Third day in Otaru is GO.
Today’s reading speaks of how facing isolation with independence is finally bearing fruit. A very “paid your dues, reap the rewards” sort of reading.
Plan today was to go to Sapporo so I did just that. It was A Process though.
To get from Otaru to Sapporo you gotta take the train that goes to the airport, which doesn’t leave as often as other trains, and being where we are, the amount of trains is already paltry compared to say… Osaka.
But one hour of waiting later and an extra hour-ish in train I made it to Sapporo.
There’s a dealership where I grew up called Sapporo Motors so anytime I hear or say Sapporo a part of my brain completes “Sapporo, donde su Bolivar vale oro”.
My goal in Sapporo was first to go to the Volks Showroom in there, which was about… 20 minutes walking from the station, which was a nice excuse to explore for a bit.
Today’s been rainy by the way, so all the snow and stuff is getting really slushy.
I, of course, get lost even in a straight line because google maps is a crapshoot and I LITERALLY went into each nuilding on each corner of a crossroad and OF COURSE the last one was the one that actually had the shop.
The building is actually full of subculture/geeky shops. The Volks showroom was kinda small so nothing particularly new there. I was thinking about buying something small and making small talk like “oh hey members card from Osaka” but a guy was already talking the cashier’s ear out, she was probably Done with talking.
…or she probably wanted someone to free her from the guy, who knows.
By the way, one thing I’ve forgotten to mention is that aside from tourists, Hokkaido girls are very VERY stylish, it’s actually nuts the amount of Harajuku-esque shops I’ve seen here. Not even just in Sapporo, I’m staying near a showa-ass old ass mall and even that one has a couple of those same kinds of shops.
I’ll likely post them all later (since they’re in one of my cameras rather than my phone) but I actually went up the Hokkaido TV Tower. An interesting thing is that these towers tend to have commemorative coins and I already had a couple from the Fukuoka Tower when I went last year for my birthday and now I’m feeling the call to make a full collection of those eventually.
The tower has a nice view, though a bit cramped… the main reason I left, early however was that it was SO SHAKY.
I know if it hasn’t fallen all this time, for it to fall while I’m there it’s basically an act of God BUT THERE’S THINGS THAT MAKE EVEN ME NERVOUS OKAY?!
On the way back I needed food, and I saw that a building KINDA near the station had a burger joint and I do love me borgars.
Then looking at the menu, I see “Mushroom Burger” and it looked familiar…
Then it arrived and YEAH IT’S FAMILIAR BECAUSE I HAD THIS BURGER IN FUKUOKA BEFORE, ACTUALLY.
WHY AM I GETTING TWO PARALLELS TO FUKUOKA IN A SINGLE DAY LIKE THIS?????
Anyway, what made the burger special is that it’s mean, grilled onion, mushrooms and sauce, and (here’s the special bit) a couple of whole leaves of purple cabbage (or “red cabbage” if you’re insane). Those give the burger a very good, very special bitterness that I’ve only tasted in this joint.
When paying I asked the cashier to confirm and yes, it’s indeed the same name, actually.
It’s J.S. Burger by the way, if any of you finds those, fully recommend.
Parallel to all of this, my head has been in the clouds, not for anything bad but the result is that I ended up uh… taking the wrong train and I didn’t notice it until I was effectively ONE STATION AWAY FROM THE AIRPORT.
Basically what should’ve been one hour to get back turned into almost three.
Then as I’m walking back to the hotel it starts raining… or rather, it’s like half snow half rain, it’s more like… slushy snow. That umbrella got heavy which is definitely an interesting experience.
And then I immediately crashed in bed.