Winter Wonderland in Japan

This winter break we traveled to Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, where winter is still winter. Robert got to enjoy some nostalgia by reliving his memories of winter in Chicago during the 1970s and 80s.

Usually when we travel in Korea or Asia, we are exploring places far from home. But visiting Hokkaido pleasantly reminded Robert of the place in which he grew up, a place that, largely because of climate change, doesn’t exist in the winter anymore. That place was continuously cold and had frequent snowfall and streets covered with snow from December through February. Here it was in Otaru, Japan, the city we visited.

More memories: piles of snow continually heaped up from shoveling, snow falling in the lights, snow gathered on tree limbs,  snow in a landscape of grays and browns, snowmen and snow art, ice and cold.

Otaru is not the major city in Hokkaido; that’s Sapporo. We visited Otaru at the recommendation of a colleague at Mason Korea.  She recommended it as quaint and a place popular with Japanese tourists.  We think it was a good recommendation.

Otaru was a major banking city in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Japan.  A legacy of this history is a lot of western style buildings.  It was also a major city for trade, glass works, and herring fisheries.

Glass making is still an art in Otaru. We visited several showrooms set up in old warehouses.
We brought a kerosene lamp that we will one day take home—very carefully— to Virginia. This showroom also had displays of music boxes, another Otaru craft.

Outside the glass and music box showroom is a modern (for an industrial town at the turn of the twentieth century) steam clock.

Besides snow, Otaru offered another love of Robert’s: fish. We visited the marine area several miles north of the city where the fisheries once thrived (alas, much of the herring was used for fertilizer, not food), and had a meal at the remaining fish restaurant, lured in with the sight of herring being smoked on stakes.  More fish was being grilled inside.

After lunch we hiked up the nearby hill for views of the bay.

Otaru is also famous for its sushi. It was a bit tricky finding a sushi restaurant that had food other than raw fish, which Teresa does not eat, along with stronger flavored cooked fish. It might have been just as well though. The hardcore sushi places served what looked like some pretty exotic and intense fish. Robert isn’t sure he would have enjoyed it. In any case, the sushi meals we had were excellent.

Full confession: Teresa enjoyed Hokkaido, but this trip was really one for Robert. In addition to snow and fish, there was skiing, another love from Robert’s childhood. Hokkaido is famous for its high-quality snow. And while we (no doubt biased) generally prefer Korea to Japan, there is no contest when it comes to skiing. The famous Korean ski resort we visited last year, where the 2018 Winter Olympics were held, reminded Robert of mediocre skiing in Pennsylvania. Skiing in Niseko, about two hours from Otaru, reminded Robert of the best skiing he has experienced in Colorado or Utah.

The skiing was great, but the pictures from it are not, since it was snowing pretty hard a lot of the time, and cold and wet to operate a phone. Also, Robert was pretty focused on skiing. Here’s what we’ve got.

All was not lost for Teresa, who worked on some writing at a nice coffee house the day Robert skied. Also, the B&B where we stayed was a lovely winter hideaway with cozy fire and a restaurant that featured Nepalese food. (You can click on the images for larger views.)

Also at our B&B, this celebration of the Japanese toilet.

Winter in Hokkaido, Japan was indeed magical. We wish you magic wherever you look for it.