Four city tour

We left Kiroro in the morning and headed back to Otaru, whereupon we caught a train to Sapporo, switched trains in Sapporo and headed north to Asahikawa, where we had to stop for further directions because I forgot the name of our destination.

What was our purpose in traveling three hours to an out of the way city in Northern Hokkadio in blizzard like conditions? A sake brewery, of course.

But not just any brewery. The sake they make is not available for sale outside of Japan. And they brew the sake in traditional ice houses, in small batches, with an emphasis on quality over quantity. In American terms, we were hunting for a micro-brewery.

Fortunately, the local tourist information office had maps of the area in English. And at the very edge of the map corner was our target: the Taka...something brewery. Okay, I've already forgotten the name again. Japanese is hard, okay?

The snow was falling heavily as we braved the icy streets of Asahikawa. The sidewalks were actually an accumulation of compacted snow, many inches thick; we figured we were walking almost a full foot above the proper ground.

After about twenty minutes on foot, we reached a building that could only be the sake brewery. It was a traditional wooden structure, with thick, traditional wooden doors barring entry.

It was closed.

So with heavy hearts and a sadness in our souls we turned around and..no, I'm just kidding. It was open. The real entrance was around the side.

The floor creaked as we walked inside and admired the rows and rows of bottles. All of this sake had been painstaking crafted. Some had been more painstakingly crafted than others, but we couldn't tell. I couldn't read a damn thing.

The nice shop lady came to our rescue. She didn't speak much English, but she knew the only words we needed to hear: 'tasting okay?'

Oh, hell YES! A dozen very generous pours later, we returned to the Asahikawa train station, warm in spite of the weather and weighed down with several bottles of extremely delicious sake. The two most expensive bottles will make the return trip with us to Canada, to share with our friends. The other bottles...will not be so fortunate.

Delicious sake soon to be consumed, we salute you!