Day 7 (Feb 3) - Otaru

Location: Otaru, Hokkaido, Japan
Weather: -2 deg + snow (but does not include windchill!!!)
Author: Amy

Hi all! On Day 7, we took a train to Otaru, Land of Sweets! Left pretty late during the day so got there maybe 2 or 3-ish? Because we were a bit late, we had to pick and choose where we really wanted to go to.

On this day, it was snowing quite a lot so that made for a beautiful scenery. Very white, clean and pristine (until you look at the ground). It was also possibly the first time we had to walk around in the snow that much. When the wind isn't blowing, snow drifts down very gently and playfully and can be quite a lot of fun to walk in. But when the wind blows, it gets into your eyes, your nose, your collar.... I still like snow though...

Otaru is well known for glass. I think it's called Kintaichi glass? So there were quite a few glass blowing workshops, galleries, museums, etc. I would have loooooved to try my hand at glass blowing but didn't have the time. We might still go to Otaru again though cause their winter festival is starting today or tomorrow. It will be absolutely beeeeaaaaautiful because they have this canal and they put glass bowls with candles in them to light up the entire canal. I've seen pictures. It's gorgeous! So we might go back again. It's pretty quick and cheap to get to for only 620 yen and half an hour by rapid train.

Amy in front of Otaru Canal

Chrissie in front of Otaru Canal

Proof it was -2 but we didn't believe it cause it felt colder... Windchill I tell you!!!

Anyway, I was saying that glass is their specialty and so we went to a place called Venetian Hall that sold glass products like glass lamps, earrings, necklaces, bowls, cups (Japanese and Western), mirrors, vases, etc. Some of them were really gorgeous! But we were not allowed to take pictures so no pics.... However, we did get tempted to buy something so we've got pics of that! Ha ha! We'll put that up later cause I haven't taken the pics of my purchase yet.

We didn't try the food in Otaru cause we felt guilty after buying our little trinkets... Heh heh... So we walked around a little bit. The part of Otaru where the canal was and tourists go was really pretty. You can find a few character shops there which are really cute as can be seen in pics below. And they've really played up the snow theme by building snow characters.

Chrissie and Totoro?

Look Von!! Hello Kitty!

Snoopy and Me!

It was actually a pretty background. Very magical. But hard to tell from this pic. They even had music-box type music playing the entire time to help create that magical feeling.

More character buildings.

By the time we started to make our way back to Sapporo, it was already dark. Didn't help that as we were looking for JR Minami-Otaru Eki (train station), I misguided us a couple of times... Oops. But Chrissy got us back on track quickly. It was quite a hike at one point cause we were going uphill on a snowy road and a lot of times you can't quite tell where the road starts and where the pavement ends. I pity the poor drivers who have to put up with us clueless tourists walking in the middle of the road sometimes...

That night, I think we had a cheapo dinner cause we were still feeling guilty about spending money on trinkets. It turned out to be a good decision cause I had a burger meat hot dog which was pretty yummy! I liked it and want to try it again. I think you can only get it at Seico Mart.

I think we'll go back to Otaru again on the weekend. This time we will make sure we get there early to try other stuff. Maybe glass blowing?

PS. We didn't take a lot of pics that day, hence the shortage of interesting pics. But! I may cheat and just take pics of the pamphlets. Or wait for Otaru 2!

Catch you guys later!