We were initially planning to do our Otaru day trip on Day 07 today – but only realised the night before that we’d need to pick up the Otaru Aquarium pass at JR Sapporo Station Information Office. Whoops. Our plan called for us to make our way to Otaru early in the morning as once there we’d be heading to Otaru Sankaku Market first. So, we swapped days 07 and 09 i.e. pick up the Otaru Aquarium Pass first at JR Sapporo Station today on Day 07, then make our way to Otaru on Day 09. But the Information Office only opens at 8:30AM, and we also discovered that long queues can form – the wife queued up for nearly 45 minutes in a warm and humid office before it was her turn. That was really not a pleasant experience, and entirely our fault for totally forgetting about this bit.
Our initial plan for Day 09 and now Day 07 was pretty intense: Nijo Market first thing in the morning, then we’d continue to traipse around Sapporo Central: Odori Park, the former Hokkaido Government Office, Hokkaido University Botanical Garden’s winter greenhouse, Maruyama Park, Hotaki and Hokkaido shrine, Sapporo Clock Tower, Sapporo TV Tower, Lunch @ Akarenga Terrace, Hokkaido University Museum, Ginko and Poplar Avenues, and finally dinner at Sapporo Beer Garden. Quite a mouthful. A combination of factors however saw us trim that plan down to essentials: basically, it snowed + my lens fell + I started feeling mildly ill. More on each later, but essentially, the itinerary was trim down to just Nijo Market => Hokkaido University and Museum => Former Hokkaido Government Office => Sapporo Clock Tower => Sapporo TV Tower, with a trip to Yodabashi camera midway to pick up a new lens.
The first stop was Nijo Market, and I’d just summarize it – if you’ve already been to the fish markets, e.g. in Tokyo, don’t bother with this one. It’s quite small, and doesn’t have nearly the range of the produce that Tsujiki Outer Market has. One of the shopkeepers was also not particularly friendly, thundering at me “no camera!” and then pivoting to his companion to also tell him to likewise stop people from taking pictures. I had no problems taking pictures at Tsujiki Outer Market several days back. And no, it wasn’t as though visitors are so free to go from shop to shop taking pictures of every item they have on sale. I was intrigued by the size of snow crabs at one of the several shops selling it, and wanted to attempt a quick shot after checking to make sure I wouldn’t be obstructing and getting in the way of anybody else. Either way, I didn’t snark back – I simply smiled, put the Sony A73 away and waited for the wife and kids to finish checking the produce. It’s their rules, so I’ll abide.
In any case, the market is apparently famous for its gigantic snow crabs, and at some shops you can pick them and have them cooked for a meal right-away. The market wasn’t crowded at all with just a handful of visitors besides us, even though it was about mid-morning by the time we were there.
Couple of pictures:
Continued in the next post: Hokkaido University and Museum!
Recent comments