Food,  Japan,  Otaru,  Soba

Otaru Redux

Wifi has been really hard to come by at our hotel in Otaru. I took a train and bus for an hour to Sheraton Kiroro so that I could take advantage of their fast wifi connection to book our flights to Seoul, Taipei and Hong Kong on Tuesday.

PicsArt_02-24-09.31.17

The hotel has compensated the lack of reliable wifi with fresh and free bottles of milk everyday. I am not a big milk drinker, perhaps the memories of the milk run in elementary and high school are still too strong. What idiotic public education official thought milk would be a refreshing drink to give kids after they’ve completed a 5km run?! Anyhoo, back to the topic at hand, this Otaru milk is gooooood! Maybe if they gave us this milk back in the day, I might have done the milk run properly instead of pretending to have feminine problems of the monthly kind.

Kawaii manhole cover
Kawaii manhole cover

Despite wifi problems, Otaru is more accessible than Asahikawa. It’s a very small seaside town, lots of tourists from all over Asia to sample the fresh and abundant seafood here. As a result, food prices here are expensive. Sushi lunches cost about ¥3500 – ¥5000. A cup of coffee costs about ¥600. I was very happy to find a yakisoba place that offers a giant plate of noodles with a fried egg on top for only ¥400.

PicsArt_02-25-12.27.47

The Hinamatsuri Festival aka Girl’s Day Festival (not to be confused with the Korean girl band) is on right now. The dolls are displayed until March 3rd to wish good health and future happiness for girls. The dolls have to be taken down immediately after the festival or families risk their daughters marrying late. The horror!

PicsArt_02-24-09.28.57
Doll display at Otaru JR Station

Last night, jojo and I enjoyed really good soba at Yabuhan Soba. I had the duck soba. Jojo’s soba had tiny tiny mushrooms, he was given a special spoon to fish them out. The spoon would be so useful for fishing out corn from ramen bowls.

PicsArt_02-24-09.35.46
Yabuhan Soba

It has snowed every single day here in Otaru, even when it’s sunny. Super dry snow has made jojo a very happy guy.

PicsArt_02-24-10.58.56

2 Comments

Leave a Reply