[Hokkaido] Day 2 : One day trip from Sapporo to Otaru

Stellangelita in Otaru

Second day of our trip in Hokkaido, we're going to a city outside Sapporo. This city very popular with the beautiful scenery of canal. Yup, it's Otaru. Located only 40km away from Sapporo, this city become a must visit place when you're in Sapporo.

Huge Christmas trees  outside Sapporo Park Hotel which located right next to Nakajima Koen station.

Otaru Station with white mountain as a background

We started our day by taking a train from Nakajima Koen (the nearest station from the place we're staying) to Sapporo station (¥200), where we changed to train JR Hakodate Line (¥640) which directly brought us to Otaru station. During this 45 minutes train ride, I saw a lot of amazing winter scenery. Starts from houses, mountain, until seashore and all covered by snow. Can you imagine it??? It's really a winter wonderland. Weather in Otaru is much colder than in Sapporo. Even though there's a sunshine, we still felt very cold. However, a beautiful view around us made us feels excited and couldn't wait to explore this city.

The view of Ishikari Bay seen from the window at the train ride

Even the railroads also covered by snow

The first place that we gonna visit was Otaru Canal. It's the highlight of this day trip and we're going to that place directly once we arrived at Otaru station. To reach this canal, we need to have a quite long walk for around 700m through Chuo Dori street. Actually it's not really far. But the cold weather made our hands numb and we had to make some stops (read : "hide" at convenience stores) to warm up our body. Well, honestly it's not the only reason why we need more than 30 minutes to reach the canal. Fabulous view of this city which covered by snow, and a touch of sunlight, made it become a perfect place and perfect time to take pictures.

Photo stop at Chuo Dori street

BUDO-KAN2 Pachinko Parlor seen from accross the street

KFC outlet looks charming when it's covered by snow

Aurelia was very happy when arrived at the end of Chuo Dori street, and started to see the canal.

Finally we arrived at Otaru canal. Arriving at this canal, we were truly amazed by the beautiful scenery and began walking down the canal. Though their noses turned red, but kids were so happy to be at this place. They couldn't stop laughing and play with the snow. But this situation didn't last long. The snow started to fall heavily, and we ran to find a shelter.

Winston's first touch of snow

Ivan with Aurelia and Winston - Otaru Canal 

Since it's already a lunch time, we're looking for a restaurant around it, and we found Tempura Wakisaka which is a famous crab tempura restaurant in Otaru and it's really recommended. It's located right across Otaru Canal, and we thought it's a perfect place for having a lunch. However, we're not lucky enough on that day. The food was sold out which means we need to find other place. So we started to walk to the famous street in Otaru, Sakaimachi street. Located just 2 blocks away from Otaru Canal, Sakaimachi street offers rows of seafood restaurant and dessert shops. Looking at this situation, we'd need a long time to reach the end of this street :P

At the viewpoint if Otaru Canal

Actually we had no plan about what we gonna eat for lunch in Otaru (besides Tempura Wakisaka). Since it's a lunch time and almost every restaurants were full, we just chose any restaurant that has empty seats randomly. At least we could fill our empty stomach and warm our bodies because the temperature was getting lower.

Even though it's very cold, but when the snow was falling, it's a perfect time for a beautiful shot of winter.

Sakaimachi street in winter

After an hour, finally the snow started to stop falling and we continued strolling through Sakaimachi street. As I was saying, this street has a lot of dessert shops, not to mention the souvenir shops. It's like a heaven for a sweet lover. We visited every stores and bought some Hokkaido snacks. I would say that all Hokkaido sweets are delicious. However, there are some dessert stores at this street which are my favorite : Kitakaro (cream puff), LeTAO (cheese cake), and SaWaWa (all about matcha). You might be not familiar with Kitakaro and SaWaWa. But for LeTAO, I'm pretty sure you know it so well.

KITAKARO Otaru Main Shop

A small snow park next to KITAKARO building where the children spotted to happily playing with snow.

Matcha Ice Ceram (¥500) at SaWaWa, Sakaimachi Street - Otaru

LeTAO Main Store Building

If you have read my blogpost about our first day in Sapporo, you'll know that Kitakaro and LeTao also have a food stall at Daimaru Sapporo. I've bought Kitakaro cream puff there. But special for Le Tao, I wanted to buy it at its main store in Otaru. LeTao has 3 stores in Otaru, and 2 of them (LeTao Pathos and LeTao Main Store) located at Sakaimachi street. It was really easy to find the main store, because it's located at the end of the street, right across the famous Otaru Music Box Museum. Actually I wanted to try their desserts and eat it on the cafe. However I just realized it's already 5PM and it's getting dark soon. Besides, kids also very tired and their bodies started to freezing. So we just bought some cookies with cheese flavor from LeTao (which is very very delicious, even much more delicious than Tokyo Milk Cheese), and walked to Minami Otaru station which is closer than walk back to Otaru station.

Otaru Music Box Main Building seen from Sakaimachi Street

Even though it's closer, the road to Minami Otaru Station is a bit uphill. In conditions of roads covered by snow, it's very difficult to walk uphill because the road becomes slippery. Especially if using a stroller. But if we go back to Otaru Station, it will take a longer time. Whereas we all started to get cold and the sky was getting dark. So we decided to keep walking slowly, while enjoying the atmosphere of the small town - Otaru in the winter.

Mountain view while on the way to Minami Otaru station. It was so quite and even we didn't see other people beside us.

Minami Otaru Station

Well, that's the end of our daytrip to Otaru which mostly we spent for eating :D Overall I just want to say, Otaru is a very beautiful city especially during winter. Even though we were freezing walking outside for the whole day, but it felt magical to exploring this city when it's covered by snow. Instead of just look the pictures or watch videos, you need to see it with your eyes and feel the atmosphere directly. If you have enough time, you might want to stay here for a few nights so you also can see Otaru Snow Light Path Festival which held every February.