Hokkaido - Otaru & Niseko • Day 3 + 4

our room in Otaru

The adventure continues.

welcome to Otaru

After checking out of the Internet Café we had a quick breakfast at a nearby restaurant, got our luggage from the coin lockers and took the next Bus to Otaru. Their would also have been trains that drove to Otaru but this was the cheapest and easiest way since we didn't have any transfers and it only took about one hour.
The plan was to go to a hostel that our friends hat recommended to us, check  in end explore the City, which seemed to be a rather quiet town, but when we arrived at the hostel the manager told us that they are fully booked for this day.

the Otaru channel

But we were lucky that he was a very nice guy. Just a quick call and he got us another hostel whose price was exactly the same and it wasn't far away so we could easily walk. We thanked him and went over to the other hostel which was literally just a puddle jump away. The man at the reception was already waiting for us and after paying for the night he lead us the way to our room. The whole Hostel seemed more like a big family house that was reconstructed so more people could stay there. Our room was pretty big if you compare it to other Hostels in Tokyo and equipped with a heater, a closet, a table and two futon where prepared too.

Matcha Latte with marshmallows

It was already getting dark and we headed towards the Otaru channel where a little Festival was hold. The channel was full with little candle lights, it reminded me a little bit of the 'Tangled'-movie and they decorated the ways with candles as seen on the pictures. We grabbed a Matcha Latte with marshmallows and walked around for a while. Honestly it would habe been pretty romantic if you would go with someone you liked, but yeah, haha.
After a while the hunger kicked in and we decided to have sushi for dinner. The restaurant was close to the channel. The sushi tasted different then in Tokyo, but not bad at all.
With a full stomach we went back to the hostel and relaxed for the rest of the evening.
On the following day we enjoyed a delicious breakfast with a nice few, because the hostel was standing on a little hill and we were able to see the ocean. After checking out our next stop was the Otaru train station. But we didn't move on yet. We stored our heavy backpacks in the coin-lockers again and explored the rest of Otaru.
We found a Venetian museum and music box museum and walked along a rather lively street with lots of omiage shops. At one shop we engraved our names in chopsticks and then we went to a rather popular icecream shop that has odd icecream flavors like red wine, sake, ramune, grape,

breakfast with ocean view

 sweet potato and so on and so on. I picked butter potato, ikazumi (squid tint) and creme cheese. My companion took beer, ikazumi and pumpkin. The taste was delicious of course. I didn't really liked the beer flavored one because I don't like the taste of beer in general and it really tasted like beer. The squid tint just tasted like usual soft-ice with the difference that it was black and also tinted your tongue a bit.
We finished the ice and thought about trying some more flavors but since it was getting late and our next stop was Niseko we decided to continue our journey and go to the train station to get our stuff.
But then the disaster started. We took the wrong train. Actually it wasn't really the wrong train. It was the right direction but the trains destination were a few stops before Niseko. At that station we waited one full our for the next train and it was extremely cold, but we used the time to look up for a place to stay in Niseko. Unfortunately we couldn't find an affordable hotel close to Niseko station but we thought 'Niseko is loved by tourists for Skiing, there must be SOMETHING.'
We thought wrong. As we arrived in Niseko there was nothing. At first we asked one of the assistance at the station for the city center and started walking with high hopes. But the longer we walked the more we realized that there wasn't a real center as it is in Sapporo. It was already getting dark and we decided to go back to the train station to ask the assistant for help, but when we came back everyone was gone. We checked the internet for hotels nearby, but either they were to expensive or to far away. You should now that most hotel receptions closes around 10 and it was already 9. We wouldn't make it in time regardless of were we would book a room now. What to do now?
On our way to the city center we had passed a public toilet. Since the train station was cold we decided to go there. Luckily it was heated and warm inside. It look clean as well and we sat down on the floor at the toilet for disabled people. We decided to stay the night at the toilet. You are allowed to laugh about our stupidity and misery now but you know what? The toilet hat a heated floor!!!
The floor was so warm I wasn't able to sleep at all.
This was quiet an experience for us. I wasn't really angry or bugged by it. I laughed a lot over our situation to be quiet honest. My companion was laughing at first as well but the later the night the more I noticed him to be stressed out over the situation.
But somehow we survived the night, we got up early in the next morning and took the first train to Hakodate.

Did something like this ever happen to you? How would you react in such a situation? Would you rather laugh like me or become desperate?
Hope you laughed a bit while reading.

See you next time,

Yours,
Miharu ♥