Pictures from Otaru and Maeda Forest park

This will be a blog entry with lots of pictures and relatively few words. We visited Otaru on monday with people from flow laboratory, and today I went into nearby park with people from english seminar.

First off, Otaru. Otaru is a small coastal city near Sapporo. It is known for its glassware and european style canal. Everywhere you can see small shops and street sellers offering their wares. At many places you can hear music box melodies playing when you are walking around the city center. There are also lots of different types of seafood dishes available. In short, if you want to buy something beautiful visit Otaru, which is within easy reach from Sapporo with JR trains.



Small town square and behind it interestingly colored building. On left (not visible in picture) is the famous Music Box museum, which also has tons of pretty items for sale on multiple floors. Jewelry, door and wall ornaments, music boxes and so on. I took one picture from second floor since many of the sellers don't want people taking pictures of their wares close up.



Then there is Venezian museum, including real gondola sitting in small pool at the center of the first floor. Gondolas are pretty large, I was bit surprised when I saw it. You can also take pictures of yourself in old style venezian clothing.



Then there was a strange looking building with lots of tiny restaurant booths so I took a picture of that.



Me and boys from seminar who were with me posing, behind us is Otaru canal but you can't see much of it. Next to canal on walkway there were lots of artists selling their wares. We also ate at local kamaboko restaurant. Kamaboko is a "fishcake", you can find out more about it from wikipedia if you are interested. It was pretty good with rice and soysauce.



Next up, Tengu mountain or Tengu-yama. Tengu is mythical creature with supernatural powers. It often shows up in old stories. We drove up with cars (roads were awfully thin and winding by the way, which was pretty scary when coming down) and went to the observation building which is located pretty close to the top. Here you can see view of Otaru.



And here is small shrine dedicated to tengu. If you want his protective blessing you have to touch his nose with both of your hands. Unfortunately I took this picture too far away but you can see tengus red face in that small shrine.



There was also Tengu mountain shrine next to the observatory, which had quite a few roadside idols and this statue of Jizō (kind of saint). You can pray here for safe travel.



We also went to the top of the mountain by foot, about 1 kilometer of winding rocky path upwards from the observatory. Chirping of cicadas was overwhelming when travelling up. It was easy to imagine one would never find his way out of the maze of bambu weeds and trees but eventually we reached rather nondescriptive and bland mountaintop. It just had a sign and X on the ground.




Anyway, mountain has spectacular view on a good day and you can get up there either with car like we did or with mountainside elevator. I recommend coming here if you are in Otaru and not in hurry.

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Today I saw Maeda park. It's pretty, fairly new park near Teine. I don't have many comments about it besides that it has this nice european style walkpath in one part of the park.



And view from the other side of this opening from that building.






And that's a wrap. Tomorrow I will head to Hokkaido University Botanical Garden, which is quite famous. So more pictures coming.

じゃ、また (See you later)