Compact living

I'm probably going to keep singing the praises of the Lonely Planet guide, since it's helped me find places and see things I otherwise wouldn't have found on my own. I was looking for budget accommodation for my Sapporo trip when I spotted the entry on Spa Safro at the bottom of the list of tightarse places to stay. I simply couldn't resist the chance to stay in a real, honest-to-goodness capsule hotel, one that had separate floors for men and women, and came with an attached natural hot spring to boot!

It's probably due to the publicity in the LP guide that English speakers patronize this establishment, and as a result booking procedures can be done in English, or in my case, really bad Japanese. The map in the book is somewhat inaccurate as to its location though, which resulted in half an hour of wandering around in a panic before a helpful convenience store clerk told me it was down a nearby alley, different from the directions in the book.

When I got there, I was quite surprised to discover that the place looked like a multilevel department store. It quite frankly didn't look like a place that housed a natural hot spring, since I was more expecting a low set building on a large plot of land dotted with pools of steaming water. Walking into the place, you get the feeling that this is like some classy day spa, which it in fact is. Safro offers the basic onsen package with all the services you'd expect, including all the bathrobes, towels and toiletries you could use, and 40 degree baths you can soak in for as long as you like, both indoors and outdoors, 23 hours a day (they use an hour every day for general cleanup and restocking). Next to these baths are bubbling pools with added bath salts to ease away muscular tension and pain. Wet and dry saunas are also free for patrons to use, as well as a four unit jacuzzi and massage area (extra charge for the masseuse). It was so nice that I took two baths on the Saturday. ^^ I would have liked to take photos, but the steam in the place makes that kind of hard and besides, I didn't want to get kicked out onto the cold streets of Susukino overnight. I did get pics of the dressing room and the cool down area when no one was looking though.

Upstairs from the hot spring were rooms for individual massage (Thai, Swedish, aromatherapy and reflexology), a rest area with reclining chairs where you could have a nice nap after your bath, a 24 hour food service counter and dry rock spa that claims to be therapeutic for blood pressure, migraine, diabetes and such. Frankly I don't believe that lying on hot stone tiles can give you anything more than low temperature burns, but I did see a few ladies go in with towels and bathrobes. I'll stick with the hot spring, thanks.

The thing about a public bath is that you have to leave your modesty at the door. No one in Japan minds since they do the hot spring and public bath thing all the time, but for someone who's not local, seeing droopy, wrinkly old ladies in the bath can take some getting used to. I shouldn't poke fun at them though, since gravity eventually claims all things and I'm going to end up looking like that someday. *weep*

The capsule hotel area of the place is located downstairs of the hot spring and consists of up to 40 capsules stacked together, about 12 units to a room. Each capsule was surprisingly roomy, fitted with lights, alarm clock, radio and even a television, and came with a warm blanket and a surprisingly supportive pillow filled with what felt like beans.



The bed inside the capsule could have been softer though, and because you only get a roller blind for privacy, any particularly noisy guests will keep you from getting a good night's sleep, like the ones who were staying two out of the three nights I was there. Damn tourists. Well, there's always the bath.

On the whole, this is one place I could stay at again on my summer trip. The rates would probably be lower then too, because they inflated their prices for the Snow Festival. Must refrain from packing bulky bags for the trip though, since the lockers provided are not designed for long term boarders and are a little on the narrow side. Other than that, two thumbs up!

Food pr0n - Hokkaido Chapter

Hokkaido boasts some of the harshest weather in Japan, but it's probably due to this that the local produce is some of the best I've ever tasted. Hokkaido is renowned for kombu (kelp), crab and other exotic seafood, but is perhaps best known for its virtual monopoly on the nation's dairy industry. I reckon it's probably because the cows have to put on extra fat to deal with the cold, so it rubs off on their milk as well. It's probably the richness of the milk that allows producers to market dairy goods from Hokkaido at a premium in supermarkets. It's well worth it, though.

Not too long ago, The Ishiya Chocolate Factory had a run of bad press because it falsified expiry dates on its immensely popular Shiroi Koibito white chocolate sandwich cookies. It has since bounced back spectacularly from the incident, following a rash of resignations from top staff and complete transparency in its efforts to clean up its operations. So popular are its langue du chat cookies that stores have signs on the ready to tell customers they've run out for the day. O.o

The other cookie in the pic is from a rival confectionary, Kitakaro, which makes a similar chocolate sandwich but with a different base, much like the wafers that are traditionally served with American sundaes. Both cookies have their merits; the Shiroi Koibito ones appealing to those who like their cookies on the soft and delicate side, while those who like intense chocolate flavours and crispier cookies will probably prefer the Hamanasu no Koi ones from Kitakaro. Personally, I tend towards the latter, since the chocolate filling seems to taste better. Kitakaro also makes baum kuchen, a tyre shaped sponge cake made up of many thin layers of batter repeatedly baked on a three-foot long pole and cut up into sections. Couldn't figure out how they were made until I saw it in the shop. ^^

Winter is crab season in Hokkaido, and I couldn't pass up a chance to try some when I saw stalls selling grilled local crabs at the snow festival. Slightly pricey at ¥900 for a couple of legs and a claw, but the guys were really nice and even supplied a pair of scissors to aid in extracting the tasty meat.

It was a bit drier than I expected, but the flavour was really intense, even in the legs. I'm accustomed to eating mud crabs back in Singapore, where the meat in the claw is abundant and succulent, but the stuff I had in Sapporo really beats it in taste. I also happened on scallops grilled in their shells over a charcoal fire with a bit of soy sauce, but had no room after eating a bunch of other stuff just before. I somewhat regret not making the effort to indulge in more seafood while I was there, since there was just so much on offer. Advertising for the stuff might need a bit of a brush up though, as can be seen in this little bit of hilarity. Click on the picture for a bigger version.

It's this epidemic of corporate downsizing, I tells ya!

One of the major culinary specialties of Sapporo is ramen. The Susukino district in the city is like a virtual Chinatown, dotted with ramen joints offering bowls of steaming noodle soup, often made to closely guarded secret recipes. I stepped into a random looking place and ordered their tonkotsu shoyu ramen, and was treated to smooth, firm noodles in a rich and fortifying broth. Aw, yum.

Chinese food in Sapporo doesn't stop at noodles though. I also visited a shop that specializes in gyoza, both fried and boiled. Imported frozen gyoza have been the subject of a massive product recall after several food poisoning cases in Japan, but I reckoned that since this shop makes them on site, they'd be right. I ordered both the suigyoza (boiled) and chanchangyoza (fried - think Lego gyoza), served with miso or soy and toasted Japanese mixed pepper, and decided that I'm firmly in the fried camp as far as dumplings are concerned.


Nothing beats home made stuff though.

Someone recommended that I try the sea urchin rice while I was Otaru. I'm not usually a big fan of sea urchin since the stuff I've tried reeked of eye-watering ammonia, but I was assured that the sea urchin in Otaru was totally different. Being the scaredy cat I am, I found a conveyor belt sushi place that served a combination of sea urchin, salmon roe and skillfully sliced squid, which they called the Yume-don (Dream Bowl), just in case the sea urchin was too strong on its own.

It was really like a dream, I tell you what. I had expected a noseful, but there was no hint of ammonia at all, just a silky, pleasantly fishy sweetness. The strongly flavoured salmon roe (one of my favourites) and the mild but juicy squid made for a refreshingly varied lunch, plus I was allowed to keep the pair of chopsticks in the picture as a souvenir of my visit. Guess they're really starting to take the eco-revolution seriously in this country. Bring your own chopsticks to a restaurant and save some trees!

I reckon I've only just scratched the surface of all the good food you can get in Hokkaido. If I ever visit again (and I'm pretty sure of it), I'll have to try all that summer food, including the famous Yubari melon (yes, as in Gogo Yubari from Kill Bill), and lavender flavoured soft serve. I can't wait. :P

Otaru - Tinkling music, sparkling glass

Thanks to the Lonely Planet guide, I was clued in on a seaside town called Otaru, a 45 minute train ride from the city and a convenient day trip away from urban madness. From what I read of the history of the place, it used to be a herring port, but is more well known nowadays as a centre for glass craftsmanship and tourism. I was convinced once I read in the book that there were places there I could try making a few glass items of my own. I'm such a sucker for these things ^^;

The train ride took me west of Sapporo, out into the less densely populated regions, mostly industrial, peppered with residential areas, the occasional shopping mall and the Sea of Okhotsk. Along the way it occurred to me how it must look in places like Scandinavia or Canada, where the snow seems to stretch on forever, and where the houses look all the more warm and comfortable trimmed with sparkling icicles.

After a 10-minute walk northeast of the station (it took that long because I needed to be really careful on the snowy sidewalks), I reached the Otaru Canal. Possibly the most distinctive part of the town, the canal stretches the length of the town's coast and is dotted with the town's signature lamp posts. I'm told it's quite a romantic place to walk though in the evenings. A picture in the JET calendar I got sent also depicted large, cylinder shaped ice lanterns, lit up from within, lining the edge of the canal, which I thought was rather charming. I now realize the power of SLR cameras though, because the lanterns turned out to be the size of a kids' sand bucket. XD

The surface of the water is actually frozen; the crowds on the sidewalk were pitching snowballs at it.

On the advice of a local guide, I took a look around the parallel street just two blocks south of the canal in search of Otaru's renowned music box museum. The street the museum is on is a bustling hub of tourist traps, with shops selling local knick knacks, fresh and dried produce, confectionery and of course, handmade glass items. Needless to say, my souvenir hunter instincts turned a 10 minute walk into a meandering one hour journey fraught with temptation and financial pitfalls. T_T

When I finally got to the Otaru Orgel Doh (小樽オルゴール堂) at the end of the street, it was rather a little later in the day that I planned, but still, I had the chance to take a look at the history and construction of music boxes through the centuries. There's something very nostalgic and feelgood about music boxes; their sound seems to evoke feelings of calm and well being, which would probably explain why it puts me to sleep so readily. The museum houses several working music boxes of both the cylinder and disc variety, varying in size from the familiar jewellery box and watch movement types to full on tabletop models the size of a grandfather clock. An interactive console let me listen to Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" and The Beatles' "Yesterday" among others, which naturally convinced me to buy a music box for myself. I'm so easily led. *sigh*

The main floor of the museum is also a massive shop selling music boxes in a plethora (wow, obscure word!) of shapes and sizes. There were keychain versions, traditional jewellery box versions in European and Japanese designs, as well as wall mountable versions in string operated and key operated styles. The store also has a section where customers can create their own custom music boxes, with over 250 classical, folk and pop tunes to choose from, as well as a range of cases or platforms to house the mechanisms in. Some tunes are more popular than others, and due to the large number of tourists from Hongkong and Malaysia (or Singapore) that day, they ran out of Pachelbel's "Canon in D" by midday. Boo. I found a nice, somewhat tacky looking laser etched glass globe that played the tune though, so I'm good. Add to that a CD of Chage & Aska tunes played in the music box style (nostalgia!), and I was quite a happy camper.

I mentioned above that glass blowing is a local specialty, and that the LP guide singles out places where visitors can make their own items. One of these is K's Blowing, located on the same street as the music box museum, which lets you create your own blown glassware for a not-so-small fee, inclusive of local and international delivery charges if you need it. Artisans are on hand to assist you in shaping and handling the molten glass, and will supply instructions in rudimentary English for foreign tourists.


I opted for a curvy, tactile looking mug with multicoloured accents and the winter exclusive "yuki akari" design, which is supposed to resemble snowflakes. I would have liked the spring design, in which pink, white and green glass is used to suggest cherry blossoms, but sadly, it was still winter. I had lots of fun making it anyway, though the process is actually a lot harder than it looks to arrive at a perfectly symmetrical end product. One thing the LP guide didn't mention though; since the mug is a rather large item, it takes about 24 hours to cool down from the furnace, so you can't actually take the mug home with you on the day you make it, hence the delivery service. Good thing the local couriers are an efficient lot, so you'll receive your item in the mail on the second business day after your visit. International deliveries are done by EMS, which is excellent for speedy delivery but a little hard on the wallet.

And here's my mug, along with a few other glass items I picked up on the way. I made the swirly green glass bead on the leather choker at Yuzu Koubou (ゆず工房), located behind the Otaru Canal Craft Hall due northeast of Otaru station just before the canal. Nice place, with nice people. In the upper right corner is a pair of Hina dolls in glass, the prince on the left (wisteria detail) and the princess on the right (plum blossom detail), just in time for Girl's Day on the 3rd of March. I really appreciate the minimalist design and the clever use of refraction in the floral prints of their kimonos. The lady in the shop gave me the cherry blossom print chopstick rest as a freebie ("Shhh!" she told me, so don't go telling anybody XD) because I also bought the pair of yuzu (Japanese citrus) earrings. The mobile phone dangly was from the Otaru Museum and is quite intricate, so here's a closeup:

Evening is when the Otaru Canal is at it's best. The ice lanterns are lit, and hundreds of glass candleholders are strung across the surface of the water. The local Korean association used the snow on the sidewalk to make lighted snow sculptures that weekend, which added to the atmosphere. The flickering candlelight and the soft glow from the lamp posts do make for a romantic stroll along the canal at dusk, however the surging hordes of tourists kind of spoil it a bit. ^^;;


It was with much reluctance that I headed back to Sapporo at the end of the day. Otaru really is my cup of tea, what with the souvenirs and handicrafts. I might consider a trip back up north in the summer to get away from the heat, so this little ex-fishing town might just be on my list again. You can never have enough glassware or music boxes, you know. ^^

OMG snow... festival!! (image intensive)

Despite being stuck at home for a whole week due to the flu, I managed to make my way to Sapporo for the annual Snow Festival. I'll be damned if I let a piddling major respiratory infection get in the way of a five hundred buck plane ticket to Hokkaido. :/

First up, Fukushima Airport isn't a massively impressive place, but it serves its purpose. Most of the airlines there have automated check in terminals so it speeds things up a lot when you have no check-in baggage. There are no identity checks either, which worries me a little, but that's another story. The international terminal of the airport serves destinations such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Seoul, while the domestic terminal does flights to various other prefectures *except* Tokyo (d'oh!). I shouldn't complain though, it's really convenient to be living right within driving distance of a gateway to the rest of the country, and since there's a large (and free) parking lot on the premises it means I can go away as often as I can afford it. Here's a random shot of a figurine of the prefectural mascot I found at the gate. Up until now, I still can't figure out what it's supposed to be. O.o

The airport also produces its own free in-house magazine, called the Fukushima Airport Press, abbreviated to:

Kinda appropriate for the level of pride the town has in having the prefectural airport within its boundaries. XD

Sapporo is a huge city. It was nice to walk about in a place filled with tall office blocks and big name department stores on every corner for a change. Nice, until you realize that the soft snow that covers everything compacts into very slippery ice once everyone walks on it. The local councils are decent folks though, and provide bags of sand everywhere for pedestrians to cover the ice with, in the interest of safety and prevention of lawsuits.

A bit like one of those newspaper dispensers you see in New York, except these don't take money. ^^ The drawback of the sand of course is that it makes the pavements really muddy once the snow starts melting, so you end up with grubby shoes and trouser legs at the end of the day. The extra traction is welcome though; I reckon my knee would have been more buggered than it would have been if I had to slip and slide all the way through 3 days in the city.

Anyway, on to the festival. The main bit is held in the city's park, Oodoori Koen, a long expanse of recreational space in the middle of the urban sprawl stretching 12 blocks. Here, teams of people put together gigantic snow sculptures, some 5 storeys tall. The detail and scale of these things are quite impressive, from international landscapes to fantasy scenes. Here's the proof:

This one of Inuyama Castle in particular claimed to have needed a team of 3800 people and about 360 dump trucks of snow, 2200 tons in all to make. It boggles the mind. At night, the sculptures were backlit with shades of blue and green. Quite pretty actually. I would have taken all the pics at night except my camera falls flat at low light. I did manage to take pics of this model of the old Sapporo train station:

And the snow castle from before:

There were smaller models as well, including international entries:

This entry from Thailand took top honours. I wonder how they did it though... it looks as if it shouldn't hold up, but it does. Others included random mascot characters, a vending machine, a giant geta and a rather ironic (or fitting, if you think about it) one of Al Gore's head. My favourite one was this one though:

30th anniversary this year!

Another, smaller part of the festival is the ice sculpture display in the entertainment district of Susukino in downtown Sapporo. I'm told that this year they extended the display area another couple of blocks, ringing in a bumper crop of ice statues. Here are a few of the more impressive ones:

Those are real fish frozen into the ice, by the way.

Sponsors were abundant, using the event to promote their goods. The Bailey's ice bar was one of them, serving up shots of hot Irish cream from this joint:

I appreciate the giant bottle of Bailey's, and the extra large bottle of Chamisul as well. Mmmmm....

Lemon soju, anyone? ^^

Quite poetic really. It must have taken days, possibly weeks to make these displays, and once they're out there on the streets, they'll slowly melt away and be subject to airborne attacks from the local pigeons. Actually, come to think of it, right thinking birds would probably have flown south. The clean up must be something to reckon with anyway, considering the amount of runoff from all that melting show and ice. Thank goodness for sewerage and stormwater engineering!

Influenza and ichigo

Some of you might have noticed that I haven't been updating as often this month. Thanks to the influenza epidemic running rampant in my school, I was forced to go to the local doctor (whom I don't trust all that much, frankly) after feeling completely crappy for more than 24 hours. Ultimately I was laid up in bed for a week with chills, fever and cough, stocked to the gills with antipyretics and a full course of Roche Pharmaceuticals' wonder drug Tamiflu. I found it ironic that I was ordered by the doctor to stay home for a week to avoid infecting the kids at school; the same kids who'd given me the flu in the first place! Bloody kids.

Staying at home for a week isn't fun when you're all groggy and feverish, but it gave me a chance to really enjoy the best of the local strawberry season. Up until now, I'd never eaten a fresh strawberry that was even remotely sweet, so I was really surprised and very glad when I took a chance on a punnet I saw in the bargain bin of the supermarket. Must be the fertile soil and favourable weather conditions here, because the berries were the sweetest and most fragrant I'd ever had. Makes me drool just thinking about it ^^

I once saw on TV that the fruit are hand picked when ripe, sorted to within an inch of their life by colour, size and shape, then precision packed for display on supermarket shelves. Might explain why they're not the cheapest fruit around, even though they're grown locally by the tonne. The cheapest, smallest berries ring in at ¥400 for about 20 a punnet, while the really super premium stuff can cost upwards of ¥1000 for a dozen perfectly heart shaped, ping-pong ball sized fruit, packed in a nest of shredded tissue paper in a miniature wooden carton. The biggest I've seen though were featured in an agricultural catalogue for plants that could bear strawberries more than 7cm in length. Heck, I wouldn't mind trying one of those ^^

The strawberries I find in the shops come from various prefectures, including my own, and it's a lot of delicious fun trying to find the best produce. So far, the ones from Tochigi next door seem to be winning out in terms of flavour, though the ones from here are way bigger and juicier. Strangely enough, the "Tochi-otome" cultivar that's used in a lot of limited edition confectionery isn't as always good as the ones without the premium branding.

Of course the glut of strawberries means that associated spinoff products hit the market in a big way too. Everything from prepared sponge cake sandwiches and fresh whipping cream to strawberry flavoured Kit Kat and sweetened condensed milk to dip the berries in. They don't have to bother with the last one though, the strawberries really are good on their own.

One of the products I picked up was a strawberry sprinkle, packed in convenient stick sachets. It seems to be a powdered form of sweetened condensed milk, fortified with calcium and oligosaccharides, reputed to be good for health around these parts. Japan seems to have taken the Splenda revolution quite seriously, because a lot of convenience foods, including this one, use sucralose instead of regular sugar. This stuff isn't too bad since it gives a pleasant, sweet, milky flavour to those strawberries that happen to be a little sour. Can't beat real whipped cream though.

It's not just the supermarkets that get in on the action; family restaurants and other food outlets are turning out limited edition strawberry themed desserts. The Baskin Robbins in the local shopping mall offers crepes filled with strawberries, ice-cream, cake and whipped cream, while Denny's (gee, all very American) will do you a parfait that looks like this:

Rich, delicious and absolutely terrible for the waistline! Methinks I won't be able to go back to eating Aussie strawberries after this. So before the season ends in a few weeks, I'll be prowling the fruit section of the supermarkets for a while yet, and making these:

And a vanity shot, of course:

Though you can't see it, there's a bit of soft chocolate filling under that whipped cream. Indulgence! ^^

Black cats, breaking mirrors and walking under ladders

Living in a seriously temperate country can have its pitfalls. Sure, all that snow is pretty and makes for a lot of wintertime fun, but it can also get really cold, to the point where you can't feel your extremities after a quick trip outside to put out the garbage. Having to scrape a night's worth of frost off your windscreen in the mornings also cuts into precious sleep time, especially when you realize that you actually needed the extra 15 minutes you spent in bed to get your car ready to go to work. Bah.

Another thing about the weather is that it puts a tremendous amount of strain on your car battery. So much so that when someone forgot to close the door properly on their way out of my car *glares at the next door neighbour*, the cabin lamp that was left on completely drained the battery in a matter of hours. The end result was that my car didn't work the next morning when I really needed it and that I had to catch a taxi instead. In Japan, the meter jumps slowly, but in ¥80 increments, so a 15 minute journey will set you back anything up to ¥3500. Not happy Jan.

In my mad rush to contact my supervisor and school to tell them I was going to be late, I dropped my keys somewhere in the carpark and couldn't find them in the snow. In times like this, you can only laugh (albeit a little bitterly) and get on with the day. It really puts your existence into perspective when you realize you're stuck out in the snow with no transport and no way to get back into your apartment.

It was a good thing then that my sempai found my keys that evening and hung on to them for me after a harrowing day at school with a half dead phone and no battery charger. At least I wasn't going to freeze to death outside and I could warm up in the shower. At this point, I knew Murphy had it in for me that day when I turned on the hot water tap and nothing came out. Zip. No water flowing on the hot side, but a healthy gush from the bleeding cold tap. It wasn't until later that someone suggested that my water pipes might have frozen from the unusually cold weather that day. Just my luck that I was the only one in the entire apartment block to be affected, eh? :/

Being the persistent bastard I am, I decided to boil a kettle of water to wash with. It would have been better than going without and being generally stinky for the rest of the night. I swear, If I ever meet this Murphy guy, I'm going to kill him. Even though I had a minimum of lights and electrical appliances on at the time, the induction stove tripped the electricity in the apartment and left me in a cold dark apartment, wondering what kind of cosmic karma I'd incurred to have such a seriously lousy day. At least the kettle was warm enough for a quick splash without giving me third degree burns, and I was able to go to bed that night halfway clean and hoping fervently that the next day might be a little better.

A famous fictional character once said, "Must be a Thursday. Could never get the hang of Thursdays." Too roight. It's better than getting your home planet blown up to make way for a hyperspatial bypass, I suppose.

Snowman!

February is said to be the coldest month round these parts, with the greatest amount of snowfall. Little wonder then that at times I woke up to see this out of my balcony, where it had been clear the night before:

Sharp eyed folks might pick out what looks like a bit of shovel on the right side of the pic on the steps of the apartments next door. That's the landlord's dad, who busts his ass to remove the snow from the carpark and surroundings as soon as it falls so we can drive and walk in safety. What a guy.

Of course you know I'm not going to pass up a chance to do the stereotypical winter thing and build a snowman, so a bunch of us snuck out in the middle of the night and put him together using all the snow that was shoveled together in the middle of the carpark. Here he is, at various stages of completion:



I supplied the carrot nose while my neighbour provided the cap, scarf and slippers. We scrounged up the eyes and buttons from a pile of stones next to the apartment block next door. Not a bad job, if I do say so myself. We called him Heath, in honour of the guy playing our favourite homicidal clown, since he did cark it the day before. Our ten-gallon hats off to you, pardner.

It looks so easy in movies and on TV, but putting the guy together took way more snow than I thought, mainly because it call compacts down when you try and shape it properly. Once the stuff is packed in, it also becomes really difficult to fine tune the shape, since you're now dealing with practically solid ice.

Anyhow, Heath was all ready to greet the kiddies the next morning as they were walking past our place to school. We thought it might have been nice to have him holding a sign which read, "Ohayou gozaimasu", but we couldn't find the materials. Oh well. It would have been funny.