Went on A Trip to Kansai! – Research Trip Looking for Restaurants Serving Nihonshu

 

Good evening.
Thank you very much for visiting this blog.

 

I’ve been writing about restaurants I visited, but I’d like to start a series of report of my trip to research restaurants which serve Nihonshu, Sake.

 

I took a summer holiday from September 19th to 22nd, and there were Saturday, Sunday, and national holiday next to the 4 days, so my holiday was 9-day holiday in total (I appreciate my company!).
I spent this long holiday for a travel to Kansai area (western part of Japan) by car, so I’d like to report it from today’s blog.

 

To show it roughly, my route was like this.

I started Annaka City which is at the top right of the map, and visited around as following;
1. Miyazu City (Amano Hashidate)
2. Fukuchiyama City
3. Asago City (Takeda Castle Ruins)
4. Osaka City
5. Kyoto City
6. Toba City
7. Ise City (Ise Shrine)
8. Nagoya City

After Nagoya, I went back to Annaka. It was 5-day trip of 1,387km according to Google Maps.

 

What I learnt from this trip was this plan might have been ok for a university student, but it was kind of crazy for an aged adult like me.

The purpose of this trip was to collect as much information about restaurants serving Nihonshu as possible,
so I couldn’t help expanding my plan because it was a precious chance for me to travel around Kansai.
As a result, my route became so long.

Probably my car worked too much, but thanks to him, I could see many things, and the number of prefectures on the database increased a lot.
I think that this trip was a big success.
Today is the prelude. This time, I’d like to write briefly about the first part from Annaka to Amano Hashidate in Miyazu City, Kyoto Prefecture, which was the first destination.

 

〇　Went on A Trip to Kansai

It was a day in September, and the time was 2 o’clock p.m.
I started from my parents’ home by my car, and headed for the west on Joshinetsu Highway.

A typhoon was crossing over the main island of Japan, so the weather was occasional strong wind and rain.
When I started driving, I thought that the weather was bad luck.
But at the end, this typhoon brought me good luck. I’d like to explain it later.

I expected that the cost for fuel and the highway tolls would be big, so I tried to drive my car gently to make the fuel consumption less and to save money.
I controlled the power to push the accelerator constant, and tried not to use the engine much when it was downhill.

The typhoon was moving to the northeast, and my direction was southwest, so I had to drive against the typhoon wind.
When the wind became strong, I stopped at a parking area, and waited until the wind and rain became weak.

To tell the truth, I couldn’t sleep at the night before and started this trip straight (I tried t sleep, but I couldn’t), so stopping at parking areas was good anyway to have some sleep.
I stopped twice in Nagano Prefecture, and arrived in Gifu Prefecture around 5 in the morning.

I changed the route to Meishin Highway to the west, and arrived at Kusatsu Service Area at half passed 6.
By the time, the typhoon was gone and the sky was blue.
I saw rainbow 4 times on the way which made me feel like something good would happen to me.

I left Kusatsu Service Area around 7, and reached Kyoto at 8 via Keiji By-pass.
Looking at Kyoto from a distance (I couldn’t see anything Kyoto-like, though), I changed the highway to Kyoto Jukan Highway at Oyamazaki-Cho, headed for Amano Hashidate which was the edge of this highway, and also the first goal of this trip.

 

〇　To Miyazu

Usually, this Koyo Jukan Highway goes to Miyazu which is very close to Amano Hashidate, but the road was closed at Maizuru-Ohe Interchange which is one station before Miyazu because of typhoon.

I got off the highway at Maizuru-Ohe, and drove to Miyazu from the east on National Route 178 along Yura River.
The sky showed some blue parts over clowds, and the river was like this below.

Even it was after a typhoon, Yura River was even wider than Tone River (the second longest river in Japan) which runs in Maebashi !
It was my first time to go to Tamba and Tango (middle and north district of Kyoto prefecture), and I was surprised to see it because I didn’t expect to see such a big river there!

Oh, I stopped my car at a free space when I took this photo, so don’t worry about the safety^^.
It was interesting to see that there were spaces which drivers can stop and rest along roads around this area.
I don’t see such places in Kanto (eastern Japan).

 

I went along Yura River to the mouth which faces the Japan Sea.
The road turned to the west at the shore, and Miyazu Bay appeared after driving for a while.

Maybe because it was after typhoon crossed, the offshore was muddy, and inside the bay was blue.

Finally, I arrived at Miyazu City at little passed 10.

 

It had been 8 hours since I started.

I had breaks for 2 hours in total, so it took 6 hours of driving.
The distance I drove was about 600km.

Even though I drove such a long distance, I didn’t feel tired at all!
Maybe it was because I was tough, and more than that, it should be because I was doing something fun for me.

 

Well, I stop here for today.
In the next blog, I’d like to write about walking on Amano Hashidate, and visiting where Amaterasu Omikami (the head of all the gods) is said to have stayed, “Motoise-Kono Shrine” which was the Ichinomiya Shrine (the greatest shrine in the district of ancient Japan) of the district of Tango.

 

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