Japan 2012 Day 7

Sapporo is pretty much in the center of Hokkaido so to get to the coast you have to travel a little bit. I did that by going to Otaru today.  The selling point for Otaru is that it was a formerly important area probably because it is a sea port and it has a canal not too far from the waterfront. Ok, so it wasn't much to go on but honestly it turned out to be a great day.  I got up early as is usual and was on my way out the door by 7:00 or so I think.  I walked straight to Sapporo station with only a small stop to buy a can of cold black coffee and a couple pauses to take pictures of some statues and the like.  It was overcast in the early morning and it was sort of cool out which was different but that all changed rather rapidly. In Sapporo Station I discovered a Mister Donut and decided I could get my breakfast there. That consisted of a couple chocolate coconut donuts and a cup of hot black coffee.  I wasn't particularly in a rush so I took my time and then was in the JR station and on a train bound for Otaru by 7:45.  The train I took was a local which meant it stopped at every stop along the way to Otaru. Again I wasn't in a rush so I was ok with that.  It took probaby about 45 minutes to get there and I did get to see some nice areas along the way even if I couldn't take pictures in a moving train with dusty-dirty windows.

On arriving in Otaru it was still only about 8:30 and the tourism office was not officially open but I was able to get inside and find some English maps to take with me (along with some Japanese ones for the keepsake). I realized also that I left the sunblock behind and quickly chose to purchase some at a small store at the station then dousing myself with it immediately. From there I immediately started touring the town by walking down the main street to the canal and following the canal along. There were some cool buildings to be seen and the canal was very nice. After reaching the end of the canal I turned outward to the piers and saw a real lot of people fishing along the way. As I neared back to the center of the pier area I noticed that there was some form of carnival starting up.  this sort of took my attention for a bit as there was a stage with a bunch of elderly woman on it and they were obviously disorganized but preparing to do some singing so I waited it out and they did sing a couple of songs. Then after they finished they brought up some new woman and kids and removed some of the ones that were on there already and added a guy that played the keyboards and sang and the rest of them performed a couple of songs in sign language. I guess they were a sign language school or club or the like. In any event it was sort of neat to watch. When they finished their couple of songs I think a series of cheers with very young school girls (less than 8) was up next but I left to start exploring all the booths. Again I was a curiosity there and many of the people in the booths greeted me and I definitely had a lot of staring at me going on.  I did a few loops of the carnival area. There were booths for games and for selling things and of course for food. They had all sorts of stuff going on including many little beer gardens. I wanted to try one of them but I thought it was too early by that point at only 10:30 so I decided to do a little bit more wandering around the city.

I looped around a little bit and found a gift shop and looked in there for a little bit then on my way I found a sign that suggested there was an Otaru Beer Brewery and Pub only 160 meters away. How could I turn something like that down? It was past 11am so I was not totally being an alcoholic, I think. The pub was set up to look like a German beer garden and also displayed some of the brewery itself.  I ordered a dunkel which is not really a dark beer but an amber which had a hoppy flavor with a citrus aftertaste that was served cellar temperature and really very enjoyable. The menu was basically German food so I opted for the sausages and sauerkraut along with a Hokkaido potato, bacon and cheese bake.  All of it was honestly very good food and I liked the sausage a lot. The bacon from the potatoes really felt more like a thinly sliced non-cured piece of pork but it was still very good anyway.  I suppose I could have just gotten the German potatoes but I am glad I got what I got all the same. After a second half liter of beer and finishing my food I thought I would have dessert by trying their seasonal schwarz which was to have an espresso flavor. It was indeed almost a stout with a nice coffee flavor that actually made it perfect for dessert.  After I settled up I went back to the carnival area and bought a "soda" flavored soft serve ice cream. It was a mutant blue color like you'll never find in food and had a fruity flavor that may have been citrus or berry or maybe just generic sugar. In any event I did enjoy it while I walked around some more. The stage at this point had what I will call a Japanese lounge singer. I am not sure if he was someone truly famous here or not but all the older women wanted to come down and shake his hand when he came out of the stage to do so with the audience.  He wasn't bad but certainly it was not the type of music I wanted to listen to.

After another short while I decided I would head back towards the train station but I got sidetracked by some more bits of carnival booths (these mostly selling glass items) and then followed that road along for a while until I was climbing a big hill into what I figured to be the middle of nowhere. Instead I heard very loud music a street over and decided to investigate. This same music had been playing over and over in the beer garden. Two songs randomly repeated.  I was curious why that would be. I have no idea what the songs were about at all.  It turns out that I had stumbled upon a parade. I think I was fairly close to the beginning when I got there.  The parade was a series of local groups, often wearing kimonos dancing to the two songs and marching through the parade. I managed to find a reasonably shady spot and dug in to watch it (I was thinking until it was over. There were all sorts of groups which were obviously sponsored by businesses. I suspect some people worked for some of the businesses others may have been patrons, well who knows. I am sure that I saw over 30 different groups march by each performing their own variation of very similar dances to the two songs that kept on repeating randomly (the same song may have played 3 times in a row before switching or may have been played only the one time.  Being a novelty there I was acknowledged by many of the participants and I know I made more than a couple of the woman blush when they realized I was looking at them.  All of the sponsors made fans for their various teams and I managed to get a couple of those as well as on two occasions I was given some small cans of Sapporo beer by people marching through. Being a gracious guest I of course accepted and drank them readily (though they did sort of weigh down my cargo pockets a bit as Japan does not have garbage cans.  I can say that I saw 3 gainjin participating in the parade, all were women. One was caucasian and was really trying just a bit too hard on the movements so that it looked forced. The second was at best a Japanese and European mix though I think she was probably Chinese.  The last was also caucasian and appeared to be eastern European. She had little issues with the dances but her team was really bad anyway so I am not sure it was noticeable.  I am certain I watched the parade for at least 3 hours and probably closer to 4. When they really seemed to be stalled for some reason (which turned out to be traffic lights where they were crossing still active streets) I decided it was a good idea to try to follow it to the end and found out that the staging area was not terribly far away from where I had been hanging out but that were still new teams forming up to get in the queue.  I figured enough was enough and it had gotten fairly redundant (especially with the music) and I was done. I started walking back in towards the train station but took a couple detours for interesting looking areas. It was past 5pm and I was thinking maybe I could find something to eat before heading into Sapporo.

Unfortunately my detours didn't provide places to eat so I got back to the station and boarded the first train for Sapporo which left just a couple minutes after I boarded. It was not a local but a semi rapid which ultimately meant that it skipped 3 stops on the way to Sapporo so it might as well have been a local. That all didn't really bother me and I was back in town around 6pm. I felt kind of grimy and chose to head back to the hotel and freshen up before getting dinner and settled in for a few minutes and dropped off some of the stuff I bought before getting back out and going around the corner to a place I had noticed the night before on my return from the Indian restaurant. I have no idea what it is called but it sells grilled food on sticks and seemed right up my alley.  When I got in there was a short wait but it wasn't really that bad. When I was seated I ordered a beer which was a Yebisu draft and for my first round I had cheese wrapped in beef, asparagus wrapped in pork, chicken thighs with leek sauce and minced chicken. All were very good especially the beef-wrapped cheese.  I finished the first beer and ordered a second and then ordered ox tongue, kimchi wrapped in pork and another of the beef-wrapped cheese.  The tongue was honestly very good and served a touch rare which made it even more enjoyable. The kimchi wrapped in pork was ok but not what I was hoping for. There was no spice to the kimchi at all (Thinking about it this was the second cabbage thing I had done today).  After I finished those I settled up and headed back towards the hotel where I made a pit stop in the Family Mart in the 1st floor of the hotel and bought some corn bugles and a large Suntory The Royal Bitter to have while preparing this.  The bugles were ok but there was something oddly sweet about them and the beer was just like the one I had in Tokyo.

The pictures from today can be found here. I might have to figure out something for posting the myriad videos I have taken over my last few trips including today at some point.