I've lived in Japan for ten years, and am sad to say that I have never been further south and west than Kobe - only about 360 km from Ito - maybe 2.5 hours on the bullet train. Friends from the States often ask me if, since I live in Japan, I have plans to travel around Asia. I always say that there are still so many places I want to see in Japan, and I fly so often for work, I would rather just get on a train or a bus and go somewhere in-country.

So last weekend's visit to Kochi Prefecture, in the Shikoku region was a new distance record to the south for me.

Kame Izumi Sake Brewery

Almost every year, a group from my favorite pub in Tokyo visits the brewery of one of Japan's best makers of "nihonshu" - what most people would just call "sake". We do a tour of the brewery, try some of the results of the brewmasters art, and have a great dinner together before heading back to the big city.

This year, we visited the Kame Izumi ["Turtle Spring"] brewery. After one-hour flight from Tokyo's Haneda airport and another hour on the bus, we arrived at an unassuming cluster of old buildings nestled up against the hills that lie between the town of Tosa and Tosa Bay.

The "toji" or brewmaster, Saibara-san, met us outside and ushered us into the brewery. It was dark and cool inside, and you couldn't tell where one building ended and another began; all a maze of tanks, filters, and hoses among the old wooden beams and trusses. Shafts of afternoon sunlight flowed in through the windows and cracks in the planked walls.

We have to take off our street shoes and put on slippers when stepping across the threshold to the "inside". Nothing big enough for my size 11-and-a-half feet, so the slippers end at the beginning of my heel.

Saibara-san shows us around, explaining all the way. I have been asked to take photos, so I linger a bit behind, and wait for my co-travelers to move ahead in the narrow spaces, so I don't get to hear a lot of the explanation, and some of it would be beyond my poor Japanese language comprehension skills anyway.

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Near the end of the tour as we circle back from whence we started, Saibara-san leads us to a dual row of tanks, where the latest vintage is fermenting. Climbing on top of one, he gestures for us to use our hands to direct some of the air wafting out of the tanks and towards our noses. From a tray of small glasses, he taps off some samples and we get a taste of this work-in-progress. Its very fresh and lively, with a tang like new cider.

Then at the end of the tour, we gather round some makeshift tables and sample a dozen or so different sakes. Just a warm-up for the awesome dinner we had together later in the city of Kochi [photo at left].

Kochi Castle

A side benefit for me was a chance to check out Kochi Castle, which is one of the few castles in Japan that is not a post-war replica. The original castle, completed in 1611, burned to the ground in 1727. The current structures were completed in 1748.

I managed to NOT stay out all night drinking, and was able to get up and walk the half-mile or so to the castle grounds, with plenty of time to make a lap around the castle before the sun came up at 7 AM.

It was cold and I had not brought a tripod with me, so I had to do the best I could in the weak morning light, propping the camera against a rock, a tree, or a fence post. Maybe some day I can come back a really do it right, but I was glad I had the chance to see this magnificent castle.

Kochi Castle at sunrise.

The main keep, or donjon, rises in the distance behind Otemon gate.

A view of the massive walls on the west side of the castle,
with the main keep rising on the opposite corner.

above: the skyline of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Where I grew up on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in Annapolis, Maryland, I was taught only to eat oysters in months whose name had the letter "r" in it. The reason being that the local oysters were growing in pretty warm water during the "non-r" months - May/June/July/August - and warm-water diseases and spoilage would be more likely to be a problem.

I was thinking that maybe the rule still works here in Australia because there is no "r" in "DEE-SEM-BAH". And that I shouldn't eat oysters because it is the middle of summer here - the highs today are supposed to reach almost 40° C!

However, I still think there is an audible "r" in January - even if it gets pronounced "JAN-YER-REE" around here. So - I gotta wait a couple more days?

But yesterday, as I was trying to decide whether to chow down on a half-dozen here in Melbourne, a little further consideration convinced me that "Chesapeake rules " shouldn't apply here. The temperature of the waters these oysters are coming from is a lot colder - at around 20° C - than the Chesapeake, which hits 30° C in Summer. Oysters from Tasmania.

And the oysters were from Tasmania anyway - a bit cooler still - only 1600 miles from Antarctica.

So I enjoyed some mid-Summer December oysters along with a glass of "Moo Pale Ale", also from Tasmania, which the brewer calls an "American style Pale Ale" and "a quintessential microbrewery beer". Very nice - just no comparison to the dilute pee that the biggest breweries in America call beer: "We start with pure mountain water - then we take the purity out!"

Know why they spend millions on sponsorships and ad campaigns? Because nobody in their right mind would drink the stuff unless it was hammered into them that it would make them cool.

Thank God for microbreweries everywhere.