E M M A N U E L: Niigata [1 April 2017

My first exchange road trip hehe went to Niigata with Ping, zhihui and wanxin.

I'm gna try to blog more about the places i've been, and provide more details, because when i was planning those trips, it was hard to find english details about those places. So hopefully, this will be helpful.

We rented a car, and drove about... 300km, 3ish hours to Niigata.

Pit stop along the way

Our tiny ass car, with Ping. I drove most of it x_x

Our first stop!! Looking to Niigata's specialty food. Well.. we knew of the food but we didn't know where we could eat it, so at one of the pit stops, we just took some flyers on display and most of them were advertising food in Niigata, some with coupon. So we just followed those flyers.

Another helpful tip for driving in Japan, with regards to using the GPS. You can key in the postal code, but i find it least accurate. We usually use the phone number, because it beats typing the name in Japanese. But we do occasionally type in Japanese, because we're literate in japanese anw. so look up phone numbers!

新潟ふるさと村アピール館,

Niigata Furusato Mura

〒950-1101 Niigata Prefecture, Niigata, Nishi Ward, Yamada, ２３０７

it's like some kind of... market/village

that's the shop! located on the second floor, with the red banner.

THIS SHIT IS AMAZING.

it's called the Wappameshi (the rice bowl is the main feature *lol* not the soba)

Steamed in bamboo, topped with seafood. it's amazing!!!! Niigata's specialty is rice, and this rice was amazing idk what they did but it's so yummy. even the plain rice alone **lol**. and this was about... 1200Y if i'm not wrong, which was pretty good price for a wappameshi this good.

shop front

*lol* at scallops on display

because the anpanman so cute

this was at the Senbei factory. we got there about 3.40pm, because we followed the flyer and you can make your own senbei! but they close at 4pm, so they wouldn't let us in T_T

what is it about anpanman

a sensei shrine.... idgi

Sensei Okoku

せんべいお国

〒950-3134　新潟県新潟市北区新崎2661番地
TEL: 025-259-0161　FAX: 025-259-0162

went to some park idk what park *LOL*

it was still kinda cold for me that time about... 14-15 degrees i think

very excited over these sakuras??????

Went into some shrine with these cute blocks

THIS SHIT IS AMAZING AS WELL

Tonkatsu Taro

i think we googled about this place...

i'm not used to this katsudon because... there's no egg? just fried katsu and rice? But so good???? just really makes the katsu stand out. u can see the red meat katsu on the left, that's hire katsu (beef katsu) and the right one is the normal pork katsu.

Tonkatsu Taro (とんかつ太郎)

新潟市中央区古町6番町973

6-973 Furumachi dori, Niigata shi

Opening hours : 1130 - 1500 hrs / 1700 - 2030hrs (Sat,Sun & PH ~2000hrs)

Closed every Thursday and 3rd Wednesday of the month

This ice cream is the biscuit ice cream? there's a snack like that and they made it into an ice cream so i got it and it's good. didn't see this ice cream in other parts of japan *lol*

we stayed at APA hotel furumachi (i think) and it was pretty good. good price (they had sale) and they had an onsen!! i enjoyed the onsen, and it as walking distance to tonkatsu taro so i recommend this hotel hehe

Drove pretty far to the seaside, Teradomari seafood market.

you can google this.

the specialty here is snow crab but i'm not sure when is the season for crab

there are a bunch of restaurants offering similar priced dishes, so we just picked a random one.

got this set, which was... really good deal i believe it was about 1500Y?

with sashimi, crab soup, kani don, and steamed fish. and the crumpled looking brown side dish in the middle is scallop.

this is scallop

tonnes of bones.

good deal, good set. yum.

ice cream

i think it was salt flavoured

i think it was too sunny outside so i sat in the car *lol*

OF COURSE WE WENT BACK TO THE SENBEI KINGDOM.

it costs 1500Y to make your own senbei, and it takes about... 20-30minutes.

v happy but v hot *lol*

real fun, with super friendly stuff to guide you. i highly recommend going at least once. *lol* once is enough HAHAHA

went to a sake brewery but i'm not gonna recommend it. the tour was in japanese, and not that interesting in my opinion. in fact, it was boring *lol*.

but of course there was free testing HAHAHAHAH but i don't drink sake it's too strong but we tried a little bit

some sake vending machine *lol*?

this dango place was good!!! but i don't rmb the name *lol*

got a dorayaki

zhihui's

the specialty of niigata, sasa dang. it's really.. good actually.

i don't rly like red bean but this was sweet and the mochi part was sweet and super chewy i like. the red bean was sweeter than usual.

u can see the famous bandai bridge in the vid.. but the bridge was so underwhelming

http://www.dangoya.com/koubou/

新潟市中央区柳島町1-2-3（〒951-8013）
TEL：025-225-8822　FAX：025-225-8844

*lol* the tonkatsu was so good we went back HAHAHAH ping and i went back to grab a snack BEFORE dinner *lol* we shared one bowl haha while zhihui and wanxin went to the manga museum

our hotel

again, we googled this place.

the soba is the specialty this time, it's called hegi soba. we wanted to dip the soba, but when asked the choice of warm or cold soba we said warm, and we got served like this. i believe the dipping one is the cold one. but this soba was AMAZING i don't even really like soba but this one was good. just really... fragrant the soup. is like normal soba soup but idk why it tastes so amazing. this whole set was only 900Y i think.