Laninga's Travel Blog

Our second port of call was Otura, Japan. Located on Hokkaido Island, it is close to Sapporo, home of the ’72 Olympics. It has a strong herring fishing heritage, although today it is more known for its canals and shopping. We did a walking tour of the shopping district.

There are some wonderful shops in Otura. One you wouldn’t think of is their “double frommage” stores, which makes an extensive line of cheeses, especially desert cheeses. They were passing samples on the street, and we made several round trips for seconds and thirds. We can’t take that back on the ship, so we had to pass on buying some, which we otherwise certainly would have done.

One thing that was obvious was the high prices of fresh produce. Melons were selling anywhere from $60 to $100 — each! And fresh corn was in the $2 to $3 per ear. Don’t know how they can afford to live there.

Of course, we found a local sushi place. If you’re going to have Japanese food, then why not in Japan? We found a cute local place and the sushi was indeed very good.

Obviously we are now in Japan

A view of the shopping street

So clean. They even pick up trash by hand.

No idea what they were selling

Sure did recognize these though!

Melons at about $60 each

Sample of our lunch plate

Local building

Inside one of the shopping arcades

Cool way to get around