Japundit's Marie Mockett gets in to the Namazake thing. Namazake is unflitered fresh sake that, as I understand it, has to be drunk pronto lest it turn itself in to rice vinegar or worse. Rather like Beaujolais Nouveau except tastier and not a marketing gimmick. When we did our trip to Tohoku last year (pictures at my fotolog) we bought some to drink: Now I'm not an expert in this field by any means but in Marie's picture the namazake looks rather clear, whereas our Namazake, as can be seen in the photo above, was more like milk in colour. I'm sure some sake expert can explain why some namazake's are clear (the other namazake we bought was also cloudy). Anyway that's by the by. If you can get it. Drink it because it really is delicious (oishii in Japanese).
And that leads me to a gripe courtesy of She Who Must Be Obeyed. It seems that Japanese today are using the word "sugoi" in a way that can best be translated as "very" or "wow" and worse when they combine it with another adjective - e.g. oishii - they say "sugoi oishii" when they ought to say "sugoKU oishii". Somehow as an Englishman who sees Englishpeople butcher English day in and day out I find it kind of refreshing to discover that other languages are also declining. Are we all going to speak pidgen some day?