Solo in Otaru: A Slow Backpacking Trip Without Snow
Travel · Published 7/16/2024 ·
I’m throwing away the giant backpack I’d been hauling around into a trash can at Odori Park in Sapporo. I really hate carrying anything big to begin with… and the small, light backpack-slash-tote bag I’d bought the day before swallowed up all my luggage for the whole 4-night, 5-day trip with room to spare. The only thing I worried about as I tossed the old one was: did I take everything out of it?
For the clothes I wore, I’d run them through a washing machine on days I could find one, and when I couldn’t, I’d hand-wash them, dry them as much as possible, stuff them in a zip-lock bag, and then dry them again after moving on. I’d packed functional, quick-drying clothes from the start — not cotton, but antibacterial wool-blend fabrics. The one thing I regretted afterward: my socks were just plain cotton, and I wonder if wool socks would’ve dried a bit faster?
A freshly grilled… guy who was in the hot-spring town.
Near the Jozankei hot-spring town you have to watch out for bears… but I’m not really sure how you’re supposed to watch out for them…
This is some of the scenery I wandered through the day I arrived in Otaru. It rained the day I got there and the temperature was low, so I’m wearing a windbreaker.. It was perfect weather for traveling.
Even a careless snapshot ends up looking like a Makoto Shinkai film. All the photos were taken by… my iPhone 14 Pro and 15 Pro, doing the heavy lifting.
The Otaru tap room… I booked it through Airbnb, a wooden house over 100 years old…
A strange place where the second floor had been stripped down to nothing but the frame, leaving just one room, and they ran the business out of that.
A shopping street… it looked old. I heard that day was one when the shops close early.
A doll at the restaurant… Somehow it looks like me. A pot-bellied old fella…
This lodging is all bare framing — such a beautiful old house.
The entrance door… the keypad lock was mechanical. Since you don’t have to replace the batteries, a mechanical one actually seemed pretty good.
The Otaru Canal…
This is the kind of trip where I don’t plan much and just go wherever my feet take me. With no pressure to be somewhere at a set time, it was all the more relaxing.
The Otaru Canal, which I heard has lots of festivals too…
And then the main street of Otaru…
There was even a random Snoopy House…
Near the clock tower in front of the music-box hall…
The music boxes were quite pricey, so I didn’t buy any and just looked around.
Underneath dolls like those, there’s a music box that plays a tune when you wind it.
Japan, a country that really loves cats…
Even a machine with a pressure gauge, whose purpose I couldn’t figure out, was set into the floor like an exposed pit and used as decoration. The floor and the ceiling are all wood. From the outside, the music-box hall building looks like two structures joined together — I’m not sure whether they later knocked through two separate buildings, but it appeared to be heavy-timber construction, and the building looked easily more than 100 years old. Yet even with dozens, maybe over a hundred people spread across the first and second floors inside, all you heard was a faint creak here and there — the building felt rock solid.
Tiny, adorable music boxes.
Those glasses aren’t music boxes ^^ They were just so beautifully made that I had to take a picture.
After leaving the music-box hall… I bought a boxed meal at the neighborhood supermarket. I figured I’d find a bench or a scenic spot to eat it… but there weren’t really any benches, so I just sat down on the bare ground somewhere reasonable.
The view, on the other hand, was a wonderful spot.
I really did just plop down right on the ground ^^
The sushi bento they sell at the supermarket… the quality is really good. That cost less than 8,000 won.
I ate slowly and then moved on. Carrying my trash neatly with me, of course…
Crossing a bridge that not a single person uses…
I went to a little canal, wondering “is this the real canal?”… but the earlier spot is the real one ^^
Here…
And here too…
Even buildings that were probably just ordinary warehouses or factories had been preserved and maintained beautifully for decades without damage. There are traces of age, of course, but not a single broken brick to be seen…
I’d sit in the shade and rest a while, then walk again, over and over.
There was an old Beetle in the parking lot next to the Otaru Railway Museum, so I snapped a photo. Someone clearly drove it to the museum… and it’s in such good condition.
The friend who took the photos for me is genuinely talented… but it’s true that wherever you point the camera, it looks like a scene out of an animation. The weather was just gorgeous too.
Otaru without snow is this peaceful and warm.
In the evening I bought a whole 50,000 won worth of stuff at the Ralph supermarket. That fancy-looking sake was 20,000 won. If walking isn’t a hassle for you and your schedule is long, a trip where you stroll slowly, breathe the same air as the locals, and share the food they eat and the water and drinks they have is really lovely too.
Thank you.
#Otaru #Sapporo #NewChitose #OtaruCanal #JapanTravel #SushiTrip #Airbnb #JapaneseOldHouse
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