Tuesday – Otaru, Japan

Yet another brilliant weather day although rain is supposedly in the picture for later tonight. 75º and sunny for today. We overnighted at the Otaru cruise dock, and this morning we decided to cancel our excursion back into Sapporo so that we could spend the day walking around Otaru. I’m glad we did. We walked for 2.5 miles. (Not so bad except for my Achilles tendon strain which still hurts and slows me down – but I soldier on.) By the way, very few local people we encountered in shops spoke any English at all. Google Translate app can be a life saver, although we didn’t need it. Tourist signs are all in English and Japanese, but go into a store and nothing is labelled in English. Here is the day in a series of galleries. Beware! Lots of pictures.

Click on the galleries below to bring up scrollable windows with full size pictures – the gallery previews may show just thumbnails of the pictures. By the way, the pictures look much better on a tablet or a computer than they do on your phone. Just saying.

From the Ship straight up past the Otaru Canal

Bob P: Note the barber shop. Everyone: Note the Pachinko Casino in the last picture. Pachinko is a famous Japanese gambling pastime. See the bird in the picture that I am pointing to? It’s not real but part of the sculpture. Note the old railway line converted into a walking path. The Otaru Canal, once a working canal, is now host to just tourist boats.

Down the Mostly Deserted Miyakodori Shopping Street

Miyakodori Street is mostly deserted because it’s 8:00 am. Some stores are just starting to open. It was very quiet. Bob P: Note the basketball net. Those are fish the woman is laying out for sale when the store opens.

Heading to the Main Shopping Street

Almost every building in town has a sign telling the history of the building. The Bank of Japan building is now an art museum. We were going to go back later and check it out, but we never did.

The Main Shopping Street

It’s Sakaimachidoro Street. Bustling with tourists, shoppers, tour groups, and just people. We stopped in a couple of stores and bought some souvenirs. See the cellophane wrapped fish head at the fish market? See the man arranging shells for sale at his store? See Halloween themes twice? How many times can you spot Elaine? In one picture she is buying a fortune origami for ¥100 (70¢). Lots of glass stores. Lots of chocolate stores including the Snoopy Chocolate Company. Lots of fish markets. Lots of jewelry stores. And at the end, back to the Orion.

I stopped in a drug store along the way and bought some Ibuprofen. I never would have found it on my own. And the store attendant spoke no English, but she did understand Ibuprofen. So she showed me where it was. Or maybe I am now taking birth control pills.

We had to be back on the ship by 1 pm. We sailed at 2:00 pm. Rain expected tonight and tomorrow. Tomorrow is a sea day before arriving at our disembarkation port – Tokyo.

Sailing Away from Hokkaido Island

Dinner tonight was in the specialty restaurant Chef’s Table. Set menu. Different wines paired to each course. Theme: Korea. The five courses described and pictures of four of them. (I missed taking the amuse bouche.)

A cocktail in Explorer’s Lounge and off to bed. Oh, and it turns out it’s not Don and Donna. It’s John and Donna. We traded contact information.

The internet on the ship has been pretty darn good. They use Elon Musk’s Starlink. Getting all those pictures uploaded everyday would have been impossible on cruise ships five or ten years ago.

See you on the morrow.