Day 9 - Nagaoka to Niigata

Niigata is famous for rice production and things you can make from rice - like sake.  I'm guessing one of the reasons for that is it is located in a vast coastal plain, so there's plenty of nice flat farmland.  The prodigious rainfall the region is also known for probably plays a part as well.  Nagaoka is located near the Southern edge of that vast plain, so today we are making our way through all of that agricultural land - and some of that rain as it turned out.

Route

There's not a great deal between Nagaoka and Niigata so not any real reason to break the journey into two days.  That and the fact it is as flat as a board argued for a longer day down the river valley.

Our route out of Nagaoka took in both the industrial and transport logistic areas of the city.  We nearly fell into the usual routine and stopped at a convenience store on the outskirts to provision a mid morning snack.  We were glad we pushed on to the serendipitious discovery of the Roadside Station Patio Niigata, home to the world's flashest roadside public conveniences.  There's also lots of local produce and products, like the strawberry mochi pictured below, on offer.  10/10 would recommend.

Our lunch destination was the Sanjo side of Sanjo-Tsubame which we made in plenty of time.  This area is famous, and has been famous for a long time, for its metalworking.  We stopped in at the Tadafusa knife factory where I picked up a factory seconds santoku knife at a really good price and Beloved selected a wooden chopping board.

After lunch, the rain was still coming down so we skipped a planned stop at the Gyokusendo Copperware workshop and store we'd seen on an episode of Riding Around Japan and headed straight for Niigata and a warm dry hotel.

It was raining lightly but steadily as we rolled away from the ryokan and the rain followed us most of the day, so we arrived quite soggy. A number of roadside signs on the roll into the big smoke reported temperatures of 16 and then down to 15 later in the afternoon.  Not my ideal riding conditions.

Stay and Eat

We weren't able to locate the ramen shop I had selected as our potential lunch stop, but the nearby Hashimotoya was still in business and findable.  Anywhere dry was a good option at that point. The curry ramen was delicious, a perfect fit for the conditions and allowed us to tick off one of the 5 types of Niigata ramen.

We are staying at the Hotel Italiaken.  It's pretty flash but at around $150 a night including breakfast not overly expensive.  It's served us well to have a bit of room to spread out after a series of nights in 6 mat rooms that accommodate a couple of futons and not much more.  Despite being accustomed to more upmarket clientele, the staff were very helpful in getting our bikes sorted and were happy to have them chained up in the drive through portico entrance to the hotel.  It's only black mark is no coin laundry so we had to head out to sort out our soggy riding clothes.

See and Do

I'd have liked to take the tour of the factory  at Tadafusa but the times didn't really work for us.  If you are in the market for a knife, the seconds available at the factory door are keenly priced in my view.  The person who helped us with the sale had to point out to us what the defects were they were so minor.  Interesting stop.