Today we started our day slightly later than I had hoped. I had set our alarm to give us 8 hours of sleep so we woke up at 915. I got ready easily enough and so did Blake, but Tatsuro as usual took quite some time to wake up. After banging a hanger against metal in conjunction with yelling, he finally woke and by 1040 we were down stairs eating overpriced toast but were checked out and ready to go. We decided to leave Sapporo for the seaside town of Otaru. Tatsuro drove speedily and we got there within half an hour or so. We found parking in town by the famous old fish warehouses. We walked around in search of some food and came across of all things a brewery restaurant and one that looked rather promising. It honestly felt like we were in a Bavarian Beer Hall. The food was good and mainly German and the beer was better. We took a tour and found that it was founded and run by a German Brewmeister 15 years ago. All the brewing equipment was brought in from Germany and the beer was good European tasting and diverse. I had a good pilsner and Tatsuro a seasonal black beer. With this experience as our first in Otaru I already liked the place.

     Blake, Tatsuro and I spent our time in the town strolling the streets and enjoying the unique feeling of the town with it’s old European style buildings. The town is famous for it’s glass ware and is often compared to Venice in that sense. To top off the specialness of Otaru it even had a imported steam clock from Canada in front of a warehouse converted into a fine craft store. In the late afternoon we had some fresh urchin right from the sea and grilled oyster and clam. It was quite tasty. The afternoon was long and the time spent in Otaru was a nice respite from our hectic schedule. We were able to get to the airport in Sapporo without trouble and flew back on a JAL Boeing back to Haneda. The trip to Hokkaido was a great success and in store for tomorrow is a trip to Kyoto with my brother on the Shinkansen( bullet train) and I am looking forward to it. Now off to bed as I must wake up at 5 tomorrow morning!