Hokkaido in summer with a kid: Part 4 (Otaru)

Day 4 focused on a day trip (make that a half-day trip) to the city of Otaru. The main sight-seeing stretch is just one long street, so a day trip, or less, is more than sufficient. Be prepared to walk a lot though, so the kiddy carrier comes in useful once again.

Take a train from Sapporo station to Otaru (which is nearer the Otaru canal) and after you finish walking down the sight-seeing street, you'll end up at the Otaru Music Box museum, which is nearer Minami Otaru station (one station away from Otaru). You can do it either way, but my recommendation is start with the Otaru canal first and make your way down, as you'll end up buying things nearer the Otaru Music Box museum. You can pick up a tourist map of the street at the Otaru station.

Here are the sights we stopped at in the long walk down the Sakaimachi street.

1. The very picturesque Otaru Canal, which is probably even more lovely in winter.

2. Rainbow ice-cream next to the Venetian museum (Venetian cafeteria or something) after the long walk between the canal area and Sakaimachi.

The flavours are grape, melon, green tea, lavender, milk, strawberry and chocolate.

3. LeTao Pathos - there are three LeTaos on the street - Pathos, Le Chocolat by LeTao, and the original flagship store. Here's the double plate, which has three sample-size pieces of cheesecake, including their renowned double frommage (right-most in the picture below).

4. More rainbow ice-cream at Kitaichi Glass Sangokan cafe. I think this one tastes better than the one before. The colours are not as vibrant (due to different camera setting) but tastes really good. The flavours are milk, chocolate, lavender, melon, some blue flavour starting with L that is not lavender, and tastes a little sour (but not blueberry) and green tea. Very rich and yummy.

5. Seems like I can still eat after that though the hubby and kid have given up. Next is Kitakaro which has lots of samples for you to try if you don't know what to buy. I only had minimal stomach space left, so I went for the cream puff. Even that had three versions and I had to choose just one.

6. Nothing else could go into my stomach after that, though there were many other lovely confectionery shops like Rokkatei lurking dangerously around. We wrapped up the Otaru trip with visits to the musical box shops. Musical boxes of every shape and design (forget about the standard square ones) could be found in lovely wooden "cabin-like" shops, reminding me of Disneyland for some reason. But all really lovely and picturesque.

After that, it was back to Sapporo for some shopping and more food (again?!).

Our complete itinerary:
Day 1: Haneda to Hakodate (overnight in Hakodate)
Day 2: Hakodate - Lake Toya (overnight in Lake Toya)
Day 3: Lake Toya - Sapporo (overnight in Sapporo)
Day 4: Otaru (overnight in Sapporo)
Day 5: Sapporo - Furano (overnight in Furano)
Day 6: Biei (overnight in Furano)
Day 7: Furano - Asahikawa - Tokyo (overnight in Tokyo)
Day 8: Tokyo (overnight in Tokyo)
Day 9: Tokyo - Singapore