Oct 31 - Otaru, Sapporo City Tour

This was actually the first day of our tour in Hokkaido. We had our breakfast at Garden Dining Waraku(環樂) which has a beautiful Japanese garden next to it and it is on the 4th floor of Sapporo Grand Hotel. We enjoyed the typical Japanese 10 dishes set menu breakfast. The setup is outstanding with the wonderful view of the garden just outside the window.

The 1st attraction was Otaru (小樽市).  Otaku is famous with its canal, musical box shops and glass shops (they mimic Venice, Italy).   This attraction appears to be a preserved reminder of how ships arrived in this port city in the 1800s bring their goods to trade. Along the canal is a line of what seemingly are the original warehouses which have now been turned into restaurants and other business establishments. Unfortunately, it was rainy on that day.  We had to try to enjoy the walk along the canal in rain.  It was famous with the scenery in the famous Japanese movie "Love Letter" “Love Letter” is a film released in 1995 in Japan and was shot mainly in Otaru.   

With the rainy condition, we had to try to stay indoor as much as we can, therefore we had opportunity to acquire a couple nice survirnirs names Special Hello Kitty cups for Talia and Lucy, and a glass pen set for Theresa.  

We had lunch at Minatomachi (運河倉庫) next to Otaku canal.  It was charcoal grill of all sort of seafood.  It tasted great, the only thing is that the ventilation is lacking. 

Then we went back to Sapporo for bus tour of the city.  After the bus tour, we ventured out ourselves to the campus of the Former Hokkaido Government Office Building (北海道庁) 

 to see the fall foliage.  It was rainy and cold, we only could stand for about half hour for taking photos. Immediately we noticed that Japanese’s foliage is different than US Northeastern’s foliage.  Japanese’s foliage has many different maple leaves and other green vegetation make the whole scene prettier. 

We had dinner at dinner at Sapporo Kanihonke (小江料理) with all sort of crab dishes (螃蟹全餐) including sea crab hot pot (海蟹火鍋), baked king crab (烤地王蟹),及 fresh sea crab sashimi (海蟹刺身).

After dinner, we did more walking in the Underground Street.  We even got to witness the market with a lot of different types of dinner boxes for sale at discounted prices when it got closer to the closing time.  It was amazing to see the variety of products and their nice packaging styles.