Railways and canals

Driving Shizuka

So today dawned clear blue sky and hot.  So hot that when we got the washing in from the balcony it was actually hot.  At 9am.  Hurray, it's been taking a couple of days to dry anything in the last week with it being so rainy.

Our plan today was to go back to Otaru to visit a little railway museum and the canals for which it is famous.  We headed down to Sapporo station had a Mr Donut for breakfast (ham and boiled egg pastry for me, ham and boiled egg donut for Matt and 2, yes two strawberry donuts for Tom - breakfast of champions).

Then the express train to Otaru, what a difference the weather makes to this trip.  We passed by a lovely deep blue still sea and enjoyed seeing the cliffs and lumps of rock on the coast shining in the sunlight.  Beautiful

1960s electric loco

We got the aquarium bus and stopped off at the train museum which we spotted on our last trip here. Reviews of it we had seen had said it was good for 45 mins to an hour.  Hummmmm, they didn't have a Tom with them.  We were there 3.5 hours!!!!!!

The museum was large and airy and had hardly any visitors, it almost felt like we had it to ourselves. First up was a small American steam engine which was quite cute.  Lots of levers could be pulled and Tom could dress up as an Engine Driver - all good stuff.  Then there were the displays: uniforms through the ages, lots of metal plates and badges, maps etc etc.  There was a model train turntable which could be played with: press a button and a steam engine comes out, goes round on the turntable and then goes back into its shed again - accompanied by music.  Our favourite was the little American import engine which had a red neck country ye-haa type of accompaniment.  We then went up the stairs to a science room where there were various things to play with - all a bit tired and only in Japanese.  It included those impossible puzzles, make a square from these 10 different pieces etc which I love doing and can spend hours on, but the boys were here for trains, so we had to continue on...

The Muroran express

That meant go outside into the now burning heat.  Here there were plenty of engines and carriages to be clambered upon.  Most of the drivers cabs were open for people to sit in the drivers seat and there were even horns that could be activated.  Tom went into full on role play mode.  He was the driver and sometimes the guard too, Matt and I were given specific tasks and woe betide us if we didn't behave!  He had a great time and was charging up and down the trains like a mad man, especially considering that it was boiling hot in most of the trains.   He was quite red in the face for most of our time there.

The engines and carriages weren't in particularly good condition, which I think was a bonus in the end as they weren't too precious about what people did inside them - normally you can clamber on board and then have to peer through the immaculately restored coaches, here you could sit wherever you wanted.

Otaru Canal

Our tummies started to rumble, but there was no-where in the museum to eat.  However, we spotted a big supermarket outside, so asked the lady in the ticket desk if we could leave and come back.  She wasn't exactly happy, but agreed, if we were quick, so we headed across and got ourselves some bentos - yay, first bentos of the holiday and they were good - well mine was anyway, little bit of everything in it: 2 types of rice, a piece of chicken, a piece of fish, a slice of carrot in the shape of a petal, a slice of lotus, a mange tout, some spaghetti, some green veggie things that had been pickled, a round battered thing which, I think had tofu in it, a slice of omelette and some other things which were a mystery - a bento isn't a true bento unless it has some mysterious things in it!

Otaru Brewery

As we finished our lunch, they fired up one of the steam engines so people could ride it the whole 200 meters of track available to it.  We sat in one of the open air carriages and enjoyed the ride.  After the 200 meters, we all had to get out to watch the engine rotate on a turntable and then the engine had to more or less drive back to the start to be able to reverse onto the carriages to pull them back again?!  Oh well, we enjoyed it.

Tom and local friend

Now Tom would have stayed in the museum for ever, but at this point we told him it was time to leave and see the canals which is the reason most people visit here!  We walked down to the canal, but by now it was 3pm and probably the hottest part of the day, we were all flagging.  We found the canal and then found the place from which canal cruises departed and decided to do it - if only to ease our aching feet.  They were well set up: they gave Tom an ice block to hold to keep him cool, gave all of us fans and gave me and Tom a headset so we could have English commentary.  Although the actual distance of the cruise wasn't that long, we got detailed explanation of everything in good English which made it interesting, even Tom (who was flagging in the heat) was oohing and arrrrrring at the facts.  We went out into the harbour and saw a tug boat and a police vessel, learnt about the 2nd biggest canning factory in Japan, the warehouse they use etc etc.  Doesn't sound interesting on paper but it was.  The best thing we saw though was people sat by the side of the canal with big glasses of cold beer in their hands.   Hummmm, Matt's eyes lit up - that was our next destination.

Rehydrating

So, off the boat and into the craft beer hall - it was a magnificent hall, the centre piece being 2 copper brew kettles boiling away.  The place smelt very strongly of hops, it was very sympathetically done, however, we wanted to sit by the canal so we did.  Must say the icy cold beer was beautiful, just that we needed.  Otaru is also very famous for its glass, I wanted a look, but Matt and Tom didn't, so I left them in the pub and went to explore the shops, they were laden in glass - mostly tiny glass figures (animals, flowers, food etc etc) all very beautiful and mainly very expensive, I did get myself a little something though.

Once we met up again we decided to go looking for tea - we looked around the canal area and although there were lots of places, they were all very expensive so we decided to head back towards the station and see what we could find on the way.  Bingo, we found an Izakaya, with only a Japanese menu on the outside, items were much more reasonably priced so we headed in, we sat in cubicles, where you have to take your shoes off and shuffle round (there was a recess for your legs which meant we didn't have to sit on our knees which was good).  We then had a feast of food: edamame, mochi wrapped in bacon, chicken wings, cold tofu, hot tofu, chicken karaage, beef tongue, fried mackerel, gyoza all washed down with cold beer, yumsk.  Tom tucked in like he hadn't been fed at all today, think he flagged in the middle of the day because he was hungry.  Anyway, it was all lovely and we left very happy.

We then got the express back to Sapporo and walked home.  A good day.