[The following post is from the archives of my In Search Of Incredible blog, originally published on 17 April 2017]

 

Day 7 – 13 December 2016, Tuesday

It’s our last full day in Hokkaido today and we spent the first half of the day visiting Otaru, a seaside town about 40km away from Sapporo. At 8:30am, we departed our hotel but arrived at Otaru only about 9:45am, due to the heavy traffic. First stop was Otaru Canal.

Otaru Canal is the landmark of the city. It represents an integral part of the city’s port history. In the past, large vessels unloaded their wares onto smaller ships, which then transported the goods to the warehouses lining Otaru Canal. In 1986, large dock facilities were built, thereby ending the need for the transfer of goods to the smaller vessels and then to the warehouses. Instead of tearing down these obsolete warehouses, they decided to preserve them and turn them into museums, shops and restaurants. Today, Otaru Canal has become a tourist attraction in its own right, with the restored waterfront warehouses providing a pretty backdrop against the canal.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to explore the restored warehouses. After a few obligatory snapshots with the canal, Reiko ushered us to the main shopping street, Sakaimachi Street, about 10 minutes walk away. In the past, this was where the shipping companies had their offices. Like Otaru Canal, many of the buildings here have been preserved and converted into restaurants and shops. The ambience was nice and cosy, and the feel reminded mum of the small mountainside town of Zermatt in Switzerland.

As we walked along Sakaimachi Street, Reiko pointed out the numerous shops selling yummy confectionary and pastries. We saw many LeTAO outlets along the way. But first, we had to go to Gin no Kane for some coffee. The one we visited was the No. 1 Building, located at Marchen Square, diagonally opposite the Otaru Music Box Museum. Gin no Kane has two other stores located nearby, hence they differentiate the stores by calling them No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 Building.

We went to the café on the second floor and ordered our coffees. Reiko made it sound as if she was treating us but it was actually part of the tour package. The novel part of it was that we could keep the cups after finishing the drink. There were three different cup designs so mum, dad and I chose a different one each. Two of them were moulded in the shape of Hello Kitty while the third one was a regular shaped cup branded with an image of Hello Kitty and Otaru Canal, so they made for good souvenirs.

After the coffee break, Reiko only gave us about an hour of free and easy time so we had to rush.  From Gin no Kane, we crossed the road to the next attraction, the Otaru Music Box Museum. It is perhaps the most famous shop in Otaru and a must-visit stop for all tourists.

Housed in a stately 1912 building, the museum sells music boxes of all shapes and sizes. It is a huge store and you can easily spend an hour inside admiring the different intricately designed music boxes shaped like sushi, fortune cats, carousels and much more. They were all very pretty but also very pricey. I didn’t note down the prices, but I remember each music box will set you back by at least S$20, depending on the size and design. They make great gifts but they weren’t very practical and music boxes aren’t my thing, so I didn’t buy any. Nonetheless, it was still interesting to visit and appreciate their beauty.

After that, we went to the LeTAO Head Store nearby to buy a cheesecake, after Reiko had recommended it to us. In fact, I don’t need much motivation – just tell me it contains cheese and I will definitely try it!

LeTAO was founded in Otaru in 1998 and they are famous for their Double Fromage cheesecakes. The two-layered Double Fromage is made of creamy, smooth unbaked cheesecake on the top layer and rich, tasty baked cheesecake on the lower layer. The 12cm cake costs ¥1,728 (S$22.50), inclusive of taxes. However, I didn’t buy the Double Fromage but I bought the Neige Blanc instead. It comprises of a thin layer of sponge cake on top and a generous filling of camembert and cream cheese below. It was slightly more pricey, at ¥1,944 (S$25.30).

There were also other cakes and pastries available and I was so tempted to try them all. In the end, I only bought the Otaru Rue Ironai Fromage Cookies (langue de chat cheese cookies) together with the Neige Blanc cake. The staff packed dry ice for the cake so that it wouldn’t melt and I could eat it when I get back to the hotel at night. They even provided a “rain cover” plastic sheet for the cake’s paper bag so that it wouldn’t be ruined by rain or snow. When it comes to packaging, the Japanese really think of everything! For the record, the cake was simply heavenly. It was the smoothest cheesecake ever and it felt like eating ice cream. Yum!

Anyway, Reiko told us that LeTAO are very protective of the quality of their cheesecakes. They have a store at the airport as well, and if you are a tourist and you intend to buy a cheesecake to bring it back to your home country, the staff will check where is your destination before selling you the cake. If it is a long flight or if there is a long transit period, they will refuse to sell you the cake because they do not want the quality of their cakes to be compromised. They would rather not earn your money than to risk damaging their reputation with a cake that is not fresh due to the long flight. Now, that’s what I call integrity.

FYI: On 8 December 2016, LeTAO opened an outlet in Singapore, located at #B1-K7 of ION Orchard shopping mall! The Double Fromage retails at S$28, about 25% more expensive than in Japan. I haven’t patronised the Singapore outlet yet but I think it is worth paying that bit more for it. Strangely, their Singapore outlet does not carry the Neige Blanc, so I’m glad I tried it in Japan!

After LeTAO, we continued walking along Sakaimachi Street back towards where our coach was parked. I bought a rice cracker snack with seaweed because it just smelled so fragrant and I couldn’t resist it. It tasted not bad but it was very dry. Mum and dad then visited a specialised chopsticks shop and bought a pair each. The shop provides a free engraving service so they got their names engraved on the chopsticks, and it took less than 10 minutes to do so. If you’re stuck with gift ideas, these personalised chopsticks make great souvenirs for your friends and family.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to visit other shops at Sakaimachi Street or try the other snacks and pastries. It would have been nice to spend at least a couple of hours here, slowly taking in the sights and filling the stomach. At 12:06pm, we departed the Otaru Canal area and headed to our next destination, Mt. Tengu Ropeway. It wasn’t too far away, and we arrived at 12:24pm. To get to the top of Mt. Tengu, we took a ropeway (or what we know as “cable car”) and the journey from the mountain foot to mountain top took just 4 minutes.

Mt. Tengu (天狗山) is 532m tall and it provides spectacular views of Otaru. “Tengu” means “heavenly dog” and it is a legendary creature found in Japanese mythology and folklore. It is characterised by its bright red face and long nose. If you don’t know how Tengu looks like, just go to your mobile phone and scroll through your emojis. That’s Tengu right there, above the poop emoji.

Reiko didn’t explain much about the origins of Tengu. In fact, it is not entirely clear why this mountain was called Mt. Tengu. Somewhere on the mountain grounds, there is a large wooden Tengu goblin. It is said that the Tengu goblin has magical power to grant wishes and to protect people from harm. So it is customary to touch the long nose of the Tengu goblin and your wishes will come true. We didn’t even know about this so we didn’t go looking for it. We spent most of our time taking photos and admiring the view from the edge of the mountain.

The weather was kind to us today and we had a clear view. However, it was still very cold to be out for a prolonged period so we quickly snapped our pictures and went inside the building to hide. We then took the ropeway back to the mountain foot and had lunch at a restaurant there.

Today’s lunch comprised of a hot pot with udon, tofu, vegetables, chicken and rice cake, a large scallop and a huge piece of Okhotsk Atka mackerel fish, also known as hokke in Japanese. The fish was good but it was quite hard to eat because of the bones. It was only after the meal when we saw a poster outside the restaurant teaching the proper way to tackle the mackerel fish neatly.

At 2:10pm, we departed Mt. Tengu and made our way back to Sapporo. Once again, we were caught in a terrible traffic jam. It was frustrating but there was nothing we could do. The original plan was to go shopping before dinner but because of the jam, we had to scrap that.

At 4:30pm, we arrived at Tanukikoji shopping arcade, near Nishi-6-chome. Tanukikoji shopping arcade is approximately 1km long and it is a roofed arcade with around 200 shops. It looked like the Tenjinbashi-suji shopping street in Osaka, so we nicknamed it “Osaka Street”. Here, there are many souvenir shops, restaurants, bars and retail shops and it is a very lively area.

Reiko brought us to one of the tax-free shops so that we could obtain our supplies of Shiroi Koibito cookies and other products like Jagabee and Royce chocolates. We only bought what we needed, about 8 boxes maybe? However, many of our fellow tour group members bought much more, even packing them into box cartons. Quite scary, but to each his own. And I’m sure they’re not the only ones doing so. Japanese snacks really are oishii!

At 5:35pm, we arrived at Japanese Buffet Dining Den restaurant for dinner. It is an all-you-can-eat buffet with free flow seafood and drinks. It was a huge restaurant and it was fully packed. The range of seafood was very good, with crabs, prawns, scallop, oysters, salmon, squid, clam, fish and more. There were also meat staples like chicken, beef and pork, as well as sushi and tempura. As soon as we were assigned our seats, everyone sped off to grab as much as they could. The crabs were huge but it was quite troublesome to grill them and eat them, so I mainly focused on the prawns.

This was supposed to be the best dinner of the trip but it was very rushed and we didn’t have enough time to enjoy it. We only had 70 minutes, which isn’t a lot considering you have to spend time choosing the raw food, cooking the food and then eating it. I just visited the Den website and saw that there is actually an option for a 100-minute session but it is more expensive – ¥5,940 (S$77.20) for 100 minutes vs ¥4,860 (S$63.20) for 70 minutes. For S$14 more, I would say go for the 100-minute option. It is definitely more worth it and more enjoyable. Guess Dynasty Travel isn’t that generous after all.

We left Den at 7:00pm and headed back to the hotel. It was only after our bus reached our hotel when one of the tour group members reminded Reiko that we were supposed to visit the Munich Christmas market at Odori Park. Reiko said that she forgot about it, so we headed back out again. Traffic was crawling as usual, at it took us 30 minutes just to reach Odori Park. We didn’t make it all the way to the Christmas market because I think it was still quite a distance away, near the Sapporo TV Tower. Due to the traffic situation, we decided to give up and just alighted at Odori Park to see some of the Christmas lights displays there.

In any case, I have been to the real Munich Christmas markets so it wasn’t much of a loss for me. Christmas is still not widely celebrated in Japan, certainly not on the same scale as Europe, and not even Singapore. So I doubt the atmosphere at the Christmas market here in Sapporo would be that fantastic. Besides, it was really too cold to stay outdoors for long, so none of us were complaining too much when we left Odori Park at 8:00pm and headed back to the hotel for real this time. It was our last night in Hokkaido, so it was time to do some packing too. Not that we had much to pack since we barely did any shopping!