Otaru Day Trip from Sapporo!
- Aye Mon
- Jun 11, 2020
- 5 min read
Otaru is a picturesque little port town that's perfect for a quick day trip from Sapporo. Not only is it famous for its glassware, it will also give you a taste of some of the best confectionary you have had in this lifetime - certainly a destination you cannot miss out on!
It’s really easy to get around the iconic destinations in Otaru - you don’t have to take any transport, and can simply walk everywhere. As our top priority was food, we somehow managed to spent an entire day hopping around to enjoy lovely snacks, cakes, ice-cream from different cafes and stores, and simply soaking in the view of this fairytale-like town.
Itinerary Overview
Here’s the overview of the places we visited! /0/
🚅: Sumikawa → Sapporo → Otaru
Kaisendon for breakfast @ Sankaku Ichiba
Former Japan National Railways Temiya Line
Dessert & pastry shops @ Sakaimachi: Rokkatei, LeTao, Kitakaro for pastries & ice-cream!
Otaru Music Box Museum
Kamaei Fishcakes
Otaru Canal Cruise
Other places we didn’t visit but you can consider checking out: Kitaichi Glass Sangokan (emporium), Kitaichi Glass Hall (cafe), Kitaichi Glass studio (Artists at work), Kitaichi outlet store (for cheap glassware souvenirs), Kitaichi Venetian Art Museum (¥700 entrance fee).
Travelling to Otaru from Sapporo
We started the day early, taking the 🚅 Shinkansen at 730am from Sumikawa → Sapporo → Otaru. The journey took 1h15min, and cost ¥890.
Sankaku Ichiba
Upon arriving at Otaru station, we sought a hearty breakfast before we took on the day at Sankaku Ichiba (Sankaku market), which is right outside the station. We had a Kaisendon (seafood rice bowl) at Ajidokoro Takeda, which varies in prices depending on the seafood you choose (¥1000-3000). When it comes to food, I want it all - so of course we chose one of bowls with a mix of several different types of seafood. As evident from our faces of satisfaction, this was some of the freshest seafood we’ve ever had for sure. :")
Former Japan National Railways Temiya Line
Then we relied on Google Maps to find our way towards the Former Japan National Railways Temiya Line (about a 10min walk away from the market). Thankfully there weren’t many tourists around, so we hogged the area for quite a while to take some cute shots. Yes okay maybe Singapore has cute railway tracks like this too - but does it have comfortable weather for you to run to your tripod and back multiple times without sweating buckets? Didn’t think so.You might notice the gloomy skies - there was a light drizzle that persisted for pretty much the whole day, but one that was still comfortable enough to walk around in that certainly didn’t dampen our moods one bit. 😎
Sakaimachi: Dessert & Pastry Heaven
I’m not even sure of the order in which we visited the shops anymore as I might have gone to some places twice lol. I usually follow the map for efficiency, but that day I couldn’t help but follow my heart and my stomach (which went through quite a lot that day) instead.
The opening number was a lovely green tea dessert at this place that I unfortunately could not remember the name of, since we weren't seeking it out in particular. But a store full of matcha always definitely catches my eye, and would likely catch yours too. 😉
The bun was so-so, the ice-cream was marvellous!
And next - we hit up the famous places. 😃😃😃
Rokkatei (六花亭) has a souvenir store for on the first floor, and a cafe on the second floor. As the cafe food was really affordable, we purchased an exciting looking butter cream sandwich and some cream puffs, and had these with free black coffee at the cafe - and when we finished it, we suffered from immediate withdrawal symptoms. We had to take a moment and calm down upon the realisation that we were not gonna be able to enjoy this dessert again until our next trip back here. 😭
And of course to alleviate our misery further, we went back down to the store to purchase lots of goods. Marketing done right, indeed. The cafe food was extremely affordable, and the souvenir snacks were…affordable too!! Thank god I had brought a huge luggage and extra carry-ons to Japan.
We also stopped by the LeTao flagship store for the beautiful cheesecake that we couldn’t miss. Less withdrawal this time because you can still purchase LeTao cakes and biscuits at the airports and all. LeTao is also quite a huge franchise, with plenty of outlets scattered around even that tiny little area.
Kitakaro (北菓楼) is also famous for their cream puffs, but I don’t have a strong recollection as to whether I dropped by or not. I only recalled that at some point of time, my slightly lactose intolerant tummy started to complain and I had to take things easy… So after checking out some reviews, we decided to visit Kamaei Fishcakes for the soupy, chewy meal that I needed to balance out the chaos that excessive amounts of dairy had brought upon my tummy. These are some of the other famous food places that we would’ve liked to check out but didn’t have time to:
Toppii Sushi
Yabuhan Soba
Otarumirukupuranto (Otaru Milk Plant - near Otaru city hall; famous for soft serve ice-cream!)
Otaru Music Box Museum
Opening hours: 9am-6pm
The Otaru Music Box Museum is really near the confectionary cafes and stores. Entrance is free too! Didn’t realise photography was prohibited at first, so I have in my gallery just one quick snapshot of one of the music boxes. If you need a break from all the eating, do check out this museum.
Other places we didn’t visit but you can consider checking out: Kitaichi Glass Sangokan (emporium), Kitaichi Glass Hall (cafe), Kitaichi Glass studio (where you can see artists at work), Kitaichi outlet store (for cheap glassware souvenirs), Kitaichi Venetian Art Museum (¥700 entrance fee)
Otaru Canal Cruise
Operating frequency: leaves every 30mins from 1030am onwards
Day cruise fare: ¥1500 | Night cruise fare: ¥1800
Reservations: https://otaru.cc/en/contact
Lastly, we ended our day with a cruise at the Otaru Canal. Cruise reservations can be made up to 2 months in advance, and at least 2 days before the preferred cruise date. We had to email them directly because the website form wasn’t working, but the customer service was pretty nice.
We headed over to take some lovely photos at the canal first. Then we collected our reserved tickets at the counter around 4:45pm, and waited for our cruise to start at 5pm. The skies finally started clearing during our cruise too. :”)
It got pretty cold and we didn't have gloves...but I think I found myself a pair 😏
The cruise is approximately 40minutes, and brings you around the harbour area. You can also listen to Otaru’s history as a port town on a pair of earpieces that they provide, in your preferred language. Would say the view was not too bad even though it was mostly just the harbour with some boats and ships. :)
We managed to capture some views with clearer skies from the cruise boat~ :)
Initially, we had also planned to try out a 2 hour Sandblasting Workshop to make our own pretty glassware, but eventually decided not to as we wanted to prioritise exploring the area which had so much delicious food. But if you’re interested in the workshop, you could always go to the website and drop them an email to book a session. :) The workshop costs ¥1300 and the product ¥1,350, which would come to a total of about SGD$32.
And that marked the end of our Otaru day trip. /0/ We bade goodbye to this lovely little town, and took the train back to Sumikawa. Certainly can’t wait for the next trip there again - maybe in winter for a different kind of view! 🙌🏼
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