Sauntering Sunflower

First, a bit about the differences in finding and consuming alcohol in Canada as compared to Japan . . .

What Lance and I consider one of the best things about visiting Japan, is the proliferation of access to alcohol and the laissez-faire attitude towards its consumption. In Canada, you can only really get alcohol at certain licensed restaurants and specialty liquor stores. The liquor stores are really of two varieties: private owned and government owned. They usually suffer from at least one, if not several, of the following flaws: bad hours, poor selection, and high prices. Also, liquor cannot be consumed in public. At certain events it is permitted, but you can’t just crack a can of beer open on a train and go on your merry way.

In Japan, the situation is quite different. You can readily find alcohol for sale at convenience stores, in vending machines on public streets, and even at train station kiosks. While it’s considered rude to be walking around in the open eating and drinking, it’s perfectly acceptable to eat and drink while sitting down on a train or bus. In fact, many seats will have flip down trays and/or cup holders to make it more convenient for you. Also, many of the bottles that have twist off caps, now come equipped with little pull tabs, so you can very easily open your beverage.

Now, to set the stage for the wine review . . .

We were heading back from Asahikawa (where we had just visited a sake brewery, sampled, and purchased some bottles to bring back home) and it had been a very long day. We were faced with almost 2 hours on a train to get to the city where our hotel was (and we didn’t really know exactly where in the city our hotel was located, so there was that adventure still to come), we had done a lot of walking, and my ankle still hurt like hell. And did I mention we’d just been walking around in the snow in -10 degrees Celsius? Anyway, we got to the train station and had a bit of time before our train was set to arrive so we stopped for snacks and drinks. They had mostly beer and a few bottles of wine, so I decided to pick one up for the train ride ahead. Here are the basic details (keep in mind, this is what I could discern from reading the label, which was mostly in Japanese).

Now, the wine . . .

Furano wine. Lavendar fragrance. A white. 360 ml Bottle with a
real cork – no screw cap. Best served between 6 & 12 degrees
Celsius. A decent 12% alcohol. The little blurb on the front of the
bottle seems to indicate that this might be an expermental brew –> “Furano
viticulture and enology experiment station Shimizuyama Furano Hokkaido
Japan.”

The very nice girl at the check out was kind enough to ask if we wanted cups, to which I responded in the affirmative. As I said, it had been a long day, and when I grabbed the bottle, I hadn’t really given any thoughts on HOW I would drink the wine, just that I wanted to try it. Once we were settled on the train, I pulled the cool bottle out of the bag, and my heart sank a little when I realized that it had a real cork. My husband came to my rescue though and pointed out that the girl at the store had also put a little corkscrew in the bag. Yup, they provide tiny cups and a corkscrew too. Oh, and did I mention the price? It was 480 Y, which works out to around $5.

As for how it tasted, I thought I could actually detect a hint of Lavendar in the wine. But, it might have simply been the suggestive power of the bottle. since it was one of the few English words on it, and it had a picture of a Lavendar field on the front of the bottle too. It was a fairly sweet wine, and I found it pretty good after the long day we’d had. Probably not something I’d serve with dinner, but to kick back and relax a bit while travelling back to the city on the zoo train filled with hyper children and life sized stuffed animals at the front of every car (I kid you not), it was very much worth the price. I’d give it a solid 3 out of 5. Oh, and it paired pretty nicely with the Pocky too.

On a purely side note, I’m quite glad I opted for the white over the red variety, as you can’t see at all where I spilled the wine all over the front of my pants when the train zigged just as I was pouring another cup for myself (did I mention they were tiny, jello-shooter size cups?)

Should I feel so inspired, I may pick up another variety at some other locale on our trip and post another review.

We found your snow. It was in Hokkaido. Evidentally, it had been drinking heavily; it certainly kept falling down the entire time we were there.

Ha ha. Ha.

But seriously, folks. We left the comfort of the Dormy Inn and caught a bus to Hotel Piano at Kiroro resort. We arrived mid-morning, too early for check-in. Instead we stuffed our bags in lockers, rented snow equipment, and went skiing. My wife is a wicked awesome ski demon. Zoom zoom! Away she went. I ran into a sign.

It was a good thing, really. The sign was the only thing I could find to prevent me from entering the speed mogul ramp. That would have ended very, very badly. Jenn did the moguls later, just to prove she is more awesome than me.

After a few runs, they closed down the course we had been skiing and opened up the night runs. We decided we’d had our fun and went back to the hotel.

Remember when I said food was cheap in Japan? If you don’t, you should go back and read the old blog posts. You obviously weren’t paying attention the first time. It turns out, you can find an expensive restaurant if you look really, really hard at the top of a remote mountain. And it’s french cuisine.

Our table was on a balcony that overlooked the hotel lobby. Below us a grand piano had been retro-fitted into a player piano and we dined to the sound of jazz piano classics. The meals themselves were a set course: you could chose big, bigger, or biggest, and you could choose your drink. (We opted for gin and tonics).

The amuse bouche was a light carrot mousse. This was followed by seven courses, each artfully arranged upon our plates. Each course was small, and very delicious. The entire meal was choreographed over 90 minutes, and involved a supporting cast of 11 different utensils, and equal number of plates, one very attentive waiter and two very satisfied Canadians.

And, yeah. We forgot our cameras in the room so no pictures.

Otaru was a lovely city. The highlight of the town is the Otaru canal district, which features several old buildings. The city has worked hard to maintain the historic ambience of the port. A very nice stroll, though not a long one.

To make up for that fact, we did the stroll about six times. Because we were not looking for the canal district. We had come to Otaru with a purpose. We were looking for a long lost cousin.

Ages ago, Vancouver sent a steamclock to Otaru as a gift. It is an exact duplicate of the steamclock located on Granville street, except that it is slightly larger in all dimensions, and it actually functions as a steamclock.

The steamclock is located in front of an orgel music box shop, at the very end of a picturesque boulevard. We probably would have appreciated the boulevard more, except it was -10 C. and we’d been walking for a very long time. We went inside the orgel shop to warm up.

The shop itself was an old brick and frame warehouse building, about three stories tall. The entire interior was one large room. And everywhere you looked were music boxes. We stayed for about a half hour, admiring the quality of the workmanship – both of the music boxes and the building itself. Eventually, we’d warmed enough to brave the trek back.

One Piece is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. It is a cartoon about a boy who sails off to sea to become the Pirate King and beats up a lot of people along the way. It’s practically Shakespearean, except nobody dies.

Lawsons – the 24 hour convenient store and my primary vendor of Pocky – is sponsoring a One Piece celebration. The store has printed up awesome quality images of the One Piece crew’s wanted posters. Eight in all.

After some back and forth, we established that they do not sell the posters. You get a poster free, if you buy a Bunch of specially marked items in store. After even more back and forth, we established the magic number at Two.

We have so far collected two posters. And by the Power of Greyskull, we shall collect them all!

Every good story needs a montage. It’s the bit where you fast-forward to here, from there. Here is currently Otaru, Hokkaido. And it involves a great deal of luxury. But lets not get ahead of ourselves.

We flew JAL for this trip. The flight was nice and wholly uneventful. Air Canada did several things better, however. For starters, we travel light. One carry-on each. Air Canada lets you check in via the website and print your own boarding pass from home. Brilliant.

Secondly, Air Canada has movies on demand. Trust me, it’s better.

Thirdly (and admittedly this is Tokyo’s fault) immigration came before baggage. In Osaka, we jumped queue by not waiting at the baggage. Essentially we walked off the plane, right past the baggage turns, and straight up to two very confused immigration and customs officials. Not so in Tokyo. We got to stand in line again.

On a positive note, nobody moves a line more efficiently than the japanese. And an extra bonus: neither Jenn nor I were accosted by stern looking customs agents with white plastic gloves.

Our first two nights were booked at the Hotel Sky Court. The hotel was pretty nice – spacious for a Japanese semi-double and a very reasonable price. It just happened to be in the red light district. We were a little uncertain of the directions, but a very nice pimp gave us two umbrellas and confirmed the directions, and we reached the hotel without incident.

The next day we visited Kamakura, an hour south of Tokyo. The train ride was pleasant, the weather cloudy but dry. We explored the town with a great deal of inefficiency and photography. Viewed several temples, shrines, shops, and the second largest (second best?) Buddha in Japan. In fact, second-best sums Kamakura up rather well.

On the way back to the hotel, zagged and zigged and stopped in at Anato No Warehouse; a five story arcade building built to resemble a run-down Chinatown neighbourhood. The walls were brick, the floors concrete, the vending machines rusted. Everything had a dingy, dirty appeal to it. Except the ladies bathrooms, which were done in high Parisian style apparently. That’s understanding your demographics. The first floor was the entry, floors 2-3 were arcade and prize games, interspersed with darts and pool tables. We snapped pictures like crazy gaijin until on the fourth floor one of the staff finally had the nerve to tell us pictures weren’t allowed.

At the top was an internet cafe. We tried to use the internet, but apparently we needed a card. We asked for a card, and were told we needed a card. Evidently, something was lost in translation. That something was our internet, we returned to the hotel in defeat.

Which brings us to today, when we woke early and boarded another train, took another plane, to yet another train. And thus we reached the Dormy Inn.

Okay, silly name. But the hotel is literally 100 feet from the JR rail station. The room is excellent (and has complimentary internet), but it is the baths that seal the deal.

The men’s bath had three indoor pools (ranging from ice cold to lobster bisque), a sauna, and two outdoor baths. Nothing beats soaking in scalding water when the ambient temperature is -12 degrees Celsius. And after all the walking and traveling we’ve done the past few days, it was nice to scurry into the hot baths to soak for a few hours.