A Day Out in Otaru

Feb. 1, 2023

JNTO - Japan National Tourism Organization

Otaru, a pleasant harbour city near Sapporo famous for its super-fresh sushi, winter snow lantern festival, and well-preserved canal and townscape, is the perfect size to explore in a day.

Perched on Hokkaido’s southwestern coast, around 45 minutes by train from Sapporo, historical fishing port Otaru makes an ideal day trip from Sapporo or as a stop-off en route from Sapporo to Niseko or other destinations further south.
Otaru has been a major fishing and trading port since the 1800s. Many handsome turn-of-the-century western-style buildings, such as former warehouses, residences and offices, built by foreign shipping and trading companies, still dot the town. Together with its coastal location, this makes Otaru an architecturally interesting and aesthetically pleasing place to spend the day.
If you’re heading to Otaru from Sapporo, take the JR Hakodate Line Rapid Airport from Sapporo Station to Otaru Station. The train runs every 12 minutes throughout the day and takes around 35 minutes. If you’re driving from Sapporo, it should take you around 50 minutes.

1. Take a Stroll Along Otaru Canal

Once you arrive, step back in time with a stroll along the waterside in the town’s attractive canal district. Leave the station by the east exit, cross over the large road directly in front of the station, and head east down Chuo Dori street towards Otaru Canal. The canal is around 10 minutes walk from the station. There is a tourist information center on your left as you reach the canal, if you need it.

The main canal runs for just over a kilometre from north to south. Coming directly from the station, you’ll have arrived slapbang in the middle. From here, it’s an 8-10 minute walk north or south to the ends of the canal. Spend around 40 minutes walking up and down the canal and exploring the shops, restaurants and museums lining its sides. Since you’ll be heading south next, we recommend exploring the northern section of the canal first.

Otaru’s canal played an important role in the town’s port industry during the first half of the twentieth century. Larger cargo vessels were moored further out, and smaller ships ferried the goods the rest of the way to storage in the canal’s redbrick warehouses. The introduction of modern port facilities enabled large vessels to be unloaded directly, rendering the canal and warehouse system obsolete. In the 1980s, the canal was beautifully restored and the warehouses were transformed into homes for a variety of shops and restaurants.
Local artists hawk their wares by daytime, while old-fashioned gas lamps cast a gentle glow by night, making it a pleasant place to stroll at any time of night or day. However, the canal area is undoubtedly at its most photogenic during the Otaru Snow Light Path festival, held each year in February, when the city is decorated with hundreds of enchanting candle-lit snow lanterns.

2. Step Back in Time in Sakaimachi Street

After you’ve explored the canal and its surroundings, continue your time-travelling as you take a turn along Sakaimachi Street, a well-preserved traditional merchant street, exploring some of its quirky museums before heading for a well-earned sushi lunch.

The street runs for around 800 metres from north to south, with the northern end just a few minutes’ walk southeast of the canal’s southernmost point. It is lined with impressive western-style buildings constructed during Otaru’s heyday in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Many foreign shipping and trading companies built imposing buildings to house their offices, shops and businesses, many of which still stand today. The exteriors have been carefully preserved to give a taster of how Otaru looked in bygone days - quite different to the typical architecture of the average Japanese town - while the interiors house a variety of restaurants, cafes, boutiques, gift shops, museums and glass workshops.

Spend an hour or so exploring the street from north to south, ducking in and out of any shops that grab your interest. The street is home to shops of all kinds, so you are sure to find something to tickle your fancy, whatever your interests - clocks, music boxes, traditional crafts, seafood, melons, ice cream, cheesecake, glassware, and children’s toys are just a few examples. If you get peckish, drop into dairy dessert specialist LeTAO's main shop (Address: 7-16 Sakaimachi) for your choice of Darjeeling-flavoured chocolates, grape-flavoured ganache, and crème brûlée cheesecake.

3. Visit A Quirky Museum - Or Three!

Sakaimachi Street is also home to a handful of interesting museums. While you’re here, be sure to check out at least one of them. A museum dedicated to Venetian art is probably the last thing you would expect in a small northern port town in Japan. Nevertheless, that is exactly what you’ll find. Opened by local glass producer Kitaichi, the Museum of Venetian Art is dedicated to showcasing the arts of Venice, and houses displays of Venetian glassware, clothing and furniture, as well as a full-scale gondola. The five-storey museum is open from 9am until 5:30pm (last entry, 5:00pm) and costs 500 yen (approx. £3)

Prospective bank robbers and millionaires alike should head to the Bank of Japan Museum. Housed in the former Otaru branch of the Bank of Japan, built in 1912 but museum-ified in 2003, the museum features several engaging displays on banking, national currency and the branch’s history, including an old vault where you can feel the weight of a hundred million yen (don’t go getting any ideas!). The museum is open from 9:30am (10am in the winter) until 5pm (last entry 4:30pm, closed on Wednesdays), and is free to enter.

Finally, if you thought that Otaru’s museum collection couldn’t get any more niche, then you’d be wrong.

Lovers of tinkly music, retro ornaments and children’s toys should make a beeline for the Music Box Museum to scratch their itch for nostalgic Victoriana. Open from 9am until 6pm (7pm on Fridays, Saturdays and in summer), it is free to enter. Afterwards, look for the perfect kitschy gift in the large attached music box shop. The Otaru Steam Clock that stands outside, a gift from the city of Vancouver, sounds every 15 minutes, adding to the feeling that you’ve stepped back in time to the Otaru of yesteryear.

4. Try Your Hand at Glass-Making

Otaru’s self-styled connection with Venice extends beyond its canal and Venetian art museum to its thriving glassware industry. However, there are also important historical reasons for the development of its glass industry. Firstly, electrification was slow to arrive in outlying Hokkaido, meaning that especially in private homes, glass oil lamps remained a necessity even after the turn of the century.
The second reason is slightly more obscure, but certainly no “red herring”, if you’ll pardon the pun. Otaru’s herring fishing industry played a major role in the early days of its development, and one local sub-industry it supported was that of glass buoys for keeping fishing nets afloat. With the decline of the herring industry in the 1950s, the glass buoy makers read the winds of change and cleverly shifted their focus to glass tableware instead.
Nowadays, Otaru is a hub for Japan’s domestic glassware industry, attracting customers and glass enthusiasts from all over. There are many glass shops dotted up and down the street. If you’re in the market for some new tableware, try Sakaigai (Address: 6-11 Sakaimachi), the largest glass shop in Otaru, Utsuwaya, which specializes in glassware for food and drink (Address: 2-10 Sakaimachi), or Shukigura, which specializes in glasses for alcohol (Address: 3-17 Sakaimachi).
As well as selling local glassware, many shops also offer workshops in various glass-making skills, from glass-blowing and sandblasting to fusing and stained glass. Try your hand at making your own glass art at Unwind House (Address: 4-15 Sakaimachi) or Gallery Kura (Address: 1-2-26 Irifune). Prices are typically around 1000 yen (approx. £7) for smaller items such as coaster, chopsticks holder or cocktail muddler, and 3000 yen (approx. £21) for larger items such as cups, glasses and vases. (Note that most workshops require advance registration, and next-day pickup for items which need to be kiln-fired.)

5. Have a Sushi Lunch in Otaru Sushi Street

After a morning full of walking, shopping and crafting, you’ll probably be more than ready to refuel. Luckily, Otaru has just the thing for you: sushi, and lots of it! As a historical port city with a veteran fishing industry, Otaru is known throughout Japan for the freshness of its sushi, meaning that it’s a must-try while you’re there.

Despite having a population only in the hundreds of thousands, Otaru boasts over 100 sushi restaurants, so you’re never more than a few steps away from piles of ocean-fresh sushi. When you’re ready for lunch, duck into one of the city’s numerous sushi restaurants to satisfy your sushi cravings. If in doubt, head for Otaru’s sushi “mecca”, a 200-metre long street of sushi shops founded in the 1980s to promote Otaru as a “city of sushi”.

There are around twenty-six sushi shops on Otaru Sushi Street - six larger shops and twenty or so smaller ones - so you’ll have no shortage of places to choose from. If in doubt, try one of the well-established stores, such as Masazushi, Nihonbashi, Shikama, Yamatoya, or Machi no Honten, some of which have been in business for over seventy years. As for your order, sweet shrimp (April-November) and red sea urchin (May-August) are the must-try local delicacies for more adventurous seafood eaters.

6. Take a Selfie on an Old Railway Line

Once your stomach is full of the bounty of the sea, head outside for a quick photo opp. Taking a selfie anywhere in the vicinity of a railway line isn’t something we would usually advise. However, there’s a reason why stopping off at the Temiya Railway line for a cheeky snap of yourself is totally safe - the line stopped operating over 30 years ago, so the only trains you’ll see here are trains of people lining up to get the perfect shot down the tracks.
The Temiya Line was originally constructed as part of Hokkaido’s first railway line, the Horonai Line, to transport coal and marine products. Beginning operation in 1880, it carried both cargo and passengers for over a century before being discontinued in 1985. The main thing you’ll probably notice is how narrow the track is - like many Meiji period railway projects, the line used a narrow gauge track in order to reduce construction costs.

If talk of railways has you glazing over, and a quick selfie is more than enough, then head to the next stop. If, on the other hand, you’re something of a train aficionado, then Otaru has one more train-related treat in store for you: the Otaru Railway Museum, located on the former site of the terminus of Hokkaido’s first railway line, which connected Otaru with Sapporo.
To get there, walk north for 30 minutes, take a taxi for 6-7 minutes, or hop on the Otaru Aquarium Line bus from bus stop B (Otaru Canal Terminal) opposite Mazasushi and aotlight at “Otaru Museum (Temiya Cave)” bus stop (departures about every 30 minutes). The museum exhibits full-size trains from various periods of history outside in a railyard, while the history of Otaru's railways is explained with exhibits and dioramas inside (open 9:30-5pm, cost 400 yen / approx. £2.50).

7. Visit Otaru’s 'Herring Mansion'

Until the collapse of Otaru’s herring industry in the 1950s due to the decline of herring stocks, there were big bucks to be made from the sale of this little fish. During the industry’s glory days, wealthy fisherman and business owners of the leading fishing companies built themselves palatial mansions known as “herring mansions” (nishin goten) which doubled as both factories to process the herring catch and residences for their families and employees.

Witness the product of the spoils of Otaru’s herring fortunes by visiting Otaru Herring Mansion (300 yen / approx. £2 for adults). Get there by catching a taxi 7 minutes from the railway museum (13 minutes from Otaru Station) or ride the Otaru Aquarium Line bus north to its terminus (Otaru Aquarium) from where it is a five minute walk to the villa.
The large wooden building was built as the house of a herring fishing industry magnate in 1897 and moved to its current position on a hill overlooking the town in 1958. Perhaps the most striking feature is the stark contrast between the luxury of the magnate’s living quarters on the ground floor and the squalid conditions of the first floor sleeping quarters which housed 120 workers.
If you have time, visit the Former Aoyama Villa, a luxurious villa built by the Aoyama family, one of the most successful herring fishing industry families. The villa is about a kilometre downhill from the herring mansion; turn inland at the Otaru Kihinkan bus stop. The villa costs 1100 yen (approx. £7 for adults). Both attractions are open from 9am until 5pm.

8. See the Night View from Mt. Tengu

Once night has fallen, set off to appreciate the Michelin-starred night view from the summit of nearby Otaru’s major mountain. Part of this hilly city is located on the lower slopes of Mt. Tengu, whose summit is accessible via the Otaru Tenguyama Ropeway. Opened in 1979, the line climbs Mt. Tengu to offer world-class panoramic views of the city from the top. It is in operation from around 9am-9pm every day, and a return ticket costs 1140 yen (approx. £7) for adults.

To get there, first you’ll need to take the bus or taxi back down into the town. From there, it’s a 25 minute taxi ride to the ropeway station at the foot of the mountain. Alternatively, you can take the Tenguyama Ropeway Line bus from either Otaru Station or Otaru Canal Terminal to Tenguyama Ropeway bus stop. Either way, journey time is 17-25 minutes.
From the top of the mountain, you’ll be able to enjoy superb views not only of Otaru city but also Otaru port, Ishikari Bay and, on particularly clear days, the far off Shakotan Peninsula. The view in winter, when everything is carpeted in snow, draping a dramatic blanket of white across the whole area, is particularly spectacular.

Once you’ve had your fill of the glittering views from the top of Mt. Tengu, it’s time to wave goodbye to Otaru and wind your way back down the mountain to catch a train back to Sapporo.

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