A town of old storehouses and morning ramen
Kitakata is a small town in the Aizu region of Fukushima Prefecture, about three hours from Tokyo by shinkansen to Koriyama and then local trains via Aizu-Wakamatsu. Thousands of kura, thick-walled storehouses of white or black plaster built by merchants to keep rice, miso and sake safe from fire, still stand around town, and ramen shops seem to be on every corner. Do as locals do and start with a bowl of ramen for breakfast, then walk between the storehouses and a sake brewery.
A ramen shop known for nikusoba, Kitakata ramen with so many slices of chashu pork that they cover the whole bowl. It opens at 7 a.m. for asa-ra, the local habit of eating ramen for breakfast, and a line often forms in the morning.
The storehouses of an old rice merchant, opened to visitors free of charge. You can eat Kitakata ramen in a tatami room with an irori, a sunken open hearth, and see deep, glossy urushi lacquerware in a small museum on the site.
An open-air museum of storehouses moved here from around town, from a shop with its living quarters to a miso storehouse and a guest room built inside a kura. Walking through them shows how merchants used these fireproof buildings in daily life.
A museum in a sake brewery's old storehouse, where you can see the wooden tools once used to brew sake by hand. Finish with a tasting of the brewery's sake, made with the water of the mountains around Aizu.