Otaru’s Sakaimachi Street

30 August 2023

We returned our rental car at the Toyota Rent-a-Car office located near the Otaru JR Train Station after 9 days on the road. This marked the end of our road trip in Hokkaido. Earlier in the day, we had explored the Shakotan Peninsula by car from Otaru and would spend the rest of the day exploring Otaru’s Sakaimachi Street on foot. Sakaimachi Street is only a ten minutes walk from the car rental office and located close to the Otaru Canal.

Sakaimachi Street in Otaru.

In the older days when Otaru thrived as a port city, many trading companies constructed impressive Western-style buildings in the city to house their offices and shops. Since then, many of these buildings along Sakaimachi Street have been converted into restaurants, cafes, souvenir shops, boutiques, and museums.

    

We started at the end of the street that is nearer to the Otaru Canal. We could hear the gentle sound of tingling glass in the air as we strolled down Sakaimachi Street. Many shops hang wind chimes made of glass outside their shops and these sounded so nice in the evening breeze.

One of the wind chimes made with colourful glass along the street.

Glassware is one of the famous trades in Otaru. Otaru used to be a fishing port. When the herring fishing industry declined in the 1950s, the makers of glass buoys shifted to the production of refined glassware instead. Kitachi Glass is the most famous glass shop with three or four stores in Otaru with beautiful glassware such as lamps, sake sets, etc.

  Browsing inside one of the handicraft shop.

There is a small side street with retro buildings. I spotted a poster of an actor that I recalled from my childhood days where I enjoyed watching Japanese samurai and ninja films on black and white TV.

This samurai actor depicted on the picture looks kind of familiar to me.

A side street filled with colourful Japanese umbrellas!

There are famous pastry shops located along Sakaimachi Street such as LeTao, Rokkatei and Kitakaro. We skipped these as we wanted to visit the Music Box Museum located near the end of Sakaimachi Street before it closes at 6 PM. This museum houses a nice collection of antiques and music boxes in various sizes. 

We reached the end of Sakaimachi Street at slightly past 5 PM. So we had some time to take a look inside the Music Box Museum.   We took a quick photo outside the Hello Kitty Cafe located next to the music box museum.

The Otaru Music Box Museum located at one end of Sakaimachi Street. Note the steam clock standing just in front of the entrance.

The museum operates more like a shop than a museum. There are lots of attractive and cute stuff to tempt the shoppers on the ground floor.

Can select a music box mechanism from many available tunes. There are traditional, classical music and even modern pop tunes.

The upper floors of the 3-storey building have a special collection of music boxes, antiques clocks and mechanisms.

Even though we did not plan to buy anything, it was nice to visit this place.

We left the museum just before closing time and went across the street junction to sit by the Allnight Lamp to rest our feet. A few minutes later, we watched the steam clock outside did its mini performance. Every 15 minutes, the clock will play a melodious tune and even emit some steam.

The Otaru Steam Clock just outside the Music Box Museum.

By now, almost all of the shops along the Sakaimachi Street had shut its doors as we made our way back towards the Otaru Authent Hotel.

We saw the street with the Japanese umbrellas again. This time, it was nicer with the lights on.

We ended the day with dinner at a Chinese restaurant. We had craving for some Chinese food and found that Otaru is known for its Ankake Yakisoba which is stir-fried noodles with a starchy sauce.

We went to restaurant called Narutoken without realising that it is probably related to the Naruto restaurant where we ate the half fried chicken for supper.

We ordered the Ankake Yakisoba, 5-piece Zangi and a plate of gyoza. The zangi is the Hokkaido style fried chicken similar to the karaage. The chicken pieces are seasoned with soy sauce and ginger and then battered with wheat flour.

The fried noodles with the tasty thick sauce is quite similar to those we get back home. Comfort food indeed.

The Ankake Yakisoba, with its creamy thick sauce.

The Zangi which is Hokkaido’s fried chicken.

Gyoza covered with a layer of batter.