お友達と新潟旅行してきました！ 4泊5日。新潟はやはり北国で、寒かった…！ 後で知ったけれど、とても風の強い地域。日本のシカゴだな。おにぎり屋さんに行こうと思ったら、あと5分で間に合わず……。今代司酒造の見学ツアーを予約しておいたので歩いて行った。さむ。ツアーはとても良かった！ 仕込みや熟成のタンクを間近で見られた。スリッパに履き替えたとはいえ、こんなに人をガンガン入れていてよく衛生管理できるなあと思ったけれど。酵母発酵する前の、麹が米を溶かした状態の甘酒が美味しかった。乳酸菌由来の酸味があるそうだ。酒粕を溶いて作る甘酒とは一味違った。帰りのバスは1−2時間に一本で、ぎょっとした。確かに、大通りからは外れていますが…！ それでもあと15分すれば来る、というタイミングだったので乗ることにした。郵便局の入口のATMの中に入って、寒さを凌いだという…。この日が、気候に慣れていなかったこともあって一番寒く感じた。
Niigata is part of northern Japan after all, and it was so cold there! I found out later that it is a very windy area, too. It's the Chicago of Japan. We went to an onigiri shop, but we couldn't go in because we came just 5 minutes after they are closed! Anyway, we took a tour of the Imadaiji Sake Brewery. The tour was great! We got to see the brewing and aging tanks up close. Even though visitors changed into slippers, I wondered how they can take sanitary measures with so many visitors to the brewery each day. We tasted amazake, which was delicious. It was made from the liquid that koji fungus had dissolved the rice, ready for fermentation by yeast. It is said to have a sour taste derived from lactic acid bacteria. It was different from amazake made by dissolving sake lees. The bus on the way back only comes once an hour or two! Sure, it is off the main street, but it is a symbolic proof that Niigata is a car-city. We decided to take the bus anyway as it was coming in another 15 minutes. We avoided the cold by going inside the ATM at the entrance of a nearby post office... A true lifesaver of the day... This day felt the coldest, partly because I was not accustomed to the climate, and we walked a lot during the night.
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