In Code We Trust

[linuxacolyte]

Dinner on the flight! Air Canada, 14h from Montreal to Narita Airport. The bean salad was really good and I was very upset I couldn't find a description of it on any kind of menu.

[linuxacolyte]

So this is where the culture shock starts :)

We landed in Narita, there was one braincell shared between the two of us and we had to navigate one of the largest airports in the world. There was signage everywhere. There were arrows to follow on the floors. The staff were incredible, fluent not just in English, but English-for-the-sleep-deprived. We were whisked right through security onto our connecting flight.

The above picture is from the hotel in Sapporo. The staff at the desk in Sapporo were also completely fluent in sleep-deprived-English, and they furnished us with this documentation. (Anyone who works with me is laughing now. I write these for a living. I complain that no one else is writing them constantly.) The front page is all the hotel procedures, the back of the page is how to use the onsen (spa).

I felt right at home :)

[linuxacolyte]

This was the soap at the hotel and it smelled so good I tried to buy it from the front desk.

Tried.

Gotta go online and see if I can find it...

This bathroom was also my first introduction to 1) heated bidet 2) The shower nozzle would let me turn it on/off right from the handle. The bathrooms in Japan were all heaven. Someday when I'm rich I'm building one into my own home.

[linuxacolyte]

I completely forgot to take pictures of my breakfast. This is a bento from the airport in Sapporo.

The shopkeeps all understood "thank you sir/ma'am" "okay" "please" etc. They had a call-and-response rhythm going, it included "do you want to buy a bag" and "your total is $$" and as long as I politely attempted to fill in my half of the conversation they were DELIGHTED. There was a lot of bowing.

They also had cute little trays for me to put the money in. If you visit Japan, carry 1000 yen bills and lots of change. Don't bother with any larger bills.

This meal was when I learned that my phone was not unlocked. I thought I had a newer phone than I actually did, and my phone was locked to my carrier. I went online and purchased an unlock during this meal. The unlock never came. It was still pending at the end of the trip, so I cancelled and asked for a refund. If you're traveling, get your phone unlocked, an esim is very very cheap. My friends were able to use their phones to take pictures of signs, and Google would translate them for us live. Because they had an esim on an unlocked phone. Learn from my mistakes!

[linuxacolyte]

Sushi bar!

Each plate of food was a work of art.

[linuxacolyte]

Manhole cover in Hakodate! Hakodate is famous for its squid.

The place we were staying was within easy walking distance of either coastline. If I got turned around I would just head for the nearest water, and follow the coast until I knew where to cut into the town again to get to our place.

[linuxacolyte]

I woke up well before my hosts (of course) so I went to the konbini (convenience store) and picked this up. It was spaghetti with a fish omlette on top, and the sauce was a savory sauce with Worchestershire. It... wasn't spaghetti, but the meal filled me up like spaghetti and meatballs would have. Very yummy. Not a great breakfast.

[linuxacolyte]

I do not know what make of car this is. Do you?

[linuxacolyte]

I spent a lot of time at this park. There were benches, it was beautiful, people were fishing off the dock, people were running and walking their dogs... it was lovely.

[linuxacolyte]

Many of the city gardens had labels for the plants. Such a nice touch!

[linuxacolyte]

I have never seen a maple tree with bark like this before. This guy was not alone, there were plenty like him. Unfortunately I saw them on the street, not in gardens, and so I never saw a label. Do you know what type of maple this is?

[linuxacolyte]

This is where we stayed! There is real tatami underneath those mats. It was suuuuper comfy. I can understand why some folks pay to import real tatami for beds.

[linuxacolyte]

This was a trendy pancakes place. It was delicious! One of the more expensive meals I got to eat.

[linuxacolyte]

@hazard-symbols-that-fuck-hard

This was in the bay by the Red Brick Warehouses in Hakodate.

[linuxacolyte]

More shots from the Red Brick Warehouses in Hakodate.

When the US and Japan signed the Convention of Kanagawa, ending Japan's isolation, Hakodate was one of the ports that was opened. These Red Brick Warehouses are restored buildings from that time.

Signage and information around the Warehouses was in Japanese, English, and sometimes Mandarin. The Warehouses were lined with shops with all kinds of handmade goods by local artisans. One shop used local squid ink to make a dye, and sold handmade prints with it. There were handmade chopsticks and clothes and there was a glassmaker who was selling fountain pens made of handspun glass.

I didn't buy much that day - I intended to go back, but unfortunately was sick. Later on in the trip, when I was in Sapporo, I went shopping hoping to buy souvenirs. I didn't find Sapporo's equivalent of these Warehouses. I found department stores, I found lots of things with big brand names, and when I did find handmade artisanal things they were goods that had been imported from Denmark or Mexico to sell to people who live in Sapporo. This was when I really wished I'd had my phone unlocked. Hopefully with a proper phone that could translate for me I could've found local-to-Sapporo artisans.

[linuxacolyte]

THIS BOAT. She's called "Fuji", she's parked in the Marina right off the main thoroughfare. She looks to me like she's a Gozzard. If she is, then she's traveled all the way from Goderich Ontario on Lake Huron to Hokkaido Japan.

If anyone can correct me and let me know the actual provenance of this boat I would be very interested. Maybe there are other shipbuilders that have a similar style?

[linuxacolyte]

More photos of the Red Brick Warehouses, including the Glass Pens!