Otaru

  • the many walking styles of asia

    location: niseko terrain: resort town with fresh snow and high winds style: slowly, usually with our heels slipping out from under us resembles:    location: rusutsu terrain: hotel lobbies and designated trails to the uploading lift style: upright resembles: location:…

  • the infamous kiroro migration

    talk about a hectic morning.  last sunday was our checkout from sapporo and checkin at otaru however the snow forecast had a sizable dump coming to all of the coastal mountains around sapporo.  as the winds were coming in from…

  • Snowy Beach

    Snowy beach seems to me to be an oxymoron until I witness it from the train on its way between Otaru and Sapporo. It still won’t tempt me to go into the freezing water like a surfer I spotted 5…

  • weekly recap #3 – asahikawa, sapporo, otaru

    q. current home/addy where i stayed (neighbourhood) and how long a. asahikawa for one night (fujita kanko washington hotel), sapporo university district (airbnb) for two nights, otaru for four nights (smile hotel) that we just extended to six nights q.…

  • Step by Step Thru Otaru

    I step out of the hotel this morning and was greeted with sunshine. So nice to see blue skies for once. Despite the sun shining almost blindingly bright, there was still little flurries of snow falling from the sky. It…

  • 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…

  • sempre pizza, our guilty ashikawan pleasure

    once again we’ve fallen behind in our posting schedule.  for me this tends to happen once i start a stretch of back to back riding days which seems to render me completely useless past dinner (or breakfast since it’s technically…

  • Tale of Two Snow Festivals

    We are in Sapporo mainly for the snow festival which usually takes place in early February every year. Just a heads up, if you intend to attend a snow festival in the near future, make sure you dress warmly! This…

  • Day Trip to Otaru

    I made a day trip to Otaru on my own yesterday. Started out at the Hirafu intersection waiting for the Niseko bus that goes to the Kutchan train station at 8:59am. For whatever reason, the bus was 15 minutes late…shocking…