In the morning the weather was, contrary to the forecast, gray and uncomfortable, I researched how to get to Mt. Moiwa and it was altogether too long. More than 2 hours go and come back. Not with a grey view. So what to do? Breakfast was about the same as yesterday so I spare you the pictures (actually I didn't even take one). While munching on the rice I decided to at least visit Susukino, one of the 3 great red light districts in Japan, with Kabukicho in Tokyo and one in Fukuoka.
Red light districts in daylight are of course a bit less entertaining than in nighttime with all the advertisement going on, but as all real red light districts in Japan the good venues are Japanese only anyways, so as a tourist you are prone to land in some cheap dingy bar belonging to either the Nigerian or the Colombian mafia. I reiterate: That is not a good idea as a single tourist. It is not even a good idea in a group but there you might have better chances to get back to your hotel unrobbed and in possession of your passport and credit card. Of course there are also all kinds of perfectly fine bars and so on, but if you don't know your way around the chances of being taken advantage of are pretty substantial. In the end it's a bit like Reeperbahn, only that the police usually doesn't care when horny gaijin (foreigners) get robbed (it's their own fault after all) and rather give you problems when you don't have a passport.
In most of those highrises are restaurants, night clubs, maid cafes, karaoke bars and so on stapled vertically. Some have "live and work" places. A bit like coworking spaces but you can rent them on the spot and they have food, drinks, showers and in some you can even sleep. 8 hours workplace rent was 2200 Yen with internet included, that's around 13.20€
The famous Nikka whisky sign. It is listed in Google Maps as a sightseeing spot, so it must be famous, right?
The Mega Don Quijote in Susukino. Don Quijote is a strange thing. A bit like Woolworth mated with Douglas, a Home improvement market, a drug store and that on a mix of speed, grass and LSD. You can buy the strangest things there (just search YT, there are a lot of videos about this). And you can buy perfectly normal things there, too. I bought a small boarding suitcase, since my luggage is miraculously growing and some minerals. For some reason the clerk made that tax free and I saw that too late. Now I didn't buy mineral tablets to carry them home unused (they were in a sealed bag), so I guess I have to search for some person in the airport when I go home and pay the missing taxes.
Yes, it was really that loud.
McDonalds is rumored to have much better quality in Japan. But who cares? I don't like their garbage in Germany, so I wont even try their potentially less garbagy garbage in Japan. Why would I eat a system gastronomy burger when I can have high quality artisanal food?
When I left Don Quijote trough a random exit, I was in Tanuki Koji, another landmark and about as impressive as the Whisky sign. No, scrap that, less impressive. It was described as a "historical, original shotengai". Yeah, sure, it had nothing of a shotengai and everything of a tourist trap.
A shotengai is normally a shopping street where they put a roof between 2 rows of houses, so you can shop your daily necessities, groceries, met, fish, bakery products and so on. The food shops often double as a stall where you can eat the produce they sell anyways. There are also specialized shotengai like the one in Asakusa, Tokyo where you can buy everything kitchen related, from top class handmade knives to restaurant kitchen needs like oversized drainers and so on.
Now this shopping street in Sapporo is like 60% souvenirs and the rest was some restaurants, second hand shops and gaming arcades. There were some nice motives, bur as a shotengai it is a complete fail.
The Tanukikoji shopping street. Many Asian looking people are Chinese tourists. Hokkaido and especially Sapporo seems to be a very sought after holiday spot in China. 5 years ago in Kyushu it was also a lot of Chinese and Korean tourists. Honshu on the other hand has dominantly American/South american and European tourists. I don't know the exact numbers of course, just a subjective observation.
Another view. You see that the shopping street has breaks for normal traffic. Sapporo is very recangular, with blocks like in New York.
Nice carving there.
Beef impact is a name I would steal if I ever open a restaurant. Oh yeah.
The Hokkaido Wagyu tasting plate with 3 kinds of Wagyu (180g) for ~42 € looked nice, but I wanted to eat on the festival market today, so my iron will prevailed!
The "Beer Hall", kinda German Folklore since 1914.
Of course they have "Eisbein", the silicone double looked strangely flat though. I just hope it is false advertising in this singe case only.
"Snobbish babies" is a near genius name for a shop selling dog accessories...
I wandered the whole shopping street and found nothing of lasting interest with my new small suitcase on wheels. Since I wasn't that far away anymore from Odori park and the weather was sunny, I went there to have lunch. I thought it was pretty full yesterday, but today there were about double the people, if not more.
The first segments (without festival stalls) were full of grade school classes taking their break there with their teachers. In Japan there is one big break of an hour, where pupils can eat lunch in the cafeteria. Or like here, in the park. The teachers were with them and the single classes each had their own color for their baseball caps. They seemed to have a lot of fun.
It was really full, so I walked the whole length and finally in the last (posh) segment there were some seats and I got myself pork kewers, scallop skewers and some appetizers.
The pork was crispy belly of some special Hokkaido only pig variety and it was really flavorful. The scallops were just good scallops and the appetizers were salted Edamame (soy beans in a pod), some deepfried noodles (I suppose) and some jerky. Those were actually noting to write home about.
I was sitting in front of this fountain while eating. Nice cool breeze.
Rolling my new suitcase home, I was a bit exhausted and held a nap. For dinner I went to the same in hotel Izakaya as yesterday and today they had the Sake boiled short neck mussels.
But first I had cucumbers with a home made miso dip and a local Sake.
The miso is chunky and less salty than the store bough one. The Sake was really good.
As a farewell ro Hokkaido I ordered the "7 different Sashimi" set. I have no idea what species some of them are, but they were all awesome.
And finally the mussels. The meat itself was good but not astounding. The broth though was great.
Tomorrow I leave Hokkaido and go to Hachinohe. I will probably not write tomorrow, since I plan on hitting the Yokocho (drinking district) and will probably be too late and too wasted when I am back at the hotel. Saturday might be a slow day accordingly and on Sunday I plan to visit the biggest morning market in Japan. It starts at daybreak and ends at ~ 9 am, so only very early birds might even see a worm.
I have not yet decided where to go from there. I'll check the weather reports and then meditate long and hard about this existential question.
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