Freeze and easy Hokkaido - Day 3
OTARU
Getting ready to go out with thicker coat as we will freeze throughout the whole day.
Got the red coat from ASOS sales peitite range heee...good buy good buy, quality is good.
Since almost everything seems fresh in Hokkaido...We wanna try out random conveyor belt sushi today for lunch.
Heee my new fave hotate raw.
Besides the shell thingy I am not very used to, other tasted great.
Hope on to train to Otaru finally. We gotta change at Sapporo station for Otaru's direction.
Then its a good 30 mins.
Look one side is by the sea!
While the other side that we are seating is by the snowy mountain...
What a sight!
Reached and this is
The Otaru station!
These lamp deco are so pretty....
This could be view straight from inside the station.
If you walk all the way straight down near the sea, you will find the poplar & beautiful Otaru Canal
We bought the day pass and hop on the bus to Glass factories first.
The beautiful scenery along the bus journey.
Finally reached!
Oh its sooo beautiful here...u find time just pass so quickly.
Here randomly we went into one glass factory.
But we were not allowed to take photos inside so well...
I got some glass necklaces, handmade in Japan.
Took below by my iphone and DD was complaining how come I am taking with so many cams. If you add on iphone I actually brought 3 cams with me hahaa but well at times the smaller cams easier to take pic when the place prohibit that.
It was still freaking cold whenever we were out walking.
So I suggested we just walk randomly into one Omiyage store (souvenir / food store) to defroze ourselves. haa
We had a lovely find in here.
The first floor sells all souvenirs or omiyage
It is so nice they have a upper deck in such clean and artistic environment serving hot coffee for free for any purchase. They sell ice cream, some souvenirs like cream puff in indivdual packets.... Nice that they dun make you buy the whole packet.
DD craved for the red bean ice cream. Indeed hokkaido ice cream is really soft and smooth.
I wanted the custard cream puff
Its soft and yummy!
Reluctantly we left and go on to search my music box factory.
It was starting to get dark at 4+pm so we have to get our cold feet to work again.
Found the MUSIC BOX MUSEUM was just right behind me.
MUSIC BOX MUSEUM
Just in case, DD re-confirm on the map again.
But firstly we go into the smaller one first where we got our souvenir musical box that plays ponyo music ahhaa...nice.
Then go to the MUSIC BOX MUSEUM.
We were all amazed by their creativity in all kind of musical boxes.....
You can even tailor one with the music you want.
Yupper it was getting dark and we missed the bus so we walked to our final sightsee spot - OTARU CANAL.
Took about 15 - 20 mins to reach here by walk...
The must see landmark.
Beautiful? I think the capture on my cam is better than reality. I hardly recognise or suspect this is the right spot we been after until DD spotted a big group of tour group right opposite the other bridge.
When it doesnt freeze, it looks like this
Otaru Canal (小樽運河, Otaru Unga) was a central part of the city's busy port in the first half of the 20th century. Large vessels were unloaded by smaller ships, which then transported the goods to warehouses along the canal.
The canal became obsolete when modern dock facilities allowed for direct unloading of larger vessels. Thanks to a citizens' movement, a part of the canal was beautifully restored in the 1980s instead of being landfilled, while the warehouses were transformed into museums, shops and restaurants.
The canal makes for a pleasant stroll during the day, when artists present their works to passing tourists, and during the evenings when old fashioned gas lamps are lit and provide a romantic atmosphere. The canal also serves as the main site of the town's Snow Light Path Festival.
Sorry for the non creative pose but it was really too freezing to do much movement or those classic jumping scene. I was using alot of energy tipping my head aside.
DD too ahaha see we got the same poses. In fact he refused to pose for photos most of the time cos he felt worse without cap or ear muff haha.
After having seen our targted itineary, we quickly head back. As we missed the last bus at 6pm, we have to walk all the way back to the train station which will take another 15 - 20 mins :(
We dashed into one random hotel to de-froze ourselves as we were feeling too cold walking so much ....
I cant even feel my toes.
My mind was just so focus on reaching the station.
But when i came into this hotel toilet to relief, I cant resist the lovely washroom!
Even the basin is soooo lovely! I wonder if I can get anything like this in Singapore!
Sorry my hand shivered too much so I got many blurred pics ahhaa
After the comfortable toilet visit, we continue our station search and walked a good 15 mins including the time when we realised we hit the wrong direction....!
So shock cos it was too cold to miss any way. Worse, there was souless to ask for direction...
Heng I figured out the road direction plates for vehicles...and we got our right direction finally.
It would have saved us 5-7 mins of walking if we had hit right.
Lower half of my face had got numb, I cant really speak fluently and the nose keep running with the frequent cold heartless wind since it was near to sea ...hhaha it sounded funny now but I mean it lor.
Look at DD's face...when he finally got onto the train...those relief and thawing in progress look.
And DD die die wanted to eat a bbq seafood meal. Since it was so cold....i didnt argue for change ahhaa.
The fire seems warm and tempting when you re in the cold.
We came into this shop near our hotel which was rather traditional with real chacoal and stove sharing facility.
Ordered a seafood set for 2, some sticks of teriyaki and potato hot plate. And Sapporo beers!
The seafood set oredi included crab, prawns, whole sotong, pumpkins, potato and corns.
The hot plate potatoes were good for me! Their potatoes are so yummy.
Since I dun take much seafood, I finished most of the potatos myself.
Lucky we ate and reached our hotel fast cos it started to snowed heavily when we were back int he room!
This night .....
Let it snow, Let it snow, let it snow....
It snowed the whole night and next day all the cars parkd downstairs became candies with thick whipped cream on top... hahaa
In mid of such nights, it is rather noisy cos of the snow removal truck will work around the road for snowy nights.
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