On July 29th, I went to Otaru to go attend and see the Ushio Matsuri, one of the biggest festivals in Otaru. Now, originally my boyfriend and I were going to go to Sapporo, mainly so he could buy some summer clothes, but he wasn’t feeling well, which left me to decide if I should still go to Sapporo, or go to Otaru instead. I ended up deciding to just go to Otaru, because the fare is cheaper, there was an actual event happening, and I didn’t have any real plans in Sapporo anyway.
I go on the 9:30 bus, and arrived around 11. Although the festival would have the regular festival food stalls and street food fare, my main food goal for lunch for the day was to finally get to try Ushanhanten, a Chinese place in Otaru that actually has a substantial menu and has more Chinese-like dishes than the normal Chinese restaurant in Japan.
The place wasn’t supposed to open until 11:30, so I tried stalling and taking my time walking over. I ended up still arriving around 10 minutes before opening time, and there was actually already a small line forming outside the door. I mean, I knew this store was popular from Google Reviews, but still, it was surprising to see. It wasn’t populated enough that I wished I got there sooner, just a few people lining up. I joined the line, and soon after a lady came out from the restaurant asking if people already knew their order. I did, since I came prepared with lots of research, and since I’m only one person, I didn’t want to order too much either, which is quite unfortunate since their menu looks pretty good. I will make sure to drag my boyfriend here at a later time…
I had to get the gyoza, since people were raving about it, and it actually looks different than normal Japanese gyoza. For my second dish, I picked out the braised pig feet, which was the draw of this place for me in the first place (the other item would be the pig ear, but again, a different time). I absolutely love pig feet, especially when my mom would cook it herself at home. Now this one was pretty different, as there wasn’t any actual meat, but rather mostly collagen and bone. It was still satisfying to chew and gnaw on, and went really well with the tianmianjang they put over the cucumbers. It was great to order once, but I think now that I’ve had it, I probably don’t need to order it from here again, but try something else the next time. However. the gyoza was absolutely amazing, and I will be getting that again (both people who sat next to me also ordered it!). It was crispy on the bottom, the skin was thick and chewy, and the filling was meaty, with also so much that some of the skin couldn’t contain it all. Very nice.
When I was done with lunch, I messaged a friend who would be in Otaru that day if she wanted to meet up, and she told me about a parade that would be happening that day. I think the parade was supposed to be the big event on Saturday, and then Sunday would be fireworks and a drone show. The starting location of the parade was a bit far from where she was, and I was actually about a 10 minute walk away, so we decided to meet up later at the main area.
The parade was supposed to start at 1, and since I had a bit more time, I found an ice cream shop in the vicinity in my bookmarks, as a perfect cold afternoon treat. I think Milk Plant is pretty famous, offering many flavors of soft serve and ice cream, and sizes, including a giant NY Jumbo. Their soft serve options had chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, kyoho grape, yogurt, Hokkaido milk, and Yubari melon, and a few marble/swirl variations. I almost went for the chocolate and vanilla marble, but then I saw their Rainbow options, which combined three flavors, and for the Rainbow A (Chocolate, Vanilla, Strawberry), in the Big size. It was very big, satisfying, and I left very full.
The soft serve was amazing, except despite being indoors it was still extremely hot and so my ice cream immediately started melting, and fast. That aside, the soft serve was amazing, and you could really taste the strong flavors of each soft serve, and none of them tasted like the generic version. Highly recommend, and I think I’ll go back to try their apple ice cream some time.
I finished my ice cream, and headed to the area where the Nerikomi parade was supposed to start and saw a ton of groups and people gathered there. At 1, the first group headed out along the designated parade path. The way it worked was that there were a ton of individual groups that would slowly walk and dance to the music along the path as they made their way through the city to the main stage. I basically waited around the area for a bit, and then a bit after it started I walked along the path as well, watching the front groups and followed them to the main festival area. There were quite a few preschools and small children groups from what I saw. The parade was supposed to last until 7pm!
When I finally made it to the main area, I browsed around the food stalls and food trucks, and met up with my friend. Both of us had alreadly looked around, and the main thing for the day was the parade, so neither of us really had a reason to stick around, ha! She invited me to go watch the new Ghibli movie with her, and since I like Ghibli, I figured might be a good chance to go see it before the rest of the world.
We took the train to Wing Bay mall, where the theater was located. Tickets were 1800 (I was used to paying 1500 on discount days, ha), and I was very thirsty, so I bought a shine muscat soda. I highly considered a coke, but this was unique to the theater, and I’m a shine muscat addict, so surely nothing could go wrong by getting this.
Once the syrup was mixed in properly with the sparkling water, it came out to be a pretty good and refreshing drink. It wasn’t too sweet if thoroughly mixed, and even came with some pulp. The soda was very fizzy too. Oh yeah, I got a free movie coaster for buying a drink.
As for the movie, How Do You Live? / The Boy and the Heron, it really was bizarre. The whole hype behind this movie was that it was Hayao Miyazaki’s latest coming-back-from-retirement last movie, and they did absolutely nothing to promote it, so it was clouded in mystery. I read a few reviews that didn’t contain spoilers and only a light summary, because I’d much rather know when I’m getting into than not. It definitely did not prepare me for how weird the movie itself was; the animation was solid, very classic Ghibli reminiscent yet still feeling upgraded, but the story was just so weird and had a few unnecessary elements (in my opinion). I understood the story (seeing a non-subbed one) but not (story-wise) at the same time…
Then we left the theater, headed back to Otaru proper, and I got on the 6:15 bus home.
Japan Excursions 
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