into different parts. The part under the bark and above the wood center is cleaned to remove the dark portion from it. Below are the different stages.
The material on the right in the above picture is then put into a machine with water and mixed into a pulpy goo that is used to make the paper. That can be seen in the picture below.
Next there are a couple of other steps, but finally it ends up in a vat where a screen is pulled through the mix to separate out a layer of the pulp that becomes the paper. The screen itself has a pattern on it that becomes imprinted in the paper and creates a water mark that can be seen when the paper is held up to light.
Each layer is then stacked on top of each other on a table. The paper below was being created for diplomas and the University's name was written on the screen to form the watermark.
Next the material is pressed to remove the water from the pulp and create the final product.
After the paper factory tour we visited the house that Taka san grew up in. His mother and father still live in the home. It is a very nice older farm house that is much bigger than the home we live in. Actually many of the rooms were quite large.
There were two huge tables lined up in the one room and we were all able to sit together and enjoy lunch. Behind me in the picture there were sliding doors that could be opened to let fresh air into the house. It was really nice to sit in the sun and have dinner with everyone together.
For lunch we had a number of different things. One of the things we had was fresh kiwi. While eating we were informed that the kiwi was grown at their house. We had never actually seen a Kiwi tree so Kate and I asked to see what it looked like. Here is the picture, it looks a lot like a wisteria vine to me.
They also grew their own shiitake mushrooms. The mushrooms are grown on old logs that are stacked against a wooden rack.
After exploring the home the adults sat at a kotatsu (heated table) drinking coffee and visiting while the children played outside. Taka san's father was interested in my I-pod because I was using it to look up words on the dictionary. Pictured he is checking it out with a magnifying glass. On TV behind me was a marathon relay. This time of year marathons are pretty popular and a lot of people watch them on TV. Shiono san told me that for new years his father and brother in law will watch a new years marathon relay for the entire day.
When we finished visiting we drove to a temple on a hill. We parked at the bottom and then hiked a pretty good ways to the top. About half way up there was a little station that had walking sticks for people to borrow during the walk to the top.
There were a lot of log steps to get to the top, but the view was great.
The temple was placed inside a natural cave in the side of the hill, one of the more interesting locations I have seen.
It was a beautiful day for this hike and we stayed at the top for about 15 min to take it in.
But on the way down I had to stop on one of the logs for a quick nap to regenerate enough energy to make it the rest of the way down the hill to the cars.
Hope everyone has a good week..
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