Sept 10th and 11th - Pt. 1: Going to Sapporo

Yesterday (10th) there didn't happen much, getting up, getting packed and ready, getting to the station, getting to Sapporo, getting into the hotel, getting dinner, going to sleep.  The train ride wasn't fun or interesting. For one the weather was shitty and things look shitty in shitty weather and second the landscape would mostly be uninteresting in sunshine, too. I also drove by the godforsaken place where the national Ainu museum is and decided to skip it on the way back. There is really nothing beside this museum and a small museum village. So only a few pics for this day.

Breakfast. Today I opted for snow crab meat instead of shrimp.

Detail.

The train. Felt more like a Metronom than an express.

Agricultural dominated villages.

A bit of landscape.

On the other side was a short glimpse of the pacific. Far away in that direction is Hawaii. While on the train I looked up the latitudes. Tokyo is on the same latitude as Malta and Ceuta in northern Morocco, while Sapporo is on the same latitude as Livorno in Italy.

A bit more landscape.

A shrine along the way.

The small village with the Ainu museum.

Finally after more than 4 hours of boredom and dozing off, Sapporo!

When I finally was in my room and unpacked, it was 6.30 pm and I was really hungry, so I checked for good places around the hotel. There was a higher class place and a normal Izakaya. I went first for the higher class venue but they had only Japanese seating on tatami mats and that would have meant to leave my boots in a locker. Now nobody of the other guests, nor the personnel did anything bad to me as far as I remembered, so I excuse myself with something like "bad knees" and left without exposing them to the aroma of my socks which were in these boots for like 10 hours now and went to the normal Izakaya where I wolfed down this:

Quail eggs in pepper oil as the obligatory starter. Yummy!

Homemade Kimchi with Hokkaido Okra. Really good.

A variety of skewers. The one with crispy pork belly was gone before I remembered to take a pic. From left to right it is chicken skin, chicken gizzard, chicken thigh and beef tongue.

The Sushi was ok'ish only. The rice fell apart, but the toppings were good. Scallop, Octopus, Atka mackerel, Salmon and Tuna.

And to close it off, some skewers with minced chicken meat and a raw egg yolk as a dip.

Stuffed and slightly tipsy from the highballs I went into the next combini and stumbled over this.

Japanese souffle cheese cake. Even the factory made stuff from the combini is good. I also bought another highball in a can and went back to the hotel. That was it.

Today it is raining, thatswhy I am sitting here in the hotel room at the laptop in the morning. It should stop between 11 and 12 according to the forecast and then I plan on visiting Odori park and the stuff around and especially under it.

Breakfast in this MyStays hotel is buffet style with mostly Japanese and some western offers. I opted for this:

I would really like to have this kind of breakfast at home, but it is unfortunately not feasible. So I will exploit it here as much as I can. Will add the rest of today in the evening.

To be continued.