Biking to Marine Dream Nou for Crab
[Music] Wow. [Music] [Music] Ooh. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] This rice [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
Today is our first full day in Itoigawa and we plan to trek to Marine Dream Nou, a roadside station (Michi-no-Eki) aka a rest area. It was cool to see the expansive ocean view contrast with the tall, snow capped mountains on the other side. And in between all that crazy nature, the majestic elevated track of the shinkansen.
Anyways, the beaches were cool too because instead of sand there was only rocks. Apparently, sometimes you might find pieces of jade that were brought from the mountains via the multiple streams and rivers that empty into the ocean. We didn’t find any, but I did enjoy the unique sound of the rocks when the waves receded. Very therapeutic.
Also, it’s probably best to do these bikes in cooler weather, or at least on a cloudier day because we were dying from the heat. Thankfully, it was only a 2 hour trek and there were two tunnels that were basically air conditioning tubes for us to cool down.
Marine Nou was really busy and it has a seafood market section, a two floor restaurant section, and a souvenir section. There are many fishes and shellfish local to the area, but the star of the show and what drew us here is the Benizuwai crab. The nearby sea floor drops precipitously fast, which is the perfect environment for these red snow crabs to thrive.
We opted to eat inside due to the heat, and the last option we found was actually the best option since it had the largest selection of dishes (it’s located on the second floor). It also had crazy good prices, huge portions, and the best rice of my life. 2900 yen for each of our bowls that were packed with crab, uni, and roe!
We then headed home and took a long bath. We might’ve taken too long because we were reminded of one of the downsides of small towns: shops close early and randomly. Luckily, there was a ramen shop (Ryuki) that was open and busy with locals. Rebecca ordered a spicy miso tsukumen and I got a bowl of their namesake shoyu tonkatsu. We relied on google translate to help us order, and there was an option for ‘special noodle’. Above it was ‘large noodle’ which was 150 yen and this one costed 200, so I joked that instead of it being organic or buckwheat or something actually special, it was going to be a gigantic plate of noodles. I didn’t want to be right, but it was hilarious that I was because it was a giga portion of noodles that we absolutely did not finish. The noodles were delicious and we found out they were homemade. Rebecca liked her miso soup but my tonkatsu was a little too salty and not enough umami.