Otaru City Of Canals - Hokkaido

I would vote Otaru as the most interesting place to visit in Hokkaido. It is a small harbour city which you could make a day trip from Sapporo by train. We only covered Sapporo, Otaru, Muroran & Chitose towns during our trip.

We walked out of our Sapporo hotel to visit a small Buddhist Shrine

which is located on the next block. Here is the nice entrance

to the shrine.

This is the Amitabha Buddha's Shrine which was closed on that day.

Our hotel is just next block to this Hosui Susukino Train

Station in Sapporo. It is very easy to reach everywhere once

you are inside the train station. We connected our way to the main

Sapporo Station and hopped to the line that took us to Otaru.

OTARU CANAL CITY - HOKKAIDO

It takes slightly over 1 hour by a normal train which passed 

through many picturesque snow scenery and mountains along 

the way. Here at the Otaru Station, there is a Tourist Information

Booth where there was a friendly lady who spoke Japanese,

English, Mandarin and Cantonese!! She advised us to take the

public bus to the end of the bus route and get off.

 My postcard pose at the lovely old buildings with European

architectures during Hokkaido's colonization during the 1800s.

They have many lovely old warehouses and herring mansions that line

along the famous Otaru Canal.

 We had to stop by the world famous Hokkaido Ice Cream parlour.

They have the purest lavender and melon flavours. Too many to choose.

  

Here is my yummy 6 flavoured ice cream! Sluurrpss!!

There are many fresh seafood restaurants along

the many streets in Otaru.

It was my first time seeing Snow Crab alive!

  

The prices scared me!

We took a ropeway (cable car) up to Mount Tengu.

Mount Tengu is a very popular ski resort in Hokkaido.

This is the panoramic view of Otaru Town with its harbours
and the Shakotan Peninsula across the seas.

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