It's New Year's Eve today!
We arrived at Otaru around 8am. We got out of the station and started walking initially towards nowhere, trying to find MORINOKI. It was hard to get there, not because we got lost or anything, but the snow was making it very hard for us to walk. We didn't have snow boots or those pads they usually attach at the soles. It was really slippery, but funny!
We finally got to MORINOKI. We were greeted by a friendly couple and two adorable dogs Peg (the friendly female) and Log (the very shy male). The boss can speak english very well!
Here's Peg with her bean bag in the living room.
Peg taking a nap surrounded by the boss's amazing collection of manga!
And here's the ever shy Log.
Here's where we had our meals!
First destination today was the Orgel Music Box Museum. There were all kinds of music boxes. They even have a service for DIY music boxes. Many tunes to choose from!
We passed by some glass stores. This place is well known for the glass studios. We were not allowed to take pictures in the stores. *too pretty*
We had these along the way. Chicken and egg udon for me. Mum had claypot udon. And we had the glutinous rice balls in azuki bean paste too. Mmm~!
Then to Otaru Unga! (Otaru Canal)
We took a stroller bus to Tenguyama for the snow scenes up on the hills and had a glimpse of the ski resort too.
We went to a fast food joint Lotteria at the station and had these really good black pepper beef and cheese burgers. We weren't expecting to have yet another meal later on as you'll find out!
We got back to MORINOKI around 8pm. The boss and his wife were busy preparing for the New Year's Eve dinner! We were surprised and of course overjoyed. We didn't think we'd have a chance of tasting the real traditional home cooked Japanese ryori (dishes) because of the budget. The food they prepared was very delicious and fresh and definitely would cost a bomb if we were to have it in a restaurant. It was just so wonderful.
I'm not a big fan of seafood, furthermore having them raw. But I did try those sashimi and roes and made our own sushi and everything else they did for us.. with a good company and ambience, we enjoyed the meal thoroughly. The boss and his wife invited friends over by the way. The boss's mother and the mother of one of his friends came too. She can speak mandarin so well!
From left: The boss, his wife, his friend, his mother.
The boss made these soba noodles himself!
One of the boss's friends asked me if I had natto before. Then the boss's wife prepared a bowl of it right after! I fell in love haha..
It was such a great experience, just speaking simple Japanese sentences with them and having free and easy conversation. I thank my phrasebook so much! Trying to understand what they were trying to explain was fun too. We won't forget this night. We celebrated 2008 going on '09 and we did it in Hokkaido together with these people with their big hearts!
Happy New Year!
End of Day 9
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