Skip to main content

Japan Trip (Hokkaido): 24 hours in Otaru

Our last stop in Hokkaido, Otaru. Otaru is a small harbour city, half an hour train ride from Sapporo.



The famous Otaru Canal

As touristy as it is, when you are in Otaru, one place that you must take a tourist picture is the Otaru Canal, which is lined with old warehouses. Otaru Canal is around 15 mins walk from Otaru station. Walk all the way straight when you exit from the main door of the station and you will see the Otaru Canal.

Night view, lit with orange lights
Day view, a different feel with artist's drawing
Sakaimachi Street

Very near to Otaru Canal is the Sakaimachi street where both sides of the streets were lined with various shops selling souvenirs, glassware, theme shops, cafes, seafood shops which grilled the seafood on the spot for you.

Map taken from japan-guide.com

There're many shops along the streets that sell these glassware.
Seafood shops that will grill the huge and juicy scallops on the spot for you!

Samurai theme shop
King crab on sale!
Music Box Museum

Walked to the end of Sakaimachi street and we found the music box museum which friends were raving about before we came Otaru. To be exact, it's not really a museum, it's a very big music box souvenir shop. Nonetheless, they sell really cute and exquisite music boxes, and you can mix and match the music and the pattern of the box.





Foodie in Otaru

Other than that, we ate lots of small meals in Otaru, so that we could try out all the food we felt like eating before leaving Hokkaido.

This potato collection shop is just one road across the Canal.

We bought a potato churros to try out.. It's quite nice! Imagine eating churros but with potato filling
There're several little shops inside this food court selling ramen, don, sushi, sashimi and some souvenir.
We decided to satisfy our sashimi, uni and scallop craving. The method of cooking scallop in Otaru was different from the one we had in Noboribetsu. The cook in Noboribetsu grilled the scallop with just soy sauce and salt, while in Otaru, butter and some other sauces were added. We preferred the taste of the scallop in Noboribetsu.
Crispy skin with hot red bean paste in it.. Nice!
Ohh.. melon ice cream with the expensive melon. Yummy!
There were people advertising about this cheesecake when we were there. Not bad but not 'wow'!

All the goodness in one bowl - Otoro, Chutoro, Uni. There's really a difference between Otoro and the other sashimi, it just melt in the mouth and you can taste the fragrant fatty fish oil in your mouth. It's heaven!
Big prawns!!
It's time to catch the Airport Fast Train to Sapporo! Even if it's Airport Fast Train, it's still very squeezy in the train with Japanese commuters taking the train and no allocated space to put our luggage, not a comfortable ride at all.

Anyway, bye bye Hokkaido! We will be back!

Ending the post with stamp chops we got at Sapporo Airport!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Salon I Keep Returning to: Studio M KSL Hair Salon @ KSL City Mall

It's been a while since I crossed the straits to pamper myself at JB. Whenever I'm in JB and want to change my hairstyle or give my hair some well deserved treatment, Studio M is always the first salon that comes to my mind. I have visited Studio M @ KSL City Mall (previously known as Govin Hair) many times as I love the great service and friendly staff there. Price wise, it's definitely super value as you are getting top notch service and best quality products such as Mucota or Oway on your precious hair. As a person who always want good deals, I have researched before and hey, there's no way I can find that kind of price for treatments, perm, rebond or hair color using top quality products such as Mucota or Oway in Singapore! Look at my lifeless hair with the uneven hair color. It's time to go Studio M hair salon to pamper my hair and give it a new look! Studio M is located at ground floor of KSL City Mall, beside Sasa. My hair stylist was Ben. ...

Mucota Omega Rebonding at Focus Hairdressing

I initially wanted to try out volume rebonding at some Korean hair salon in Singapore but the price was really expensive, around $350 for my hair length and I was told that the effect was just like soft rebonding, except that it gives the hair more volume. For my hair length, the hairstylist usually will recommend me to perm the ends to have the romantic Korean feel. But I know I will be lazy to maintain the curls. So I dropped the idea.  I saw many good reviews online for mucota rebonding at Focus Hairdressing. It's located at Cuppage Plaza Level 1 which is just  5 mins walk from Somerset MRT. I have previously tried mucota hair treatment at Creme Hairdressing  (Chinatown Point outlet) and I really love the treatment effect. You can read about my mucota treatment experience at Creme Hairdressing . So i decided to try out Mucota rebonding. I originally planned to take the mucota dyna hair rebonding since it is the cheapest kind of mucota rebonding that Focus of...

Tokio Inkarami hair treatment experience at BumpRV

I had bleached my hair in Oct last year which caused my hair to be very dry and brittle. I dunno what's wrong with me, I damaged my hair further when I perm it in Mar this year. After the bleach and perm, my hair was very rough and it tangles when I comb. I urgently need some really good and effective treatment to save my hair! I researched online and saw people raving about Tokio Inkarami treatment. Through the app Jpassport, I saw some Japanese salon having 20% discount. I chose BumpRV based on the good reviews and the reasonable price. The Tokio Inkarami treatment was priced at $160, after 20% discount, it's only $130+ (inclusive of GST). I made an appointment immediately. My hair stylist was Konomi, although  her english was limited, she was polite and all smiley, which made my visit a pleasant one. Worried about communication? There's a receptionist who can help with the translation. When Konomi saw my hair, she knew my hair was badly damaged and assured me that ...