Hokkaido: Day 6 Glass

Today Mike, Hannah and I went to Otaru which is a town close-ish to Sapporo, and famous for its old ways of glass blowing, beer, and other fun trades. We met up at the station around noon and got right on the train. The windows were fogged up so we kept on making silly pictures on them, it was fun. :) On our way there it started to snow, Mike and Hannah started to get giddy about it... however it did not stop snowing, so by the end of the day the two of them were complaining about it. haha

When we arrived in Otaru we weren't really sure where things were and what we wanted to do, so we decided to walk down to the harbor and see the ocean. While we were walking, we kept on passing little candle holders made from ice, sometimes with flowers or leaves frozen in them. Otaru has a night festival where they put candles on the canal and on the walkway next to it, and we saw some of the preparations for it. When we got to the end of the street, at the harbor, it was really, really windy but the water looked beautiful. It was a deep blue and on the docks there were mussels growing, it felt almost like Norwalk.... but minus the stink. There were a few big boats, but the confusing thing is that they were all playing traditional Chinese music.... yeah, I still don't quite understand why...

Anyways, we decided to try to find the Otaru glass museum, but we just kept wandering around the town looking at the glass shops and their wares. When we passed one shop I noticed a small stall selling giant takoyaki (one of my favorite Japanese foods) so I decided to try one. It was huuuuge~! It was pretty much my lunch, the only problem I had with it was that since it was so big, the center was not fully cooked which made it taste not so amazing. I finished up my takoyaki in a shop/cafe that sold a lot of music boxes, which I am guessing was another famous product of Otaru's, and Mike saw some more of his AKP friends (his friends from his school in Kyoto).

We decided to continue wandering around the town, and we stopped for lunch at a really small/odd restaurant. Mike and Hannah both got curry and I enjoyed tea. Then we got too sketched out so we left the store to find something else to do. As we were walking along the street we came across a glass blowing shop, that helped you blow your own glass item. Mike and I 'blew' our own versions, i say 'blew' because the shop workers did all the work. But I am still super happy with the final product, and I am giving it to my Host family as my present to them, I really hope they like it.

After that we went back towards the canal to have dinner. We had passed Otaru's most famous brewery and we wanted to try a beer before we left. Before that, though, we saw the light festival I was talking about earlier. It was really pretty, but super crowed and wayyy to much stuff about couples and love. Japan really loves to go all out for valentines day.
At the restaurant we all ordered a beer and a appetizer, and I have to say that I do not like beer... but I do enjoy Hokkaido's.
After dinner we ran back to the train station and head back home. I met up with Martin and Kristin (Mike's friends) at an Izakaya for a few drinks and to talk. It was a really cute place and very relaxed. Kristin and I had to rush to make the last train back, but we made it!

All in all- a busy but nice day.

Also, I really like Mike's friends at AKP, most of them that I met on this trip seem really nice and chill.