Hokkaido Day 9 (14 December 2008)

Today was a really packed day as Aunty Sarah was determined to make the most out of it. First, we visited Hokkaido University grounds.


The park was a majestic garden of life. There was a huge pond there and it wasn't frozen! Cool!


The plants in the park made it seem more like a forest, only it was a very well groomed one. The maze of trees formed a truly breathtaking scenery.


This is the "Japanese Christmas Tree", compared to the normal ones overshadowed by it in the background.

Our next destination was the Sankaku Fish Market in Otaru. It was not crowded, being a less famous market. There were a lot of stalls in the market and we made our way around, occasionally stopping to examine the products. Surprisingly, the market did not have a fishy smell.

We saw a stall selling Hokkaido's signature dish: snow crab! We were curious to know how it tasted, so we decided to order a small crab to try.

It was the best and most delicious dish I had ever tasted! This is how it looked at the end of the "operation".

Jinxgirl sampled some salmon jerky. It was mouth-watering! We decided to buy a few packets to bring back to Singapore.

Another must-see location was the Otaru Canal. Huge tankers used to pass through Otaru via this canal hundreds of years ago.

The next destination was quite a long distance away from the canal. On the way, Aunty Sarah saw the famed Le Tao chocolate shop and went in to take a look. Jinxgirl's Godma followed her in. When they came out, they had bought a bag of petite chocolate strawberry ( sour strawberry coating with white chocolate on the inside). It was to die for!

Meanwhile, Jinxgirl had been next door, looking at name brooches. This brooch caught her eye immediately. She immediately snapped a photo of it. (Lupin is the surname of a Harry Potter character named Remus Lupin. Jinxgirl was amazed as they did not have common names like Joshua or Sarah but had the name of a character instead!)

We continued on our way and finally arrived at the famous Kitaichi Glass Factory. We watched a demonstration of a glass cow being made, enraptured. It was a long and tedious process but when it came out, it was really pretty!

The Otaru Music Box Factory promised to be an interesting visit. On the first floor, there were mountains of different music boxes of all colours, shapes, designs and sizes! They even sold the gadget by itself without the box for people who wanted to listen to the song without the box. Jinxgirl chose to buy one of the gadgets, selecting the famous Carpenters' song, Sing.

Oh, that reminds me. Here's a photo of everything we've bought so far, excluding the fridge magnet. The picture shows the gadget, Gavoidat Junior sitting on it, Gavoidat senior sitting on his cushion with his toy next to him, and the endamame which pops out with a crying face.

The second floor of the museum had the history of music boxes and ancient models of music boxes. It was interesting to chart the development of the magnificent music boxes we see today.

Back in Sapporo, we had dinner in a restaurant at Food Walk, JR Tower. This bell is very special. It is connected to the counter such that when we press it, the waiters and waitresses will be able to tell which table is calling for service and serve them. Pretty neat, isn't it?

After dinner, we headed to Odori park for the Sapporo White Illumination. This was the best photo taken that night. It was taken by Caleb. He's certainly turning out to be a fine photographer.