Rain falls like handfuls of pebbles being softly scattered on the roof as I like in bed. I’m wrapped in warmth not only from my cozy duvet but an earlier dram of tangy bodaimoto sake, a brew whose origins trace back to 15th-century monks at Shoryaku Temple on nearby Mount Bodai, the birthplace of sake.
This is Cofunia , an inn located in Tenri, Nara Prefecture, along the Yamanobe-no-Michi, a trail known as Japan’s oldest walking path and mentioned in Japan’s eighth-century “Kojiki” and “Nihon Shoki” chronicles. Due to its location just up the road from Asuka, an ancient capital predating Nara and Kyoto, Cofunia sits adjacent to — and takes inspiration from — the area’s keyhole-shaped kofun (burial mounds).
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