Ironically, I probably spent fewer hours doing touristy things today, but packed more in, than yesterday. It was a packed agenda with a clear starting point, the 9:33 train from Sapporo station to Otaru, and a clear end point, the 4pm train from Otaru to the Sapporo airport. Once again, the weather was obliging me, holding off for most of the day, ironically until 30 minutes before my flight was supposed to take off. Anyway, back to the better stuff.
I made the first timebound train by the skin of my teeth. Granted, there was another one thirty minutes later, but that was a slightly slower train, and left unsaid until now was two more constraints - first a train from Otaru to Yoichi at 12:24, and the reason for that train, the tour of the Yoichi Nikka Whiskey distillery at 1pm, a coveted whiskey tour that I was fairly lucky I could nab a spot at.
The first train was fairly routine, and as we reached Otaru with the clouds actually giving way to sun (a rarity on this trip), I called an early audible and gave up the botanical garden, which is at ground level, for another ropeway, this one being the Mt. Tengyaku ropeway, that of course leads to the summit of Mt. Tengyaku. This is about half as high as the Mt. Moiwa one, but in that sense Otaru was way less than the half the sprawl of Fukuoka, though from the summit you see how bit it actually is. The ride up was quick, the views form the top excellent, including as Otaru is a truly coastal city, a great view of the Sea of Japan (assuming Trump hasn't renamed it yet...) behind you. Despite the prevalence of skiing, the areas I've gone to in Hokkaid aren't the highest or most mountainous, but they are rolling cliffs and hills and still quite beautiful. Similarly nice, talking about skiing, was the little three room museum to the legacy of skiing in Japan that was in the ropeway top station (there is a parallel ski life operable in winter). All these trips up mountains have taught me is I probably should make another trip to Hokkaido in winter some time.
From there, I took a cab back to the city center, and specifically the Sakaimachihondori Street, which is a stretch of about 10 blocks taht are in the old school edo style, withs shops and little eateries. It was all lovely, especially the beginning stretch which had stores selling merch and goodies of various cartoon / anime characters - my favorite beign teh Snoopy Village store at the beginning. Not sure if my love of Snoopy is replicated by teh rest of Japan as fervently, as the two other ones to charcters I am unfamiliar with were more crowded. The rest of the stretch of land included some really nice souvenir shops, from kitchenware, to fans, to knives and more. Now none of these things are particularly notable for Otaru as a place, but it was still a lovely stroll.
One thing is well known in Otaru, and that is glasswork. There is a large museum taht sadly I didn't get a chance to visit wuth English-style stained glass throughout. Aside from that museum, however, are about 5-6 boutiques selling glassware, of which I ambled around a couple of them, and ultimately settled on one place and a really nice frosted designed sake holder/pourer as my main Otaru swag.
At this point it was time to head back to the station to catch the local train to Yoichi. This is a 25 min train ride that hugs the coast and you get some nice views of beaches and rock formations, all with the Sea of Japan just glistening behind it. The other side of teh train, which mostly becomes hills and forests super quick, had some threatening clouds overhead, but it stayed dry, which was a great help because the Yoichi Nikka Whiskey tour involved a good amount of outdoor walking.
The tour overall is excellent. Yoichi was the first place that Nikka Whisky company set up shop after founder Masataka Taketsuru studied whiskey production in Scotland, married a Scottish girl, and came back to start distilling whisky in Japan, first for the original company that would overtime become the Suntory conglomerate, and then by his own founding what would become Nikka. He picked Yoichi because the climate, weather, hills, etc., reminded him of the perfect conditions (chemically perfect) of Scotland, and once the tour guide mentioned that part if all clicked together. The distillery groudns and buildings are also built and styled to what he saw in Scotland, and in truth they did a great job. Walking around it, I did feel like I was one one of the scotch tours I took in Scotland. The tour itself hit all the normal spots those did, but also his old house, and a few other notable buildings, and included a free tasting (the tour itself is free, though requires reservations well in advance). Overall, it was a great time, made even better when I realized you can by Nikka Whisky's main bottles here for about 25-30% less than in the US - so of course I took one.
From there, I headed back to Otaru, and headed to a restaurant uncreatively titled Sushibar - I say that in jest as the sushi itself, from their lunch set to their tuna trio (I ordered both - combined bill $25) were great, despite the boring name. This will be my last sushi in Hokkaido, and I can confdiently say the level of sushi is insane, froim the high, high end of Sushi Sohei, to the slightly above mid-level of Tuesday's lunch and today's. The last bit of tourism in Hokkaido was walking a few blocks on the Otaru Canal, which is lovely, tree lined and brimming with life, be it boats or fellow walkers. Overall, Otaru is a charming little town , and I would think a must-do day trip from Sapporo.
The whole day, there were thunderstomrs in the offing, but those held off, and continued to hold off. Some would call this lucky, and it definitely on aggregate was. But then it started to get real dark when in the airport. We boarded on time, but then I could start to see the white flashes of lightning. Frustratingly, ANA only gave update announcements in Japanese, and more frustratingly, their text message service that will text you incessantly about unneeded updates was silent on this, even as it was clear we woiuld be delayed. Finally, the first of what would end up I learn being a wave of storms, passed in time for us to take off an hour late, and of course we didn't make up a minute. Never when you want to make up time is there a nice tailwind. Anyway, Japan is super efficient with getting bags to baggage claim, and Fukuoka's airport is right off the city, so despite landing at 10:00, I made it (with suitcases) to my dinner at 10:35 - twenty minutes behind the reservation time.
The dinner was my first of another type of meal, this time the set beef dinner, where you get 6-7 dishes, most featuring some element of wagyu, one or two featuring the real thing and then finished off with fried rice fried in the wagyu fat. My first one of these ever was in Nikko randomly on my 2023 and was quietly one of my most memorable meals from that trip. This maybe wasn't at that level, primarily because the steak was slightly less sized (it was a couple pieces of four different cuts, vs one single cut) but it was great. The starters were a beef tongue taco (nice), a salad with tuna and beef marrow (excellent), a beef cutlet bolinho (came with a great thin bbq sauce), and then the main plate which had various charcoal fried pieces - some veggies (all quite nice, especially this sauced onion) and then the stars of a sliced wagyu beef tongue (the best tongue I've ever had) and then two pieces each of loin and rump, which were wonderful. One day I should just bite the bullet and get a full wagyu steak at one of these places, but even in limited portion sizing they are excellent. Then came on the sizzling plate cuts of "lemon steak" which was a super sweet cut of beef that I'm not sure what it was, but from this sizzler came the fried rice. The whole meal was great, and actually looking back it is right up there with the one in Nikko, and at a lovely downtown location as well.
From there, it was already fairly late (11:45) but I did want to do a quick whistle-stop tour of a couple Fukouka bars before hitting up the somewhat legendary Kieth Flack (which nicely is two blocks from my AirBNB). The weather held off tonight before what is expected to be rain most of tomorrow, but we'll get to tomorrow, tomorrow. The first place I went was Bar Petrol Blue, another great music bar specializing in craft whiskey and gins (e.g. no real cocktails, other than if you want to add one of their numerous house bitters), and it was a lvoely setting with a really nice bartender/owner. From there, I went half a block away to Citadel, which is a reputed cocktail spot that has a whole host of their own concoctions, and about 70 types of craft spirits, which are basiclaly all flavored alcohols, but flavors such as "Chorizo Vodka" and "Beef Jerky Bourbon". I name those two because along with '"Fig Brandy" I got a sampler of three, and wouldn't you know it, the Beef Jerky Bourbon tasted like beef jerky. It was weird, but excellent.
Weird but excellent is probably also a fair way to describe Kieth Flack. First off, the building looks from the outside like one of the gaudi buildings in Barcelona. Inside, it is the perfect level of grime, along with great ventilation. There are two main floors (apparently threr ias an infrequently used third floor too) which play similarly house/EDM type music. The day I went, neither was too hard, if one being a bit too start and stop for my liking (granted, I don't know if I can really define what my liking is). The place though was just a great level of crowd, fun, with cheap drinsk (cash only) and nice decor to roam trhough like posters and vinyls. The place on the whole is quite awesome, though I worry about how crowded it may be tomorrow when I plan to return. But that's a fear for tomorrow. Today was about a nice way to end the one day that worked out based on my original plan in Sapporo, and a nice introduction to Japan's South Island of Kyushu.
