Otaru

Today's primary goal was to get Ms H to Sapporo airport to make her way home, I was feeling a bit sad about it, not sure if that was her leaving us, or on behalf of her having to leave early, probably both. But off she went, initially to Seoul, Korea.

We didn't have anything definite planned for the day, but the rapid train we were on back to Sapporo actually went all the way to Otaru on the coast, alongside the sea, which Mrs C had thought about as an option, so we decided to go there. We use an IC card in Japan for train/bus travel, you tap on the way onto your transport, then went getting off and it deducts the cost from the prepaid amount you've loaded onto your card, so it makes travel very easy and flexible.

Anyway, we arrived in Otaru almost the same time as Ms H's flight took off, we went to the top of the town to take photos down to the bottom of the town, there was a big cruise ship in, same one we saw in Hakodate, it's on it's way fron Brisbane to Seattle. Otaru was the first railway station on Hokkaido so we walked along the old railway line to the railway museum and spent an hour or so there. It is still early spring here, blossoms not ready for a week or so, and there is still snow at the sides of the roads.

We then walked along the sea canal that was used to transport goods from the boats to the warehouses, before they had a proper port. The big ship started honking it's horn which drew us to watch it depart, massive it was. Then we headed back to the train.

We're definitely in wind down mode, today was a strolling day, tonight was dinner in the craft beer pub again and it did the job for us who needed to take it easier. Tomorrow we are off south again and Ms H going over China as I post this.