We slept in a little and did not get up until almost 9am today. Hokkaido, especially in winter, seems to be a place one should not be in a rush, you cannot anyway. It takes time to walk on the snow and ice. Every step needs to be very careful to make. It does snow a lot here, almost all day long. Temperature is not brutal, maybe around lower 30F (-1C). Today we have visited Otaru, a seaside town about 32 mins away from Sapporo on rapid train. It was a little colder there with the sea breeze. What I found interesting was that it was complete blue sky with sun for a second, and then the next the snow shower just swept through the region like a sprinkler. It repeated again and again. The only bad thing about that was that there was no chance for the snow to melt, and the older snow became ice, and it was very slippy everywhere.


Our little trip to Otaru was about the canal, but also about eating. It's a seafood town kind of place, we aimed for some good sushi. But when we first arrived, we had buns! Steamed buns with pork, another big one with crabmeat (excellente!) and some deep fried potato croquettes with some cheese made from Hokkaido cows (I believe) in the middle. This was our first breakfast at 11:30am. Walked down the main road from the train station, we first passed an old train railway tracks where we took some pictures. Continued down, a street from the seashore, there was the canal. It was a touristy spot. Otaru to Sapporo is like Kamakura to Tokyo, the difference is that Kamakura is about the temple while Otaru is about the canal. It was a beautiful place, sort of romantic especially at night when the lights was on. Nowadays, you would see selfie sticks coming in your pictures from all directions.


We had a walk along the canal on icy path. If we had skates, we could have skated away like Joni Mitchell. The snow started to come down, we excused ourselves into a cafe by the port for our second breakfast of the day. We had some pancakes and coffee, while I typed my blog. The cafe was so cozy, we had blankets on our legs and drinking some hot coffee looking at the snow outside, the time could stop right there. It was actually past noon. I called it our second breakfast, because we had not even have sushi yet, that was what we came to Otaru for, partly. Continuing our walking tour and to work up our appetites, we hiked up a hill to find the Suitengu Shrine, a beautiful and peaceful place, but walking up that hill on ice was not an easy task. When we were at the Shrine, I slipped, the Looney Tunes way, on a marble stone in front of a memorial. Luckily it was my butt landed first, not my camera.


By the time we walked back down from the Shrine, we stopped by a sushi place at the foot of the hill. It was recommended in Bryan's guidebook. The menu was so tempting, we would have 4 different items. But turned out 3 of them wouldn't be available until dinner hours. So, we just had two Kaisendon (Sushi Rice Bowl). It was delish! After lunch, it was already getting dark, so we walked back to the canal to see the lights and then headed back to the train station. Reserved our train to Kushiro for tomorrow. Back to Sapporo, I finally found a place to exchange some money. Bryan was doing his god-given duty to shop Hong Kong style... for Japanese medicine, Japanese toothpastes and Japanese eye-drops for himself and friends in Hong Kong. Dinner, we ate at the Ramen Republic in ESTA building 10/F. Someday, I will do a ramen tour in Japan, just to visit and tried all different kinds of ramen in different regions. Absolutely love it.


Back to apartment early. Train will be at 8:51am in the morning, bounded for Kushiro, where we would try to see the Japanese red-crowned crane.

See the other photos from Day 17 here.