Slow Life Hokkaido VI: Out and About in Otaru
The journey from Hakodate to Otaru took us another four hours in a north-easterly direction. I must say that Otaru was the hottest in our whole trip. The sun was blazing and we all dumped our jackets in the car. Like Hakodate, Otaru is also a port city with a long history. The pride of the city is the Otaru Canal. Tourists often take cruises on the canal to admire the old warehouses and merchant building lined along it. One look at a bunch Korean ladies baking in the sun deterred us from trying the same. Our tummies were growling after a short walk in the scorching sun, and we quickly went to find food. A PRC working at the tourist information center pointed us to Otaru Denuki Koji , a collection of twenty small restaurants in a heritage building. The place has a whimsical design, like a building out of Miyazaki's onsen town in "Spirited Away". Within a small courtyard was a statue of Udatsu Kozo, a statue with round-rim glasses holding a skewer dango . Not al...