Food, Travel and Doodle: Japan 23 Mar to 5 Apr 2017 Day 2 - Sapporo / Nijo Market / Mt Moiwa / Kani Honten / Shiroi Koibito Park / Otaru

I had initially planned for Sapporo Beer Museum, TV Tower and lunch before having tea at Otaru. However YR visited Mount Moiwa and loved it, it seemed like a must visit. So we had a change of plans and included Mt Moiwa. Don't ask me how Shiroi Koibito made its way into the itinerary lol. I probably was not around when my hand penned it down. Anyway we got up early in preparation for a full day. Our hotel provided breakfast and we ordered the Japanese breakfast at the cafeteria.

Breakfast was very much like being at a canteen. We handed our coupons to the hmm, breakfast guy in exchange for our tray of food.

Initially I assumed that the meat will come later but I realized that that was it. There was no meaat. If I ate this everyday I'm sure I will lose weight. I actually liked this meal! The rice was so fluffy, and the side dishes yummy (OK except the natto, that's so not my thing).

Moving on towards Nijo, second brekkie!

We walked to Odori station via e underground and proceeded to make our way to Nijo.

The pavements were icy and wet. We had to walk with care to prevent slipping and getting shoes wet since we didn't get water proof shoes.

Ganbatteee

We decided on breakfast at one of the restaurants along the main road. I just cannot recall the name, except it starts with an 'S'.

After much dingdonging, we ordered:

Tooorrrroooooo, 你是我的朋友。。。

Uni and Sake, 我也爱你！！！Hahaha, breakfast was good, though I did feel the pricing at Nijo seems abit high. We finished up and went onwards to Mt Moiwa. But before that, had to explore this white white area!

Hahahaha. We took the streetcar to the Mt Moiwa station.

I took a pic of a lady interacting with a kid opposite us because the kid's jumper (and also the kid) was just toooo cute.

Once we got off, a very kind lady directed us towards the Mt Moiwa shuttle bus stop. On the way there, Yk decided to make a snow angel along the pavement. It was so super funny we laughed and laughed non stop. I converted the video to a gif rofl

And of cos I had to do it too hahahahaha

Here's the end product

Art is subjective

After we left our mark on the snow, we went on to wait for the bus up to Mt Moiwa. It was hailing

Empty Bus to Mt Moiwa

Empty Driveway

When we got there, we entertained ourselves abit with the photo boards before proceeding to the observatory ticketing area. We needed to spend about 1100y to get to the halfway point up Mr Moiwa and 1700y to get to the top However, we realized that there was hardly any view because it was snowing/hailing. In fact, the view from the cctv that the directed us to was like looking into a Grey Hole. So we decided to scrap Mt Moiwa and proceed for lunch at Kani Honke.

Back at driveway

YR consoled me by sending me photos and a video of the view at Mt Moiwa... I didnt feel very comforted, but I agreed with YR that the photos and videos did enlighten me on the view on top.

On the way out, we passed by the pavement with our 'snow angel' marks and just had to play again. LOL. The snowball fight was really funny Har. Har.

Haha, sorry for being immature. As we moved along towards Kani Honke at Susukino, we passed by Osho....

We were both peckish and feeling cold and Gyozas were the best answer.

It is my opinion that Osho serves one of the best Gyozas. The great taste coupled with its reasonable price is hard to beat.

Finally, we made our way to Kani Honke. According to its website, Kani Honke is the first resturant serving crab cuisine for over 50 years in Japan and its lunch service (and lunch sets) runs till 5pm, which was great. We had to take the lift up, and there was a chair in e lift..

The service was excellent and I felt like a very welcome guest though I was only eating their reasonably priced lunch sets.

We ordered one 2000plus yen set and one 3000plus yen set (Top left and bottom left) plus a sake.

I liked this quite a lot! Very refreshing.

This was one of the highlights! The crab was very sweet and juicy.

Loooook at this thick piece of juicy crab meat.

The crab gratin came in a crabby dish and it was yummy toooo.

This was an excellent crab tempura.

Crispy, not too oily and I could taste the crab distinctly. The first thought I had was that RJ would like this.

I had crab cuisine dribbling down my nose by the time this arrived.

Porridge....

However.. I still managed to eat this ice cream with blueberry sauce hehe

Side track: I was amazed by the toilet! There was a tap at the top and water came out when I flushed!!!

We faintwalked out and I had to sink onto the chair in the lift cos my legs were too weak from the food coma hahaha.

The very nice staff at Kani Honke offered to take a picture for us at the lobby

There was a crab pool right at the entrance!

Crab, crab and more crabs..

We walked away from Kani Honke feeling super full and satisfied. Gosh.. Too good and happy Omg.

Next up on the itinerary was the Shiroi Koibito Park. We took the subway to Miyanosawa Station and obtained this flyer for directions towards the park.

The wind here was Reallly strong and it was so cold. It was hailing again and I had that '卖火柴的小女孩’ feeling.

The Shiroi Koibito Park was big and looked very much Victorian-styled. Though there were a few exhibits and explanations on the biscuits, explanations in English were limited. The highlight was the biscuit factory, pic shown below. Everyone was crowded around the viewing panel and some tourists were more irritating than others.

Then there were exhibits on biscuit tins and packaging and teacups.

We breezed through the exhibits and made our way to the shop. I think Victorian style is not my kind of thing.

My impression of Shiroi Koibito is purely of their biscuits and I liked it that there were more products available than I knew at the shop. Lol. These chocs look so good!

After we bought our goodies of choice, we considered going straight back to the hotel vs taking a trip down to Otaru since it was getting late. After some ding dong, we decided to still make our way to Otaru via bus.

The bus ride was fantastic. It was warm... And nice.... And when we rolled into Otaru...

It looked like a mini blizzard Loh! I just didn't want to leave the bus. It was only 7pm or so but the sky was totally dark and all the shops seemed closed with no one on the streets.

We made our way to the Otaru Canal, which we were there for, and it was freeeeezing.

Closed.. Closed.. Snow.. Ice.. Wet.. Nice river. We loitered around the canal with a handful of tourists like us taking pics. It was so cold, we totally didn't bother to take a 'romantic stroll' along the canal and left to return to Sapporo.

Deserted looking..

1.4 degrees.. Brrr

Closed... Closed...

En route to train station

More closed...

Bo Lang..

Attacked by wind and snow (hail)

YK was walking in front and suddenly turned towards the snow pile.

LOL. We thought falling on the snow would be soft, but it was hard.. The 'snow' at the side was icy. But it was a funny moment lol.

After like a forever of walking, we finally got on the train back to Sapporo.

On hindsight, we should have just gone straight to Otaru after lunch and scrapped the Shiroi Koibito Park. That way, we could have strolled along Otaru and the shops would have still been open. O well.

Back at Sapporo, we decided to just eat at a ramen place within the station - Ramen Ezokko. I got the Butter Corn Miso Ramen and YK got a Shio Ramen. I liked mine, the butter lent a frangrance to the miso ramen.