{"id":10421,"date":"2022-11-05T14:48:05","date_gmt":"2022-11-05T21:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=10421"},"modified":"2022-11-05T15:53:02","modified_gmt":"2022-11-05T22:53:02","slug":"japan-2022-day-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=10421","title":{"rendered":"Japan 2022 Day 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well today (yesterday actually, I got sleepy and went to bed early) was the earliest and weirdest day planned on the trip. I promised James at Black Tide Brewing that I\u2019d come see him and I did. It\u2019s a weird little trip off to a very rural coastal town in Japan that was hit by the tsunami. It\u2019s also where Watanabe Ken has a coffee shop, but I never made it there. I was also told (as is everyone who comes here, I think, that I \u201cjust\u201d missed him.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, the day started off with a breakfast buffet and it was pretty good.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

This is my view at breakfast, by the way.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

I forgot to take a picture from my room, but it\u2019s basically this picture but seven floors higher. It was a great view of the river.<\/p>\n

I took a Shinkansen to Ichinoseki (where I\u2019d been before because that\u2019s where Sekinoichi brewing is) and then it was off on a tiny 2-car diesel train for the coast.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

Kesennuma itself is much larger than I expected. They have a bus\/train hybrid called the BRT. I wonder if it used to be a train. In any case, there is a long one-lane road, fenced off from regular traffic, that the bus runs down. I took the bus to the stop by the hotel and, oddly enough, I was in an industrial area. I think this is the lower area of town that was wiped out by the tsunami.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

The hotel is the big building towards the right. The entrance is slightly below ground level and I thought that was odd. A later taxi driver told me that it was because of all the dirt that was brought in by the tsunami.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

I dropped off my bags and walked the 15 minutes to black tie brewing, which is a stand in the marketplace. Behind the stand is their brewery which is a production brewing facility.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

A picture from inside the market.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

And inside.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

I think James was glad to have someone to talk English to for a while and we talked for 3 \u00bd or 4 hours. I didn\u2019t get to see much more of Kessennuma, but that was OK. I was mostly there because I said I\u2019d come see him. The beers were well made and as I expected he said he has to make them palatable to the Japanese taste and they were a little on the sweet side with very little bitterness. That just made them taste like hazies to me. I was happy to find they had a taster tray! Maybe the Japanese breweries have figured out that people like taster trays or maybe it\u2019s just James.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

I let him get on with his day after monopolizing so much of his time. It was time to find dinner and James suggested the seafood store across the way. I had a glass of local sake which was very good, and they dropped off the \u201cstarter\u201d that also just adds a seat charge to the meal. The octopus was incredibly fresh.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t ask me what I had. I just pretty much asked what they suggested.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

Katsuo since it\u2019s katsuo season. I don\u2019t know how to describe fish that tastes like it was caught that day. It\u2019s wonderful.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

And I guess I didn\u2019t order that many dishes but this sushi was so spectacular that I got it twice.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

I think the one on the right is blowfish? It\u2019s a little crunchy and looks seared. The other two just melted in my mouth.<\/p>\n

After that I went to the 7Eleven for some snacks and back to the brewery buy a can of beer. I asked them to call me a cab because I did not dress for the northern temperatures. It\u2019s 38\u00b0F this morning! Tomorrow it\u2019s off to Tokyo to meet up with my sister, another big travel day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well today (yesterday actually, I got sleepy and went to bed early) was the earliest and weirdest day planned on the trip. I promised James at Black Tide Brewing that I\u2019d come see him and I did. It\u2019s a weird little trip off to a very rural coastal town in Japan that was hit by the tsunami. It\u2019s also where Watanabe Ken has a coffee shop, but I never made it there. I was also told (as is everyone who comes here, I think, that I \u201cjust\u201d missed him.) Anyway, the day started off with a breakfast buffet and it was pretty good. This is my view at breakfast, by … Continue reading Japan 2022 Day 7<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10421"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10424,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10421\/revisions\/10424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}