20241001- Otaru and Sapporo day 2
Our second day in Otaru and Sapporo began with a second helping of the included Viking tour. It had been offered both days because some people who did optional additional pay excursions yesterday could do the included one today. For us, we felt it would be worthwhile to do it again to get another guide’s perspectives, and to be able to wander a bit more than yesterday.
Since we didn’t have to clear customs, we got off to a much earlier start. We also had only 22 in our tour group so it was much less crowded on the bus. We each had a row to ourselves. Our guide guide yesterday day was good, and so was today’s guide. Both had an excellent grasp of the English language, and emphasized different things on their tours. Having done the same tour route yesterday, we had some idea of when we needed to prepare to see things and on which side of the bus to look.
Arriving much earlier at the Hokkaido Shrine was also beneficial. It was much less crowded, the gravel inside the shrine was freshly raked, and we saw a red squirrel and costumed shrine staff scurrying about.
Today’s weather was a repeat of yesterday’s perfect weather for outdoors exploring.
The Historic Village Museum had school groups touring, and the horse-drawn trolley seemed to be much more active today. We got a better understanding of how the buildings on the site got to be there. Most are actual historic structures that were donated to the museum. These were moved to the site and restored to as close to their original conditions as possible, rather than reconstructions or simulations.
We had the opportunity to poke our heads into buildings that we had skipped yesterday, and Ben even took his shoes off to explore the Herring Mansion in more detail today. It is interesting how the Japanese managed to keep their homes warm in Hokkaido’s cold winters through the use of moving partitions and windows to create the effect of double paned windows with single pane glass and thin wood and paper walls by arranging them concentrically around the perimeter of their living spaces. A hallway circling the building was in effect a 3’ thick insulating wall of air.
The Otaru Shimbun Building was a newspaper building made of stone. Instead of sandstone, they use something called Sapporo nanseki, or soft stone, which has a grey color and interesting texture. It is the result of pyroclastic flows that cool and harden. It is relatively soft and workable, resistant to fire and retains warmth well. There are several other prominent soft stone buildings still in Otaru and Sapporo today.
The ship was scheduled to depart shortly after our excursion returned to the ship so we didn’t get a chance to get back into Otaru on foot. Instead, we had to run a gauntlet of red Viking Umbrellas to the sounds of 80’s music to motivate everyone back on the ship on time.
A local dance troupe of young women in costumes more reminiscent of South Pacific Islanders than Japanese Geisha performers saw us off with a spirited performance from the wharf as the ship shoved back and headed out.
We disembarked our pilot just outside the Otaru jetty with pair of whistle blasts like salutes between the pilot tug and the Viking Orion.
Ben took advantage of the weather to take a dip in the aft infinity pool and hot tub as the ship sailed out of Otaru.
We sampled some of the ship’s Japanese cuisine special in the buffet early. They had some really good tempura prawns in addition to miso soup and a repeat spread of seafood and sushi. We had our real dinner at 8pm in the Chef’s Table where they featured Korean cuisine. The amuse busche was an egg Custer with barbecued ell and salmon roe which was tasty and interesting. The salad course featured cold soba noodles which were good. This featured a Korean bean paste soup which was quite different from Japanese miso. This had small cubes of char Sui pork that were a bit off the mark for their texture and a problem with constructing a soup on the table is the broth is not hot enough to thoroughly heat the meat. The main was braised beef, which while tender and flavorful, was made with a cut of beef that had a lot of fat and tendons. Dessert featured matcha cheesecake and mango sorbet.
We had to rush through the dinner to make it to the theater in time to catch the production team’s ABBA tribute. The singers that Viking has hired for this segment are very vocally talented and put on a great entertaining and energetic show. Unlike on Princess, where we would have had to camped out in the theater a half hour before showtime, the Viking Orion’s theater seems to be able to accommodate a larger percentage of passengers. So we managed to get great seats.
We have one more day at sea tomorrow before we arrive in Tokyo. Now that the progressive trivia is all wrapped up, there will be a music trivia tomorrow.
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