well, here i sit at SFO awaiting my next leg on my journey home to san diego and most importantly my wife. it’s funny that i don’t feel as poetic as i did while at Mukune. my pen seems to have dried up, my writing skills little as they were have all but, dwindled. funny how every night at Mukune, i dreamt of making sake, yet, last night as i slept in my aft-facing seat upstairs(thank god for the upgrade) my dreams were almost a state of confusion. i think my brain was trying to accept the fact that it was really over and prepare for the reality of leaving a memorable experience…

early yesterday morning i took a solemn walk throughout the neighbor looking trying to imprint as much as i could into my psychi. i was blessed with masses of sakura petals blanketing the little roadways and drainages.

i was able to silently experience little snipets of people awaking to a sunday morning. gone were the hoards of students passing by or crowding the conveni. just the silent awakening of a village on a sunday morn.

beacon

At the bottom of the sequoia, will be a man, eloquent in speech, humble in manner and generous in spirit. Yasutaka Daimon, thank you for the knowledge, experience and generosity. how can any of us truly thank you?

petals fall like snow
bamboo emerge from below
spring is upon us

what a dork am i

morning line up

well, here we are all sitting around on saturday. we’ve finished early. a quick moment to re-collect on our week that has passed-by almost unnoticed, a blur. not all of it was as romantic as we expected but, very realistic and true. no “it’s a small world” rides, no bs. we worked, we learned, we enjoyed, we bonded and we’ve made yet another set of memories that will be shelved in our sake memoirs.

one last look from our hang out spot

there were a few touching moments with the toji and kurabito. moments when the cultural and language barriers seemed to melt away and we all were just humans with a common interest. we even had a surprise visit from a neighboring farmer who took the time to serenade us with a very traditional song of spring from time long past. fueled with a sense of completion (and a quick trip to the conveni) we merrily sipped away and enjoyed an almost typical day after work…like we belonged.

"Gaijin" hard at work

most of you reading this already know how special sake really is. so, please bear with me on this one. for those of you who just happened to stumble upon this blog, hopefully my fellow colleagues and myself will be able to dispell any myths you may have heard about sake. for one, it is not distilled it is in fact fermented not unlike beer. yet, it is not beer. neither is it a rice wine. so what is it? it’s sake. a lot of people i deal with always say “no thanks, i’ve had a bad experience with that ‘hot saki-stuff’ that is served froma box”. first of all, it’s sa-keh, not saki. secondly, it’s like me saying that i had a bad experience with a wine that came in a box or gallon jug!

so, to those of you who dismiss sake with a wave of your hand, try spending a week here at Daimon-shuzo or at one of John Gauntner’s courses. Sake is incredibly technical and mystical at the same time. there are so many factors that go into creating sake from specific temperatures to types of yeast to the ever-reverent koji(a mold that is responsible for the unique starch-to-sugar conversion process that is an entirely separate and crucial process in itself). on top of that, one must consider the tradition and general peer pressure that a brewery owner may face in this industry.

Enter, Yasutaka Daimon. A rogue brewery owner and toji, who has mastered the fine-balance of combining age-old technique with modern technology all while maintaining a hand-made, boutique-styled product. add to that his generous yet, daring move to allow a mass of ‘Gaijin’ into the depths of his brewery to seek out and learn ANY and EVERY facet of the process no-holes-barred. this is totally unheard of. but, being the pioneer that he is, his generosity and daring has most likely opened a whole new arena in the sake-making industry. other companies have opened breweries in the US , even a sake-pub, but, none have truly opened their doors in the manner that Daimon-san has.

the great thing about this internship is that i’ve spent hours reading and studying the process. now that i’ve actually experienced it, it is all truly coming together for me. kind of like swimming- you can read and study about it all you want to and then jump in the pool and drown. here, we actually have a chance to learn how to swim, not just read about it.

well, i gotta say that i figured being from Hawaii, i’d have no problem with the shoes -off-in-the-house deal…yet, there i was traipsing through the house with slippers on! great. of course, i had to be corrected by Daimon-san. okay, i learned. or did i..?

time to work. we had to change into boots to go into the work areas. no problem. but, yet again we had to transition back into slippers before going up to the koji-muro and yet again to actually go into the koji muro. ummmmm, that was almost no problem. but, it was a bit entertaining watching fellow interns stand there with a deer-in-the-headlights look as to what to do with their slippers, no names mentioned for their sake but, well, it was the same person who has an affinity for the wash closet slippers too.  anyway, the saga continued as we went up to watch the koji being placed into trays. let’s get this straight. slippers to boots. boots to slippers a little break with some hand-washing then up the stairs to change to slippers again, only to change to a different set of slippers. as comical as it is to watch, it really is a great illustration of how technical and detail-oriented sake making is. a lot of this may seem unnecessary to the casual observer, but to those of us who share the passion, it is yet another facet of the Japanese culture that can be conveyed through a bottle of sake.

…then it’s all just another day with a visit to the local karaoke bar to be serenaded by the man himself.

boot scoot and slippers

With each step taken here at Mukune, you can’t help but think if you’re taking the same steps that some of Daimon-san’s ancestors have taken. before even getting to the sake making, it’s almost necessary to soak up the environment to get “spiritually” ready to learn about Japan’s historical libation.

fortunately, we have the pleasure of enjoying the sakura that abounds here and there around the area. in the cool evening yesterday it was quite surreal standing outside soaking up the architecture both old and new with sounds of neighbor kids laughing and playing in the near distance along with the occasional roar from a near-by baseball game in session. all a reminder of how seemlessly this country lives a dichotomous lifestyle with the past and present.

this morning we were greeted by all of the toji and then scurried off to our work stations. the funny thing is that after about 10 minutes we all fell into a rythm that was quite comfortable and only further illustrated the remarkable chemistry this group shares. we all naturally rotated stationsl and jobs to share the experience of each job.

Most importantly, Daimon-san, with his european-styled poetic dialect of English, has been more than genereous with his facility and knowledge. definitly a historical milestone in the sake industry is being made with this internship. Beau, great leadership and advice.

we are all blessed to be here.