Well, it's been a bit since our last post, and that's mostly because there's nothing particularly interesting happening to us. Japan is great, but we are still college students: doing homework and eating ramen.
We had a really fun tasting in our culinary class this week. A special guest gave a presentation on Japanese rice wine, or sake. Then we got to try four different kinds of sake. I, as an unexperienced drinker, could not really distinguish all the differences between the drinks, but I liked three of them and so did Miranda.
Sake has a complex fermenting process which uses Koji mold. The koji mold helps the rice develop into alcohol, but it is typically strained out at the end for better color, opacity, and taste. The filtered out koji mold is made into these little crackers, which have a cheese like texture but taste mostly like alcohol! Don't eat too many at once.
Friday, we sent some packages home. Siblings, prepare for some...interesting Japanese snacks!
Saturday was fun, we went to a flea market in Kyoto, per our professor's recommendation. There were a lot of fun, antiquated items. We saw cool kimonos, tons of pottery, assorted knick-knacks, and many sizes of lucky cats. It was fun, and very memorable. It was also a great opportunity to practice Japanese! Every conversation I blunder through gives me better comfort with Japanese.
There was also a ton of food at the flea market. My favorite were the steamed buns we got - super-hot and super delicious.
Also, some fun plants!
This week, last week, and a bit of next week are full of tests, but we will try and post here and there.
Love you all,
and miss you terribly.
Nick and Miranda
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we received Miranda's post card of a castle you visited. Loved it and we pray for you both every night.