Last night we returned from another Tokyo Snow Club ski weekend. We stayed at the Grand Park Otaru Hotel, northwest of Sapporo. It was quite a treat staying in a 4 star hotel with twin share rooms and buffet breakfast. This was the view from our room. No onsen but having pillows and real beds made up for it!
On Friday night we flew from Tokyo to Sapporo and then caught the train out to Otaru. After partaking in a few beverages with the ski group and observing the co-ordination of the return of a lost bag from the airport and a helmet from the train station we hit the sack. (The Japanese are fantastic at returning lost items, both the airport and the train station lost and found people organised to have the guy's lost stuff couriered to the hotel within 24 hours. We know people who have lost wallets at bus stops and had them express posted back by members of the public at their own cost.)
Next day we caught the bus with the group up to Kiroro ski resort for some fresh pow pow.
We had a fantastic day cruising around the mountain and enjoying the fresh snow despite the gondolas to the top half of the mountain being closed due to high winds. I hung out with some of the more intermediate level people while Chris was off hitting the tree runs and getting told off by ski patrol.
For dinner, it was out with the group to Otaru Beer, a German style brewery. Out came the steins, pretzels and schnitzels.
Next stop - karaoke! About AU$20 a head for 2 hours of karaoke and all you can drink. Best value fun around but after quite a few gin and tonics and a room full of boys singing at full volume, 2 hours is definitely long enough.
I have also learnt, the key to karaoke is to get your songs loaded on early and not to pick rap songs. Its hard to keep up with the speed of the lyrics if you don't know all the words. And boys hog microphones, altought I managed to hold onto my tambourine with an iron grip. They were trying to wrestle that from me as well. Best song of the night goes to one of the guys who has been in Japan for 10 years and had learnt all the words to one of the popular karaoke songs. Couldn't tell you what the song was now but it was bloody funny at the time.
Feeling pretty sore the next day we decided to head into the town of Otaru instead of back up the mountain. We checked out some of the cool touristy stores and ate some amazing seafood.
Everybody needs a samurai umbrella, right?
How about some replica samurai armour?
And don't forget your socks for your ninja tabi boots.
How about some dried squid?
Or some delicious seafood yakitori?
We sampled some oysters and scallops off the roadside grill. Amazing.
And some sashimi, not entirely sure what it all was, but bloody amazing.
These are the Otaru mascots. No idea what they are supposed to be??
They seem a bit fishy to me!
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