Kuninocho<\/a>. You could really feel the 193 years of history in the old buildings and the traditional equipment inside. The owners were extremely generous with their time – and sake – although unfortunately as I was driving I couldn’t have more than the smallest sip (next time I think I’d better run there instead…)<\/p>\n![\"UKTI-Nissan-leaf-tour_72_o\"](\"http:\/\/josephta.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/UKTI-Nissan-leaf-tour_72_o-950x713.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Kuninocho are planning on expanding production to the UK next year, helping meet the growing demand for Japanese sake over in Europe.<\/p>\n
![\"UKTI-Nissan-leaf-tour_59_o\"](\"http:\/\/josephta.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/UKTI-Nissan-leaf-tour_59_o-950x713.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Leaving there it was time to head for the Shinkansen, on which I continued my journey west to Hiroshima for a running \/ TV project (more on that in due course).<\/p>\n
Many thanks to the UKTI team and all those we visited along the way for making it such a memorable day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over the past 7 years I’ve got pretty used to using batteries to power myself as I travel around Tokyo and beyond. Usually though the batteries are fairly lightweight, and output a maximum of 12 volts. With this collaboration with UKTI, things were a little different.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2679,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[99,66],"tags":[201,202,200,199],"class_list":["post-2676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-featured","tag-battery-power","tag-british-embassy","tag-nissan-leaf","tag-ukti"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephta.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephta.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephta.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephta.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephta.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2676"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/josephta.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2754,"href":"https:\/\/josephta.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676\/revisions\/2754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephta.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephta.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephta.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephta.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"UKTI-Nissan-leaf-tour_20_n\"](\"http:\/\/josephta.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/UKTI-Nissan-leaf-tour_20_n-950x713.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"UKTI-Nissan-leaf-tour_24_n\"](\"http:\/\/josephta.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/UKTI-Nissan-leaf-tour_24_n.jpg\")
Last month, I was happy to be approached by UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) Japan, based at the British Embassy here in Tokyo. They were planning a tour of Japan in an electric vehicle – the Nissan Leaf, one of the most popular electric vehicles on the road today, and one that also happens to be produced in Sunderland, in the North of England. Would I be interested in being the driver for a leg of the tour, from Nagoya to Kyoto?<\/p>\n![\"UKTI-Nissan-leaf-tour_55_n\"](\"http:\/\/josephta.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/UKTI-Nissan-leaf-tour_55_n-950x713.jpg\")
<\/p>\n