Hokkaido and Scott visit

Last weekend I went up to Hokkaido to visit my friend, Scott. He lived in Wakayama, and moved up to Sapporo a few months ago. It is funny because we met here in Wakayama, but he was born and raised in San Diego. Such a small world! I could embarrass him by saying what an awesome friend he has been to me here, but I know he’d hate that. Anyhow, I have missed him terribly and decided to take one last trip up north before I leave Japan to say hi.
The last time I went to Hokkaido was in winter for the Snow Festival. This time the weather was warmer, and it was a nice respite from the heat and humidity in Wakayama.
I chose to go up that particular weekend because there was a food fair on Friday, and the Flower Festival started on Saturday.
I flew up Thursday night and we had an amazing dinner at a Nepalese restaurant near Scott’s house. It turned out to be mostly Indian food, but it was so delicious. I had Butter Masala and we shared garlic and cheese naan. I also had a mango lassi. Oh, it was so good!
On Friday, Scott had school in the morning, so I slept in. We met up at Hokkaido University (where he is a student), and he showed me around campus. I had been there once before, but it was nice to see it without it’s snowy blanket. After looking around campus, we headed over to the food fair that was being held in front of the former Government Building. It was much smaller than I had imagined. There were only two rows of tents and a Spanish music group playing. The tents had samples of Hokkaido food and some were selling fresh fruits and vegetables. We sampled a few things, but Scott was braver than I and tried the wasabi natto. It looked like rat poop covered in snot. We snacked on a giant bowl of roasted potatoes that was only 200¥. After that, we wandered around the city and did a little shopping. We still had lots of time in the day, so we went to the Sapporo Station to try and find a little trip to take. Scott had heard about a chocolate factory nearby, and although I was a little upset he hadn’t mentioned this earlier, I was super excited to go.
The factory is very famous in Japan for it’s cookies. We looked around the museum and peeked into the factory floor. It was really amazing to see all the cookie machines and employees hard at work. It all was very exciting!
On Saturday, Scott went to work bright and early, while I slept in again. After he came home, we headed off to our next destination, Otaru. If you remember the pictures I posted of the candle festival, that was Otaru. It is a really quaint little town that I just absolutely love. The ride is only about 35-45 minutes depending on the type of train you take. Otaru is a port, so there is a bit of foreign and European influence. We stayed at the same hostel I stayed at when I was there last because it is conveniently located and the owners are nice. So nice in fact, that I apparently had told them we were coming July 21st instead of June 21st, but they prepared a room for us anyway that was very comfortable.
After dropping off our backpacks, we had the ramen famous in Hokkaido – butter and corn. It was delicious! Then we walked around, looked at the ocean, I bought some glass items, and we tried the giant 200 gram, 8cm takoyaki balls. Takoyaki balls are usually a little bigger than bitesize and have squid inside an eggy sort of batter that they make into balls. These, as you can see, are much bigger! Also, I special ordered mine, leaving out about 2/3 of the ingredients. I am not a fan of takoyaki, but I wanted to try it. It was ok. Later, we went to my favorite chocolate shop called Le Tao. We had cake and coffee up on the patio, and of course I bought lots of chocolate to take home for gifts and snacks. Even Scott, who normally doesn’t like chocolate (weird!) liked the rich chocolate at Le Tao.
That night we rode the train one stop to Wing Bay shopping center where we saw “Indiana Jones.” I wasn’t super impressed with the movie, but it was nice to see one on the big screen again.
Sunday, we headed back to Sapporo and had our traditional visit to Mr. Donuts. We wandered through the flower festival at Odori Park, which was also smaller than I imagined, but had some pretty flowers.
I came back to Wakayama on Sunday night.
I am glad I went to Hokkaido again because it is one of my favorite spots in Japan. And visiting with Scott was great. This will probably be the last trip I take on an airplane before I leave Japan. My time is winding down…