A day trip to Otaru, Hokkaido 🇯🇵

A day trip to Otaru, Hokkaido 🇯🇵

well hello there and good morning from a cloudy but not too bad Sappo today we’re on an adventure we’re going to a little port city called Otaru it has preserved streets a nice canal and apparently a sushi street so let’s check it out well I’ve arrived it’s lovely here the weather oh really nice that’s the station so I’m going to head down this way that’s the canal down there let me check out the waterway it’s not even windy here it’s crazy and it’s warm let’s go little stop into Lawson got myself a little coffee ready to go very nice here it’s very relaxing it really is like a seaside town um I’ll be getting ice cream later for sure i already see lots of uh ice cream cone statues outside of loads of the shops not statues but you know what I mean so to get here from Chaparo cost me 800 yen so €5 and uh it took about 40 minutes on the train so pretty good it’s pretty cool looking isn’t it can imagine on the weekends or at the busy times how crowded this gets it’s such a small space [Music] grilled eel very delicious and very popular in Japan but very tasty it’s great that it’s preserved because I know if this was a home it’d be bloody torn down and torn into a Starbucks or something it’s such a small space you know but uh really interesting to walk through i’m going to pick up some food here later for sure but a lot of the places are not open just yet i’ve seen some of the signs that say they’re open at about 12 midday so about half an hour although a lot of the food sounds nice there’s one thing that certainly doesn’t sound nice saliva chicken i think I’ll pass so I’m on my way now to Saka Machidori now Sakam Machidori is probably the busiest street in Otaru um it was the main street of all of the trading companies when Hokkaido was kind of in development in the late 1800s so a lot of the buildings are actually built by the trading companies in more like a western style to fit their own countries so a lot of the um buildings now have been converted into uh sushi restaurants craft shops you know all this kind of thing so going to check this out i like these old kind of streets it’s got really nice view all the way up to the mountains very lucky with the weather though today um I had checked and it said it was going to be cloudy until about 2:00 but I arrived here just after 11:00 and it’s been lovely and sunny since then look at this old style building so it should be straight down here sakai Machidori busiest street in Otaru oh this is the former bank okay Sak Machidori okay all right then we’re here let’s go he’s rough nice bit of artwork on the sides you can already see though up here like the style of the building is very different nearly colonial looking designs even here and when do you see something like that in Japan unless it’s a pork town nice little stall well stall is a little building but you can see though that the design is very different that looks nice out here now I’m just going to walk to the end of the street first and then I’m going to come up and explore it a little bit just want to check it out um just walk up at first to get an idea of how it is the cap had to go on sun’s in the eyes the whole time look at these kind of buildings see the way they were turned into like glass shops crafts any shop really it’s just nice the way that they’ve actually preserved them they’ve kept them specifically to turn it into a tourist destination sushi restaurants there’s an awful lot of sushi restaurants on this street now that I’ve been walking for a few minutes um I don’t there is a street called nicknamed Sushi Street and I’m not sure if that’s also the nickname for this street if it’s the same one i’ll have to um figure that out afterwards but more ice cream advertisements it’s making me hungry for ice cream i will get one soon very soon just being careful I don’t get run over dried scallops not my kind of thing though I have to say but hey if you like it go for it more sushi here i’m stuck with this cup by the way nice little display here i do like it in Japan the way they actually show you what you’re getting if you order the food so they have actually specific companies to build replicas of your dinner only in Japan well probably other countries now but popular in Japan more sushi and steak great combination quite busy a lot of Chinese tourists again it seems to be popular here because I actually noticed when I was checking up flights which I’ll talk about a bit more later um the flights to Sappo go directly from um Shanghai so it makes sense why there’s an awful lot of Chinese tourists here it’s only a few hour uh like two three hour flight from Shanghai so makes sense that there’s quite a few tourists here it’s easy for them to get here own a giri shop they sell hand drip coffee now I regret getting this look at matcha sweets that seems pretty popular ramen of course is always popular but everyone’s coming out of matcha shop so might check that out on the way back i’m going to walk down this side first oh jeez that looks nice doesn’t it [Music] the street is bigger than I expected it’s never going to end be nuts santa for some reason now I’ve noticed since I got to Hokkaido cod row and salmon row are very popular cuz you see this everywhere and I saw it for I saw a picture of it on its own when I first arrived in Hakarate and I thought it was bubbles from bubble tea you know different flavor ones and then it was like when I read it I said oh wait no it’s cod row salmon Bro melon deep fried chicken king crab it’s a fish market in here and corn fish market corn sea urchin no I’ll pass sea urchin not my kind of thing now apparently Otaroo glass is very very good i wouldn’t know the first thing about glass but from what I read about Otaroo it’s known for its like hand blown glassware so it makes sense as to why there’s glass museums here uh craft glass shops does look nice i have to say like they’re selling special bottles for soy sauce for example and you can see just the bloody detailing is mad it’s impressive up here you’ve even got this kind of glass for saki it’s glass everywhere glass and sushi would you believe it although the weather has been really crappy the last few weeks in Hokkaido they have blossoms was shock i’m speechless something has happened that I don’t know how to comprehend in my brain i’ve just turned around across the road and I came across this wow I love Otaru what a great city so I’ve just walked into an antique museum got all like pianos they sell things as well but they’ve got pianos music boxes old record players look at that it’s pretty cool isn’t it well not record player so it’s a music melody you know you it plays it from the the little uh etchings in it but when I turned around this is a bit creepy isn’t it just sitting there in the corner i do like this organ it’s pretty pretty nice it’s very relaxing in here because it’s pretty busy outside but when you come in here it’s quiet and nice melodies playing in the background the movie theater 1880 damn funny enough Otaru wasn’t even established as a sea in 1880 it was only in 1922 that it became a sea it was only a village before that right let’s head back out that was pretty interesting now the museum part is only a very small part of it the rest of it is a shop selling like music boxes and that kind of thing um but as I said so 1922 Potaru became a city but there’ve been settlers here since the 1500s of course they’d be I knew um settlers not Japanese um so originally when this was a village it started to boom in the late 1800s because herring was a big big uh industry here herring and glassware but herring was the big one also coal mines nearby so uh when that was getting its boom eventually by the time 1922 came along it was upgraded to a city although it’s still I’d say it’s a relatively small city in comparison with most other ones but it must have deserved it who am I to say more glass shops here i think every third shop is selling glass different types of course cuz some of them are saki glasses then another shop is selling um glasses for soy sauce uh containers other ones are just selling glass wear for um just say drinking from so you know it is a nice ma uh mix and match it’s not all the same shop every two or three buildings snoopy Village snoop snoop is very popular in Japan surprised so while I’m walking towards a public toilet now because I really need to go I had to walk like 5 minutes so it’s not too bad i had just had to Google where there was a public toilet um so I’ll tell you plans i have booked me next destination so I go tomorrow i go to Norbetsu the little town uh about an hour and a half away from Sapuro and I’m gonna like rent a bike and stuff like that there’s a few sites nearby for the next few days and then on Sunday I’m flying out of Hokkaido unfortunately the weather is just the forecast is just not good you know and it ruins it when you’re up this high like there’s not much you can do when it starts raining and stuff so I’ll eventually come back when the weather is better maybe next year or so but I’ll be flying to Tokyo it’s kind of the best option to fly from Sappro airport to be honest and one of the cheapest options um so I’m staying in Tokyo now it might be a bit mad because it’s Golden Week it’s Japanese holiday but I got a really good price for a hostel i’m there for 10 days now in Tokyo um it was like €18 a night for the hostel so look that’s pretty good you know it’s not in the center but I don’t mind that i’d rather not be in the center when I’m staying i’d rather have a bit of like peace in the evening so that’s the plan anyway um and then I’ll move on from Tokyo i’ll figure out more from there but I’m going toilet now should we get saki just because we’re here i am tempted there is a little saki bar here [Music] it’s good well I’ve stayed for two little pups not much in them but nice i was just asking the girl like she told me to pick one and I said “Well what do you recommend?” She said “Well I think this is nice and I think this one’s nice.” So I was thinking like she’s surely you know if you’re working in a sake bar but um then she says to me “Oh like I’m not allowed drink cuz I’m 19.” So it’s 20 in Japan so I was thinking “Oh well that makes sense then.” Well I just had ice cream on a beer at some little stall there and they had black vanilla ice cream so I got that in a cone just chatting to the people that work there outside they were nice they didn’t have much English but one of them was studying English in uh university so he had a little bit but they were quite fascinated with Ireland for some reason but they kept thinking it was Scotland they kept saying “Oh Scotch Scotch.” And I said “No no Scotch is Scotland whiskey is Ireland.” But uh nice guys they’re only young i didn’t get any food um apart from the ice cream though because it was oysters and scallops and I I don’t really like that so didn’t bother so before I leave Otaroo I will go and check out a street called Sushi Street which I mentioned earlier i’m not sure what’s on it obviously sushi restaurants but I’m not sure if there’s anything else or if it even looks nice but we’ll find out in a few minutes it’s only around the corner it is quite warm here now though no wind at all um and it’s just kind of a dead heat you know not humid or anything very dry but it’s just that dead heat that’s on the back of me neck and when I turn around it’s in me face and can’t get away from it and all of the main streets are not shaded although there is this shopping kind of arcade that I might check out on the way back to the train station they usually have the same stuff it’s usually clothes shops and a few fruit and veg shops but I’ll check it out regardless just to see so I think Google was actually lying to me a little bit sushi Street hasn’t really got much sushi on it the street I was already on where I got me ice cream has more sushi so didn’t bother recording i was kind of disappointed but I’ve come across a path here that has an old train track running through well obviously it used to run through here but it just kind of cuts through the neighborhoods now to the main street it’s pretty cool isn’t it these are all abandoned of course run down which is a shame you see that a lot in Japan um a lot of run down abandoned buildings i think you could put some good use to these though the location’s great you get people coming down here all the time taking pictures and stuff of the um train track so you think like turning it into a cafe or something few steps up to it you know instead of letting it just rot away like that what do I know but it’s pretty cool goes all the way up and out across the street further back it was in Morioa i asked the owner of the guest house Delisan said why are there so many abandoned houses and buildings in Japan he just said it’s simply the fact that when kids move away to the bigger cities and the parents stay there the parents die eventually of course and the kids don’t want to move back so the houses are just left so yeah that’s why according to a Japanese man anyway it’s probably other circumstances as well but that’s the main one well that was our little trip to Otaru the weather made it a lot better quite a nice little town though i’m glad I got a sunny day um especially when you’re on a coastal town rain makes a big difference so going to head back to Sappo now and uh well I have to figure out what train to get but local train okay yeah all good going to head we will be stopping at station this is a nonp I’ve arrived back in Saporo and the weather is not even half as nice here as it was in Otaru crazy uh yeah so when I got into the train station I was only waiting about 10 minutes for the train to go so it’s pretty good going to head back to the hostel charge up a few bits i definitely have to start packing for tomorrow cuz I’m checking out before 10 a.m tomorrow um then I’ll eat something then just chill that’s all i don’t know if there’s any more to this video to be honest unless I find some interesting food later but if not I’ll catch you tomorrow

Today I decided to take a trip to the lovely little port town of Otaru, only 40 minutes by local train away.