Miso and mail.

From Matsumoto Castle we were driven to a miso factory where we had the fermentation process explained.

It is a three year process and uses soya beans, salt and malted rice. The beans are mashed, and the salt, rice and water added. This is put into one of the huge barrels. It is transferred twice to other, empty, barrels over the three years.

The miso paste changes colour in this time, changing from a light to a quite dark colour.

During the talk, claims were made that drinking miso soup every day lowers the risk of gastric and breast cancer ??? I suspect the 'studies' have not been peer reviewed.

Lunch was miso soup.

Originally, mail went between Kyoto and Tokyo by road and was carried by runners. A runner would run along the road with a box on his back containing the mail. He ran to a post town where another runner would take the box and continue on to the next post town and so on.

These post towns were at regular intervals along the route. One such town is Narai-juka. It is one of the best preserved post towns.

It really is old Japan. The 800 metre main street is full of old buildings and tiny shops.

Then it was back on the coach for a one hour drive to our overnight stay, Suwa.Read more