It took a while to get to Sabae, because it’s hard to go south out of Niigata. Sabae and Niigata are on different Shinkansen that don’t meet unless you go back almost to Tokyo. I took three trains and had to pay an extra ¥280 at one point to get to Sabae because one of the JR trains turns into a private railway train at the end of its trip.

But first, morning set at the regular spot.

Then it was off to catch an “express” train, a shinkansen, and another “semi-express” train for Sabae. I bought an ekiben at Niigata that wasn’t that bad. Who am I kidding? I love ekiben.

The first train changed companies partway and I had to pay extra. You’re on the same train, but it suddenly its running on someone else’s rails.

Once I got to Sabae I thought I’d made a big mistake. I walked to the hotel and it took around 35 minutes and it was HOT today. Plus, there was absolutely nothing on the road between the train station and the hotel so I didn’t know if there would be anything to do. Oh, and taking a taxi back to the train station cost ¥1500.

I came here for the Megane Museum as Sabae is known for making most of the eyeglass frames in Japan. The Megane Museum wasn’t that interesting. There’s a workshop you have to sign up for 3+ weeks in advance to hand-make your own frames (or much easier, a toy pair of glasses), the museum is small (about the size of my living room) and all in Japanese, and the rest is just a big store with frames from Sabae.

I bought a pair of glasses and lenses and it wasn’t cheap. I think I paid about ¥90,000 which is $835. They’re going to be delivered to one of the hotels I’m staying in. They better be the shit. Most of the glasses didn’t fit my giant foreigner head. I guess real Japanese people’s ears are much closer to the front of their heads. That’s what I get for eating so many cheeseburgers as I was growing up.

The museum is 15 minutes away from Sabae station. I took the 35-minute walk back to the hotel along the highway (sometimes in the pitch black countryside just like I remember) instead of that podunk road I took from the station to the hotel. On the way there were several restaurants and I ate at a family restaurant called Tomato and Onion. I remember wanting to try Tomato and Onion in the past but I was with my sister and she HATES onions. I had the mix grill to see if it’s better than the refrigerated version I got at 7Eleven back in Niigata.

It wasn’t awesome, but it wasn’t bad.

Now it’s time to figure out what to do tomorrow. Ain’t a whole lot going on in Sabae.

Today I planned to do a whole lot of nothing, and I think I succeeded. There were some really ominous clouds this morning but they burned off and I wandered around town for a bit. But first back to Coffee Club for another morning set.

After that it was off to the, well, I can’t remember what the travel bureau is called but I went to the place to get my next 3-week rail pass. The guy told me he could get me my tickets for the rest of my trip but after he found out what a pain it was to go where I wanted to go he gave up after two stops. Even then it was pretty difficult. He didn’t have the special Japan Railways computer at the counter so he had to do everything with a schedule book first. It took a while.

After that it was just wandering around town for a while. I went to Loft to buy another set of nail clippers since the ones I packed are kind of ass. They’re “travel” clippers though and are in a case. Anyway, I bought another cheap “travel” clipper that worked OK. I saw some Snow Peak tents next to the river so I had to see what’s that’s about. I think it’s more of an evening thing because there were only about a half-dozen customers for three or four restaurants in trailers, but I had lunch there. Of course it got really windy just when I was having lunch.

I walked around the waterfront for a while and even made it back to the Toki Messe that we tried to go to Monday (there was no parking available that day). It’s much easier on a weekday and when you’re walking. There’s a free observatory on the 31st floor with a great view.

There’s a small restaurant on the 31st floor and I had a soft ice cream cone. Looked a little puny but it was tasty and it was also the only way to get a seat.

I went back to the hotel and watched some more Netflix before meeting Dr. Takashi Kawasaki and family for dinner. He took me for steak at the Hotel Okura! Fancy! The first course is a potato soup, by the way.

First time I enjoyed matsutake! I’m not a huge fan but it was good.

This isn’t all the steak. This is just the filet and we had sirloin as well.

At this point I think I was too busy eating and talking to take more pictures until dessert.

And that’s it for my last day in Niigata!

I was supposed to wander around Niigata today (though rain was forecasted) and then meet my friend Sho to go see Snow Peak Headquarters tomorrow. Turns out Snow Peak is closed on Wednesdays (at least the store is closed) and so we had to reschedule. TOMORROW I get to wander around Niigata, which is just as well, because it was raining pretty hard in Sanjo today (where Snowpeak is) and it’s really not that far away.

I found this all out when I was back at the coffee shop that’s in the “non-scary” direction from the train station, having a morning set for breakfast.

Then it was off to Tsubame-Sanjo. I thought it was farther away but on the Joetsu Shinkansen which goes 240 km/h (150 mph), it was 12 minutes. Not only that but I rode a double-decker Shinkansen in the green car.

After that it was off to Snow Peak Headquarters! There’s a Snow Peak store in Portland, but the headquarters were pretty interesting. You can camp there or rent a cabin or snowshoe in the winter, and the R&D is done on-site.

There are large rooms for R&D and the employees can take their laptops wherever (even on camp tables) to work. I couldn’t take any pictures of R&D, or the courtyard with sprinklers to test rain resistance, but here’s the museum (you should be able to see how big the room is). This campsite was all equipment used by customers and then donated to Snow Peak for their display.

After that we stopped at a curry restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Eight elegant counter seats and two two-tops crammed into a small area because this is Japan. We were the only two there for a while and it filled up quickly. The food was great, and a lot of the ingredients are from their garden or farms nearby.

I don’t have a picture of the giant rock we saw that looked like a mini-Halfdome, or the shrine in the woods. I think we were having too much fun being lost and trying to find things. After that Sho had to do some work so I took the long (hah) Shinkansen trip back to Niigata.

For dinner I found a taproom that looked suspiciously closed at 5pm. Turns out they weren’t supposed to be open but the guy decided to open anyway. They had a selection of Niigata beers (and a Heretic) on tap, and the hamburger was great. Good enough that I want to come back of course.

That green thing just tasted like soda. Good soda, though. The stout was pretty strong.

That was a rather tall sandwich and hard to eat, but tasty.

The typhoon missed Niigata and is now just a tropical depression but that didn’t stop it from bringing the heat and some crazy winds. I met some old friends (the three Kawasaki siblings) and they showed me around the city. We kind of took it easy because we weren’t sure about the typhoon until it truly petered out. And then when we went out we weren’t sure about the heat and the winds. Anyway, I started out the day at Toyoko Inn with their usual free breakfast.

I complain about the thin walls, but I had one of the better nights of sleep on this trip.

I met Dr. Masaru Kawasaki (the middle sibling and eldest son). Sho (the eldest, daughter) and Dr. Takashi Kawasaki (the youngest, son) met us in a car. If I recall correctly, Sho is about an hour away by car. The other two live in Niigata city. We did touristy things, like going to this temple I can’t remember the significance of. I think it’s quite old, at the very least. The temple guard dog statues are unique: you’re supposed to make a wish and rotate them (they’re on stone turntables.)

We also went to the old customs house, saw the river, and did lots of little historical things places that Masaru had mapped by hand. I told them I wanted soba and we tried a bunch of places until we went back to the half-dead shopping street near the hotel I got on short notice.

The place had a waiting list which felt weird because no one out in the shopping street. I guess this is the only destination in the entire shopping arcade. I see why people still make the trek through the ghost arcade – the food was tasty. They serve special Niigata edamame, and the edamame were surprisingly better than “regular” edamame. More fresh too.

After that it got even hotter and the wind died down a bit. We went to an old temple area with the first public central park in Japan, right next to a soccer stadium. (I don’t have any pictures but we peeked into the stadium at some point.)

After that went to an old viewpoint where you used to be able to see the Japan Sea, but now you can only see the neighborhood they built on infill. There’s a very new temple at the old viewpoint and you can see the new viewpoint in the distance.

We got to the hotel I’m staying in for a couple of days and woo is it different. It’s a Dormy Inn, but the rooms don’t have any bathing facility at all. Just a toilet and two sinks. There’s a bath on the top floor and that’s what you’re supposed to use. We walked around the neighborhood a bit looking for a coffee shop and it appears that the hotel isn’t in the greatest area.

The Kawasaki siblings left me on my own for dinner and by that time the wind had picked up again with a vengeance. Sand was blown in my eyes as I walked down the road so I figured I’d just go to the closest convenience store and eat in my room.

I’m sure it wasn’t good for me, but it was tasty enough.

I watched Netflix, took a bath, and did my laundry. Dormy Inn’s are cheap for laundry (plus it’s cheap to stay at this particular Dormy Inn). The washing machine was free and the dryer cost ¥100 for 20 minutes. I did have some difficulty – a drunk guy had put some of his items in my washer and I couldn’t figure out the dryer for a while – but it all worked out. In any case my clothes are cleaner than before they went in the washer.

There’s a typhoon coming tomorrow and my Niigata friends convinced me to get to Niigata early and avoid travel on typhoon day. Another friend traveling in Japan just emailed and told me she missed a bunch of planned stops on her trip because the typhoon is already in her area.

I was supposed to go Yamagata, where I think I’ve seen most of what I needed to see (Yamadera in particular) but I have the most fun showing up places that have nothing and making a day of it. I think I’ve realized now that even more of what I wanted to see could’ve been done with day trips from Sendai, but where’s the adventure in that?  It’s also more exciting to cancel my trains and a hotel room in Yamagata and then find something for one night in Niigata on short notice. I found one room at Toyoko Inn and it was only $38. I’m remembering why I decided to pay 2-6 times as much for hotels this trip because the walls here are THIN. The Bose Sleepbuds I bought take care of most of the noise and the rooms are always clean and fairly big for Japan.

Anyway, I was supposed to go from Akita to Morioka to Sendai on the Shinkansen, and then over to Yamagata on a normal train. Instead, I went from Akita to Morioka back to Akita, and then on to Niigata. This was my chance to ride the Akita Shinkansen, a mini-Shinkansen, that reverses direction in the middle of the trip. In Morioka it is either attached to or detached from the Shinkansen that goes to Tokyo. It goes 300km/hr on the main track to Tokyo, but much slower on the Morioka-Akita section.

What I did was get on the Akita Shinkansen from Akita to Morioka, get off, and get on another one that was going from Morioka to Akita. That was three hours. Then I got on the “express” train to Niigata which took another 3½ hours. But first, I found a Tullys that took me a while to get into and had a morning set (the department store was closed and you had to go in a door that I thought was locked so I spent a lot of time walking in circles). Only half a sandwich but it was delicious. Ham and egg and I think gruyere cheese.

Then I bought some tea and some chips and got on the Shinkansen portion of the ride. I also got one of these smoothies that I’ve been drinking every day, hoping it has some nutrients since I don’t eat that well while traveling.

Niigata is getting hard to access because the rail companies figure a Shinkansen from Tokyo is all they need. So getting to any of the other towns that has a different Shinkansen is inconvenient and requires backtracking to Tokyo, which is what I was supposed to do on typhoon day. From Akita you can ride the Inaho down the coast a couple of times a day.

The green car itself was kind of weird, with partitions between the seats so you couldn’t see the seat in front, just the partition. You can see it in the picture of the Akita Ekiben I got for lunch.

Not the best I’ve had, but not bad.

On the way down I listened to podcasts and played with my phone. Used Wikipedia to look up all the towns we stopped at, etc, and also the route from the station to the hotel. I think I must’ve looked up the wrong hotel, because it wasn’t 6 minutes walking, it was more like 25. I should’ve taken a cab. Like I said, Toyoko Inn, nice spacious clean room. They gave me a room on a higher floor away from the elevator, but the walls are definitely thin.

I only left the hotel to get some dinner and I think the area I’m in is mostly drinking establishments. I wandered around for a while because I can’t get out of a drinking place here without spending at least ¥5000. Plus the last two nights I’ve been to breweries and I’ve gone into why a taster tray made up of full pints is not ideal.

I found a half-dead department store, and I thought it would have a restaurant floor. It had one restaurant, an okonomiyaki place, and only one other couple was there. It was passable, though. Niigata probably isn’t known for Okonomiyaki. I have to wait for Osaka to get the good stuff.

Yeah, I caved and had ONE beer.

Much less DIY than I’d expect, but whatever. It was fine. It came prepared, and you just put on the toppings.

Tomorrow I see old friends. I hope the typhoon heads the other way!

You’re going to have to give me a minute because for the second day in a row I convinced myself I needed to try all the beers at a brewery. Not only that but was a typical Japanese brewpub which meant no tastes of beer, no taster tray, just full-size beers. After the customers I was talking to figured out I wasn’t from Japan, they sent me to a second taproom where I convinced myself that would be a good idea to try even more beer. I got really lost on the way back but Akita isn’t that big and I wasn’t too far from my hotel.

But first, breakfast in Hirosaki. The breakfast at the Hirosaki Route-Inn was included and was pretty good. The only bad part was the coffee, and I thought that would be remedied by the coffee machine in the lobby (it was not).

In any case, I made it to Akita on the same express train that I took the day before but this time I rode to the terminus in Akita-city. I was disappointed at the station when they wouldn’t let me on the Shinkansen platform to look at the Akita Shinkansen (a mini-Shinkansen line that doesn’t go as fast and also only goes from Morioka to Akita.) I just wanted to see it and my rail pass would let me ride it but they wouldn’t just let me on the platform for rubbernecking purposes.

I got to the Dormy Inn and I broke out my laptop to try to frantically find a hotel for Sunday night (the next night). During the train ride down my friends from Niigata convinced me to ditch my plans to go to Yamagata on Sunday (tomorrow) and just arrive in Niigata early because Typhoon 17 was on its way (I’m not sure who named it Tapah, but it’s just called 17 in Japan).

Fortunately, I found a Toyoko Inn for cheap ($40?) but it wasn’t close to the train station. I also tried to find a way to still get a ride on the Akita Shinkansen without delaying my trip to Niigata too much. Fortunately the guy at the ticket counter was friendly to train nerds so he got me tickets that went from Akita to Morioka, back to Akita, and then down to Niigata. The Akita-to-Akita trip was about three hours, but I would be back in time for the 1PM train from Akita to Niigata.

After that it was tourist time. The first thing I went to was the “Folklore and Performing Arts Center” where they did the lantern balancing from the Kanto Matsuri. It was another museum dedicated to a festival like the Nebuta/Neputa festival museums of both Aomori-city and Hirosaki.

I had to get there quickly because the demonstration where they balanced the lanterns on their foreheads, chins, hands, and hips was about to start. Later in the afternoon I saw them doing the same thing on the street.

I got the “loop ticket” and did most of the things available to me, the Akarenga art museum, the Kubota-jo museums (Satake historical museum and the castle turret display), the art gallery in the Atorion Building, and the Akita Citizen’s Market.

And then dinner. Was it wise to drink my dinner again? Probably not, but that’s just how I do it. I had five beers at Beercafe Aqula and both of the Japanese craft beers on tap at Beer Flight (they also had several American craft beers).

I did have SOME dinner, excellent sausages at Aqula:

And snacks on the way home:

I also took advantage of the big bath in the hotel and now I’m about to pass out.

Today I had a short travel day and I took a 35-minute express train ride to Hirosaki. That should’ve given me plenty of time to eat breakfast and pack, but it was iOS 13 day so I updated my phone and watch before I left. That only gave me a little time (I lie, I had plenty of time) to grab some food at Lawson. A smoothie, a coffee, a tuna/egg salad sandwich set, and pork filet sandwiches. The sign said the pork filet sandwiches were “new” and that grabbed my attention just like any “limited” menu items I see in Japan.

The trip to Hirosaki was uneventful (as you’d expect for a 35-minute trip) and I probably didn’t need to take the Green (half-)car since the trip was so short. It would’ve been easier to be in a regular car because I’d be closer to the door. But that’s what the guy gave me at the counter, and it wasn’t so bad to have a seat to myself in a half-car for the half-hour.

For as close as it is to Aomori, Hirosaki seemed like a completely different town. It’s a country town with plenty going on and laid out in a bigger pattern. I walked from the station to the castle even though the travel information counter told me, “But it’s going to take you 30 minutes!”

I got to the castle and realized 69°F is kind of warm when it’s humid. The castle grounds were nice but when I finally got to the castle it was tiny! Turn out the museum inside was pretty cool and described why. It was just one of the “turrets” and the “castle” itself was a large sprawling building. Like a 17th century Japanese ranch house that took up multiple blocks. (That fence is shorter than I am.)

The turret is supposed to be at a corner of the grounds, but the wall under the turret needed to be rebuilt after the Tohoku earthquake in 2011 so they transported it to the middle of the high ground. The museum described it all.

The gates are all from the 1600’s (I’m sure they’ve been rebuilt in that time to replace rotting timbers, etc) and they’re all pretty cool.

Some of the outer turrets are fenced off and this one is right next to a playground! I took the picture from across the moat.

Next I went to the Nacho Historical House Preservation Area, which turned out to be not a whole lot. Mostly a lot of houses that looked like they were owned by rich people.

There were only two houses open. Honestly, besides the samurai accoutrements, it just seemed like my grandmother’s house but rebuilt rather than torn down at the end.

Next I went to the Nebuta museum. There’s three types: figures, fans, and standing. Aomori has giant figures, and Hirosaki has fans. It didn’t seem as impressive as the Aomori Nebuta, but the museum also had a live Tsugaru shamisen performance, Tsugaru crafts, and a garden.

After that I went to visit the 33 Zen temples. I wasn’t expecting much. I waited for the bus for a long time before I realized I could just walk 20 minutes to get there.

The Zen temples were pretty awe inspiring. There were 33 full-sized Zen temples. Not the tiny temples crammed into neighborhoods like in Tokyo, but full-size temples.

At the last temple, Chosonji, there were people chanting in one of the buildings.

I waited for the ¥100 tourist bus on the way back but gave up and took a regular bus.

I bought an Apple Coke (the special Coke for the area – not that bad) and checked into my hotel.

I watched Netflix for a while until I knew the Be Easy Brewpub would be open and it was great. The beers were good and even the hazy was drinkable (hazies aren’t my favorite). They even had a “Strawberry and Lavender” which wasn’t sickly sweet – it was a sour. All great! The owner is an American with an interesting backstory – he was a bomb tech for the Army.

There weren’t that many customers on a Friday night. I guess it was the first cold day and everyone was hiding out (sort of like the first rainy day in Portland.) I chatted with the brewer who was on tap duty and he might come visit Portland next year.

After that I got a taxi back to the hotel and took a bath in the big tub up on the 14th floor.

Tomorrow it’s Akita!

Today was a travel day and really it’s just as well. I haven’t been feeling 100% and sitting on my ass all morning was pretty much what I needed. It would’ve been better if the chair on the Super Hokuto train was as nice as the chair on the Shinkansen, but whatever. I was asleep part of the time and I felt fine.

It takes a while to pack up my stuff so I didn’t rush and took a taxi to Sapporo station. I found breakfast at the very same place I had breakfast on Monday on the way to the airport. I don’t have to show you the buzzer they give you to pick up your food again. This time I got the bacon and egg.

After that I got on the train and had to kick an older woman out of my seat. She was going further than I was but it was my seat after all. She got the aisle so it wasn’t awful for her. It was 3 ½ hours on the Super Hokuto, another hour on the Tohoku Shinkansen, and then 10 minutes on a local train to get to Aomori. There was a 40 minute layover in Shin-Hakodate so I bought an ekiben there.

For cold lunches, ekiben are pretty good.

I figured I’d stop at Aomori because I was going to spend enough time on trains for one day. There’s only a couple of things to see in Aomori according to the travel web sites and I was prepared to be underwhelmed. The Wa Rasse Nebuta museum seemed to start out a little dull, but they housed four of the best floats from the previous year’s parade. The floats are impressive. They’re 7m by 9m (23′ x 29.5′), made of wire and paper, and lit internally by electric lights and a construction generator. The size is pretty spectacular. It takes them a year to make one, and one of the designers is quoted on a video as saying he does it without plans.

There was also a demonstration of the music played during the festival and a busload of Chinese tourists.

It didn’t take very long to see the whole museum, but it was really worth the trip to Aomori to see it.

Right next door is some interesting architecture at the A-Factory. The A-Factory turned out to be a souvenir shop with some restaurants, but what did I see in the back?

Is it a craft beer brewery?

Unfortunately it was “just” an apple cider maker. There’s a tasting machine upstairs.

For ¥900 you could taste everything they had.

I also talked to two women from DC and one of them complained a lot about the heat. Ha. Just like I do.

On the water right behind the A-Factory is a large ferry that’s being used as a museum. I thought I’d give it a chance and I highly recommend it.

This was the Japan National Railway ferry that went across the Tsugaru Strait to Hakodate, which explains why there’s a large but mostly abandoned-looking rail yard terminus here. You could ship things by train to Aomori and it would continue on to Hokkaido on the ferry. There are even rail tracks straight onto the ferry and they’d just load mail cars and ship them across the strait. A tunnel was completed in the ’80’s but until then it took a plane or a boat to get to Hokkaido.

The entrance floor (the 2nd, I think) has a meeting room and the ticket booth. The 3rd floor had photos and dioramas of older times when the ferry was in use. There were ferry passengers and apple sellers. It’s pretty interesting and shows how far Japan has come. There are also displays of the ferries and trains of the time.

The 4th floor shows more information on the ship including different levels of berths and the bridge. You can go up to get on the upper deck above and a large snowblower is sitting out there waiting for the huge snows of the area.

The path leads back down to the elevator for the first floor, which would be a car deck but it’s the rail car deck for freight and mail cars that loaded directly onto the ship.

Down below were the engine and generator rooms.

It was pretty cool.

After that I went back to the A-Factory to have a hamburger. They had a limited number of ¥3000 aged beef burgers and when I saw there was one left I had to have it.

It wasn’t that big, but it was tasty.

Well, that’s pretty much it. I feel like I’m overpaying for another hotel room, but it does seem to be quiet so I’m OK with it. Not like I have much choice.

I counted my clean shirts and looked at the days until I get somewhere I’m staying more than a day, and it wasn’t adding up. It was time to do laundry again. I decided to walk to a different coin laundry because the one at the Sapporo Capsule Hotel was kind of depressing.

The Aqua Coin Laundry was a mile down the road and I didn’t go last time because of the distance. it was nicer and had larger wash/dry machines. I figured those must work better than the small wash/dry machines in the hotel, plus there were big tumble dryers in the corner if I needed them. Three of these medium washers, two bigger washers, and three dryers.

And that was the extent of my plans. I didn’t bring enough shirts, and I found some holes in one of them, so I thought I should buy some more quick-drying shirts at Montbell. I didn’t make it very far because I saw a guy with a Calgary Rugby shirt and I bored him most of the day. He’s here doing support for Getty Images, and there are teams of photographers going to most of the Rugby World Cup matches. I showed him how to get to the Oktoberfest, found him some computer parts for an mSATA drive, and recommended the pork bowl place (where I went again).

Basically just hung around the hotel and train station but I had some sort of purpose. He really wanted to go to the beach and do some snorkeling but the season is over and they weren’t letting people into the water anyway.

Tomorrow I’m off to Aomori!

I got up this morning and was a little stuffed up. My sister suggested I take it easy, but that’s tomorrow, the day before a stupid long day on the train. Not the longest day on my trip, but 5 hours is enough. Hokkaido is a big place and getting around takes some time.

Today was the day I wanted to go to the Nikka Yoichi Distillery. The Miyagikyo Distillery was great, but Yoichi is the place the man, Taketsuru Masataka, started his own distillery. But first, I went around the corner to Cafe Ranban, a place my sister found on the intarwebs, to get a morning set. If my sister found it on the intarwebs, I figured the Chinese tourists can find it as well. I showed up just behind a group of eight. Fortunately, I got served first and had some toast and a hard-boiled egg.

This place is SERIOUS about coffee. They have a Panamanian and Sumatran that are ¥1800 per cup!

After this I walked about a mile through the underground path to Sapporo station. There weren’t shops the whole way, but it is covered and necessary when it snows here. Also probably nicer to use when it rains. I’m not sure why I didn’t try this earlier.

In any case, I took the first train I could to Otaru, and then took a bus to Yoichi. I could’ve waited for the train to Yoichi but the bus was pretty interesting and took me past a surfing spot. The bus stop is right across from the the distillery.

This place has a lot more history than the Miyagikyo Distillery. The grounds have the Taketsuru house, for example, and the buildings look older.

In fact, this is one of the few coal-fired distilling plants in the world.

However, I think I preferred the Miyagikyo tour. It was more explanatory, and it took you through the steps of making whiskey. I kept asking questions that annoyed the tour guide (I did the same at Miyagikyo but the guide there was much more pleasant). It felt like they were a lot more full of themselves here.

I had the three complimentary tastes, but the only one I finished was the Yoichi single malt. Nikka Black isn’t my thing, and the Apple Wine is really sweet.

After that it was back to the “Whiskey Museum” where the bar had tastes of Nikka’s finest. Yoichi has a much sharper taste than the Miyagikyo, and I’m not that impressed with it. It wins prizes, though and the 10 year Yoichi Single Malt was pretty good.

After that it was back on the bus to the port town of Otaru, and walking around the tourist attractions there. Most of what I saw was very touristy stuff, blown glass trinkets and music boxes. I wasn’t impressed. I did see Otaru Beer on a map and then headed down some alleyways to the restaurant after I had a rather touristy donut.

At one point I thought I was lost, which never really bothers me much. It’s not like I was too far from anything.

They’re really serious about beer here. They appear to follow the German Reinheitsgebot Beer laws and it’s pretty tasty. They also do two tours every hour through the parts of the restaurant where they make the beer.

I had a mozzarella cheese bread (and a beer) and waited for the tour.

I saw the brewer working, and I tried to get his attention by yelling “Bitte!” because I thought someone who made this German of a beer must be from Germany. When he didn’t ever turn around, I asked one of the staff if he was from Germany. Turns out he’s from Oklahoma. The president of the company sent him to Germany to study how to make beer “correctly” and company also owns the Bikkuri Donkey chain! If you’ve ever been (I’m a fan of Japanese takes on Americanish food like hamburger steaks) you’ve probably seen the unbranded beer they have. Otaru Beer provides all their beer. I had quite a long talk (and a second tour) from the brewer and I’d recommend stopping by and saying hello.

I got on the train on the way back and the only thing I remember is handing my ticket to the conductor to have it stamped and then closing my eyes. The next thing I remember we’re stopped at a station and the sign said Sapporo. Good thing I woke up because the train keeps going quite a ways beyond Sapporo! I guess those whiskeys and beers had an effect.

I walked back to the hotel, searched some restaurant ratings, and found a place with pork bowls a few steps across the shopping arcade. It sounded good and it tasted even better. It was in an odd food court and the stall itself only had seven seats. You could take the food out to the central area if necessary.

Oh, I forgot about the pre-dinner ice cream, and the post dinner zangi (Sapporo fried chicken).

And in case my co-worker Phil sees this, I found a figurine in the pork bowl restaurant.

I can’t seem to get away from Dodger fans.

Today was the craziest day of my trip. I planned to get on a plane to Wakkanai, rent a car, and see the northernmost point of Japan (which is just a monument, really). It’s just one of those silly things that I really wanted to do after hearing about it. I also heard you might be able to see Russia! You can even go, but I didn’t want to have to score a visa since Russia requires them of US visitors.

I also thought about taking the train, but that’s five hours up and five hours back making it a hell of a long day if I wanted to make it a day trip.

So off I went. I had an 8:20 train to the airport for a 10:20 flight. I didn’t want to cut it close. So I got up and was on my way early, looking for another morning set on the way. Unfortunately, most of the places didn’t open until 8AM! There was a place in Sapporo station, though, that opened at 7:30! Quite tasty, though I burned the hell out of my mouth with the pizza toast. The high-tech gadget to figure out when your order was ready was unnecessary in such a small cafe, but whatever.

 

The trip to the airport was uneventful and short. The only oddness in checking in was everything in Japanese and I couldn’t find the English option. I pretty much resorted to mashing buttons with unreadable kanji until it all went through. I got a slip of paper with my boarding info. After that it was a long wait. I decided to wander around Chitose Airport and it’s great! There’s restaurants, some shops, a movie theatre(!), a conference hall, and several museums that didn’t open until my flight left. Where else can you go outside and see the planes?

I tried to get into the “Super Lounge” but you need a Japanese premium credit card to get in. My AMEX Platinum and ¥1080 would’ve gotten me in too, but I decided to keep exploring and found a Pronto and had a second morning set. I was going to have toast, salad, and coffee, but they ran out of salad. It was either an egg salad sandwich or a hot dog, so I went with the egg salad. Besides the stale bread it was great.

Security was pretty easy too, similar to having pre-check in the US. I guess you can even bring in liquids if the weird liquid testing machine can scan them correctly. They spit out another piece of paper at security I had to have to get on the plane.

The flight to Wakkanai was on a prop plane and only took 55 minutes.

The even had time to serve a small drink!

After that the fun began. I couldn’t find the email with my car rental information with my iPhone and the three counters didn’t have my info. At some point after the shuttles left, I thought it had to be Toyota Rent-a-car. Nissan was nice enough to give me a ride to the rental area, (which I later realized is really close and I could’ve walked there). The guy at Toyota Rent-a-car finally looked me up in the computer under my name in English characters and said I’d rented the car in the Wakkanai City office! I got a ride back to the terminal (I still didn’t realize how close it was because I was flustered) and looked for a bus.

The taxi driver told me the bus had left and there wasn’t going to be another one for a while. I asked how much a taxi would be into town and it was ~¥4000. I considered my options and decided that would probably be the least expensive option to see what I wanted to see. It cost me ¥4050 but the driver was really nice and was pointing out all sorts of things I needed to know. Watch for speed traps here, most people in Hokkaido drive fast, get gas here because it’s the last one before you return the car, the place you want to go this this way and you should also see Noshappu which is down this road. It was worth it.

Driving the car was easier than you’d expect. The roads in Wakkanai are wide and there isn’t that much traffic. In town, the speed limits are so slow that it’s easy. Plus, not much traffic even in town.

The woman at Toyota showed me how to add destination into their GPS (which was tough to remember because lots more unreadable kanji) and set it for Cape Soya, where I wanted to go, but the taxi driver kept telling me about Noshappu and I forgot why that was interesting to me. Turns out it’s an aquarium I didn’t go into, but I was close enough (ha, nothing’s close out in Wakkanai) that I went first. When I saw the aquarium I realized that shouldn’t be my first stop. But I talked to some motorcyclists (lots of them up there) and OMG THERE’S A GIANT DOE IN THE PARKING LOT JUST WANDERING AROUND.

When I think of urban deer I think of tiny ones, but she was big.

Anyway, I drove back the way the GPS wanted me to (with some wrong turns on the way) and it took longer than I expected. 30-40 minutes? Whatever. It was worth it.

The woman at the Toyota dealer said there’s really good ramen up there to, so I walked up the hill (there was a giant parking lot and I could’ve driven) and had scallop shio ramen! It WAS good.

I looked at all the memorials up on the hill as well. Several for peace, several for WWII, one for the KAL Flight 007 that the Russians shot down north of Japan.

I tried to see Russia but I wasn’t sure that was it.

I headed back to town to see the Wakkanai Centennial Tower and Museum. The museum is at the bottom of the tower and there’s lots of information about the Japanese settlement on Sakhalin, the settlement of Wakkanai, and the Ainu culture of the area. Plus, the view from the tower!

The view was great from up there and I was pretty sure I saw Russia in the distance, just like Sarah Palin!

And Wakkanai in all its glory (actually just a picture I took and I can’t remember why). I think I just took this picture to try to show the windy little road I had to take to get up here.

I met some nice Australians up there and gave them a ride back to their hotel. I actually saw them on the way up and asked if they wanted a ride, but they turned me down. Had a nice chat about how they’re in Japan for a month more than me! They’re going from small town to small town. I think they’re from a part of Australia that my neighbor is from which is to say the coast in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, it was about time to start heading back. I figured I’d better start back around 4PM in case the Toyota Rentacar people had issues with my return (they didn’t) and I had to get gas. On the way I went by the weird breakwater where they have events under the overhang. This day there was nothing going on so I kept going.

I was told to refill and that Toyota was so efficient that the gas gauge didn’t budge. I think that’s why they insisted on seeing my receipt though I only spent ¥363 on 2.47L of gas (0.65 gallons).

I was planning on getting back and eating a quick dinner and I found a Mos Burger in the airport. Even better, I had almost 30 minutes to kill while waiting for my train so it all worked out.

Good thing I ate at the airport since it was pouring when I got back to Sapporo. It was cool and breezy but never rainy when I was in Wakkanai. Well, I’m beat. That’s it for the day. I’m not even bothering to go down to the big bath, though I may take a quick shower in the room.

I’m here for six days, so it’s going to say Sapporo a couple more times.

I was trying to figure out what to do today and I was IMing my sister. I also had ZERO beers yesterday and my head hurt a bit so maybe it’s my sinuses. Anyway, I was trying to figure out what to do.

My sister’s google found different things than I did, and she suggested a chocolate factory. That looked like a kid’s thing, but why not? And sort of on the way was an Olympic ski jump that a Scottish guy I met was talking about with a ski jump simulator. Sounded interesting.

Of course I putzed around for a while and had to get moving to catch one of the few buses I figured I’d see a coffee shop with a morning set on the way but I WAS WRONG. I used my usual trick of just grabbing some food (a can of coffee and a juice plus some bread products) at a combini.

Google Maps is really screwing up the directions on the iOS app. Google thinks they drive on the right side of the road so I’m being consistently directed to the wrong bus stop. In any case, I got on the bus, which turned out to be a highway bus (!) on the way to Otaru! I could’ve just gone to Otaru today, but I figure Sunday is probably not the ideal day for hitting that touristy spot since it might be too crowded on the weekend.

After the first bus there’s a 20 minute walk to the second bus (Google’s “best” suggestion wasn’t the greatest). You can see the ski jump up the mountain if you look very closely.

Even after the first bus, there’s another 10 minute walk uphill to the ski jump. But it was all worth it just for the view.

The jump was the scariest looking thing ever and I couldn’t figure out why there were tracks at the top and astroturf on the way down until I saw two high school kids doing jumps! The top part had rollers, and the landing zone had astroturf that was watered down with sprinklers.

My next stop was going to be the Hokkaido Jingu shrine and then off to other spots. But I was sidetracked by the sounds of baseball. Maruyama Stadium had something going on, and I could hear the oendan (the cheering sections) and the hit of the ball on the aluminum bat. It was a high school baseball tournament that only cost ¥500 for entry.

Even with so few people, there’s a big cheering section (sort of like the pre-MLS Timbers).

I watched the last few innings of that first game (it only went seven innings) and one side was clearly better than the other. High school baseball is really serious in Japan, and those kids hustle. There’s no walking to the batter’s box, it’s running. There’s only three players conferences allowed on the field during a game. And at the start of the fifth inning, both sides have their cheering squad (perhaps the JV players?) rake the field. And warm ups are insane. The second game seemed more serious (there were radar guns and videos analyzing the pitchers) and it was pretty exciting. A nice way to spend the afternoon. I even indulged in some ballpark food, a Japanese katsu curry!

Afterwards, I finally made it to the shrine and there was a wedding taking place (or at least the wedding pictures).

After that it was time to head back to the hotel and I ran into a LGBT Pride Parade!

After that it was time for dinner. I wasn’t that hungry and I was dithering on whether to have Genghis Khan (barbecued lamb) because when I IMed a friend who grew up here for what I should do, eating Genghis Khan is the only suggestion she had.

That’s lamb tongue on the wire grate, and marinated lamb (Genghis Khan) and regular lamb on the “Genghis Khan” grill.

Well, that’s enough for today. Tomorrow I have to fly to Wakkanai and rent a car to see the northernmost point of Japan!

(That’s just a soda, not a hard cider.)