[Hokkaido] Day trip to Otaru + Susukino Ice World 2020

An easy day trip to another beautiful location from Hokkaido's capital city of Sapporo is Otaru. It is a port city with beautifully quaint streets and views of the Otaru Canal. Otaru is nice enough to spend a day, and we covered most of the highlights within a day.


Prior to our departure, Baby and I purchased the 7-Day Hokkaido Shinkansen Rail passes from Changi Recommends, as there was a discounted rate for the passes. The two passes cost us around SGD570 after the discount. The pass covered the entire Hokkaido Prefecture. With the passes, we were allowed to travel on an unlimited number of rides to all areas on all the Hokkaido JR train service lines. These included all 'Special Rapid Train' services too!

After having brekkie, we headed down to Sapporo JR Station to exchange our JR passes for the actual train passes. The travelling time from Sapporo to Otaru took us only 40 minutes.




Yay to the famous Otaru Canal!


Back in the heydays of trading, large ships would dock at the port, where goods would be dropped off into smaller vessels to the warehouses lining the canal. Now, the warehouses were converted into many cute restaurants and cafes! 



The canal has a lovely, rustic feel to it. It is the perfect place to take a leisurely stroll through – especially after filling your stomachs with delicious Kaisen-don.



Like Otaru Canal, this Music Box Museum is always in every visitor's Hokkaido itinerary.





Baby got me a musical jewellery box for my Valentine’s Day gift! I chose the music tune ‘One Love’ by Arashi for my jewellery box.



After we left the museum, we spotted a Hello Kitty Cafe by chance, so we went in to have some hot drinks!





Hello Kitty is an iconic Sanrio character which needs no introduction! The cafe set up many photo opportunity corners for Hello Kitty fans to leave their memories and footprints! We took many random photos before leaving the cafe.






Don’t forget to visit LeTAO pastries, as some items are only available at their flagship store in Otaru. 


We had a quick and simple dinner before leaving Otaru. I had Sho-yu Ramen while Baby has the Miso Ramen with Rice Set! 



We took the Shinkansen back to Sapporo from Otaru. We continued the Sapporo Yuki Matsuri 2020 which was held at another area in the city - Susukino. We were delighted by the large and medium sized ice sculptures at the Susukino's Ice World 2020.
 

It was snowing pretty badly, and the temperature was below freezing point. Our hands were almost dumb as we removed our gloves to take photos.









The snow was getting heavier, and though, it was just a 10-15min walk to our hotel, we decided to take the local train instead.


Next stop - Hakodate, and I will share more soon...

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