Sakata

For Australians of a certain age, the word Sakata immediately brings to mind a particularly bad TV advertising jingle for rice crackers.  When it became clear we'd not only be passing through a town called Sakata but staying a night or two, I joked to myself we'd get to visit the source of all those rice crackers I'd eaten over the years.  Of course I assumed they were actually made locally and it was just a brand name.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Sakata is actually a long standing producer of rice crackers and indeed all of the familiar brands are manufactured here.  

Sakata has a fair bit to see and do for a city its size, but it is all spread out.  We decided to stay off the bikes and rely on buses to get around.  This turned out to be a mistake and we ended up walking far more than we wanted to and didn't really see much of the place.

Eat

Sanshokoji was a refuge for our tired feet and able to serve us a light lunch even though it was mid afternoon by the time we got there.  They have an onsite roaster and offer a good range of single origin and blends.  My toasted sandwich and salad set was tasty and the coffee delicious.  The staff were friendly and welcoming.

For dinner, cafe Three Peace looked like a good nearby option.  Alas, I think they were far too cool for us.  The menu was written on blackboards, behind where we were seated, in handwriting that would make a Japanese teacher shudder.  All the options seemed overpriced to me.  After a couple of attempts to order a set meal and select a drink option and the waiter just repeating the same question we weren't understanding, we gave up and headed back to the ryokan restaurant.  They served us an enormous, really cheap katsudon and shyogayaki set without any difficulty.

See and Do

The rice storehouses (Sankyo-Soko) are a step away from the front door, so we started there. There's a palpable sense of history here and its a pleasant place to walk around early in the day before the souvenir shops open and the crowds arrive. The most scenic location is around the back of the store houses where the remaining zelkova trees still line a stone path. The goods on offer are a cut above the usual touristy tat and tend to the local food and drink specialities along with handicrafts and homewares.

The plan was to catch the bus down to the Oranda Senbei (rice cracker) factory but we'd just missed a bus and the next one wasn't for more than an hour. We opted to walk, but it's at this point we should have gone back and grabbed the bikes.  The cracker factory was OK but not worth a 3km walk. It was strange to see Woolworths home brand and familiar brand names in the display case.    

Next item on the agenda was the Ken Domon Photography Museum. That required a 4km walk in a cold, howling wind with nothing of interest to break up the journey. It was an unpleasant experience.  It's reasonably common for a museum to have a cafe or restaurant serving lunch. No such luck at Ken Domon so we relied on a crepe van to keep body and soul together.  The photography was certainly interesting and fascinating to see Showa era Japan presented in a more informal and light hearted way than usual.

We finally managed to make a bus work for us and headed back to the coffee shop around the corner from the ryokan for a light lunch.