hey all,
A few summers ago, my brother went to Europe, and while over there made the discovery that Guinness consumed while in Ireland is much better than Guinness elsewhere. Presumably, this is because of the local waters used, and also because it is fresh: we all know that beer is put in brown bottles to help keep the sun from decomposing certain fragile chemicals in the beers, etc.
Today, I had my own experience with sake, 酒 in the local writing system (please pronounce the final 'e' like cafe, not like coffee...). I had tried several different brands of sake in the US, and I had tried them cold and tried them hot, and never found one that I liked, or could even tolerate for more than a few sips. I tried a pretty cheap sake, warmed it up, and found that it was tolerable, even pretty good. It had no grimace-inducing aftertaste, and went down smoothly. Although it still smelled like rubbing alcohol, the taste was mildly fruity.
Sake is better in Japan (酒は、日本でほうがです。)
One last thing is Masa and I hung out a bit today, and we ate ramen at a place called ninniku ramen, or garlic ramen. Now I have very little skill in Japanese, but 'ninniku' sounds like 'human meat': 'nin' is human and 'niku' is meat. So effectively, we ate at The Soilent Green Ramen Shop. I'll have a pic posted later.
Cheers (かんぱい)
