This article is reprinted from a WeChat public account shared by a reader in a WeChat group, Lazy 33's Food, Drink, and Fun. Original link.

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Although friends were amazed after reading the previous article that we actually rented a car, we originally hadn’t planned to rent one for this leg either—Hakodate to Toya is directly accessible by JR, and from Toya to Sapporo there’s even a free shuttle from the Lake no Sato hotel where we were staying. The bear ranch in Noboribetsu has a cheaper alternative at Mount Usu in Toya, Noboribetsu Jigokudani is basically a corner of Yellowstone, and Cape Chikyu is magnificent but inconvenient to reach.

What finally made me decide to come to Noboribetsu was the penguin parade at Nixe Marine Park.

I had stumbled across a video of the penguin parade online before, and it was just too adorable! Hokkaido’s most famous penguin parade is at Asahiyama Zoo in Asahikawa, but that parade is only held in winter. When I found out that Nixe Marine Park’s penguin parade also runs in summer, I immediately changed our itinerary, rented a car, and was determined to see it.

The website lists the penguin parade times; in summer there are two shows a day, and we arrived just before the last one by watching the clock. Visitors were very enthusiastic and lined up early on both sides of the parade route.

The penguins set off right on time. A few big ones led a few little ones; the adults waddled along steadily, while the chicks darted this way and that, and the staff used cardboard boards to keep them from wandering off course.

In the end they walked into a circle in the plaza, where the staff gave a long explanation. Unfortunately, my Japanese is still nowhere near good enough to understand it...

Then they walked back again. The whole thing was delightfully cute, aside from the rather long talk (which was also harder to enjoy because I couldn’t understand it...).

My kid loves penguins and looked like a fan who had finally met their idol, excited from start to finish.

Right after the parade there was a penguin feeding session. This activity was only advertised on the website and not on the admission ticket, so it felt like hardly anyone knew about it. Only our family and one other family watched. The penguins didn’t look very hungry, and after a few bites they didn’t want any more; the keeper looked pretty helpless too.

After the penguin feeding, I had wanted to head straight to the sardine show, but my kid wanted to go into the castle, so we went in first. The route through this aquarium is very similar to Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan: you go up to the top first, then make your way down. We snapped a few photos of odd and exotic creatures.

I don’t know why, but I’ve always been afraid of this bug that looks like a dung beetle. This time I worked up the courage to touch it in the touch pool, but I was still scared of how it looked.

There was a special exhibition that looked like a kaleidoscope.

There were lots of touch pools along the way, with sea stars and rays. My kid still wouldn’t dare touch the rays, but did manage to touch a sea star.

When I looked at the time, I realized we were running short, so we hurried off to the sardine show. The sardines moved toward the light, and the music and lighting blended perfectly, making the performance stunning.

There was also a dolphin show in the park, which I figured would be similar to SeaWorld, so we didn’t go.

Next to the sardine show was an amusement area with a section for little kids. There were also some paid attractions. The ticket booth gave us one Ferris wheel voucher, and my kid wanted to ride it. As expected, adults still had to buy another ticket separately, so we definitely got fleeced. But since my kid liked it, I went along at any cost.

The view from the Ferris wheel was nice enough, with the park’s red brick rooftops spread out below.

By the time we got off the Ferris wheel, the amusement area had already closed early. We went back to the castle and picked up where we’d left off.

There was a limited shrimp-and-crab exhibition, and everything looked delicious.

The underwater tunnel wasn’t anything special, but I always have a special feeling about underwater tunnels—it feels like being under the sea~

The photo booth at the entrance enthusiastically called us over for pictures. The small photo was free, and it actually came out pretty well, so we ended up buying the large photo too.

My kid said they were hungry, but all the places that sold food in the park were already closed. We’d already accomplished our goals of seeing the penguin parade and the sardine show, so we could leave in peace and go find something to eat.

We had booked a big dinner in Sapporo for the evening, so we planned to grab something casual for this meal. It was three in the afternoon, and most restaurants were closed. It was a bit hard to find a place that was open right then in such a rural area on Tabelog, so we switched to Google Maps, found a ramen shop along the way to Sapporo, and drove there.

We got out of the car in high spirits, only to be stunned when we looked up at the shop entrance. Right at the door was a sign that read, “Guests from China are not welcome in this store. Thank you for your understanding.” We had seen posts about discrimination online before, but never thought we’d run into it ourselves. We were so furious we just turned around and left. If our Japanese had been better, I really would have gone in and argued with the owner! Of course I’m also putting the shop name here so people can avoid it: https://goo.gl/maps/Bg2KhK7tU7xRvWPc9

After we got back to the U.S., we used ChatGPT on Google Maps to help us leave a one-star review in Chinese, Japanese, and English. Judging by the shop’s reply, the owner doesn’t seem like a very reasonable person either. In short, everyone heading to Hokkaido should steer clear.

We found another place, only to discover it was closed. My partner suggested maybe we should eat in Sapporo instead, but by then we were truly hungry, so I said why not go for conveyor-belt sushi—fast, and you can eat just a little, so there’s no worry about being too full for dinner.

The restaurant was 北の匠 回転寿しクリッパー しらかば店. Its tabelog score is only 3.2, but we thought it was actually pretty good. We ordered several dishes and none of them were misses. If you’re passing by, it’s worth a stop: https://tabelog.com/hokkaido/A0108/A010802/1029616/

These days, the conveyor belt at conveyor-belt sushi places is basically just decoration—the belt is empty, and everything is made to order. The annoying part here was that orders had to be written by hand. My partner was holding our sleeping child, so without hesitation that difficult task fell to me. I’d been studying Japanese for so long, but this was my first time writing it by hand, and I was pretty nervous. Luckily, the young male staff member didn’t question a single thing about my handwriting. If you don’t speak Japanese, you can just copy from the pictures and it’ll be fine.

The only real disappointment was that they didn’t have sea urchin, and there was a lot of white fish. My partner and I were full after four or five plates, and the bill was very reasonable. The staff were all very nice too, which helped ease some of the frustration from the discrimination we had just experienced.

We kept driving and reached Sapporo in under an hour. Because we had dragged things out, we missed our planned 7 PM return at Sapporo Odori Station. While we were at the bear park, I called the rental car company and changed the drop-off to Sapporo JR Station a bit later. Since we had picked up early and returned late, there was no extra charge.

Sapporo is a big city, and according to my partner, driving there was still a bit challenging.

Near the drop-off point, we found a gas station and had an attendant fill up the tank for us. Again, remember to keep the receipt—the staff asked to see the gas receipt both times we returned a car. Other than that, the return went smoothly.

We took a taxi to the hotel. For this leg, we stayed two nights at 41 PIECES. It’s located near Sapporo’s famous Tanukikoji shopping street, so it’s very convenient for shopping and walking around. This place is less of a traditional hotel and more like a serviced apartment. The front desk isn’t open 24 hours, so you can only check in during business hours. There are no key cards; you unlock the room with a password. At night, the hotel entrance also needs to be unlocked with a password, which adds to the security.

The front desk has lots of interesting touches. As a serviced apartment, some rooms have kitchens where you can cook, and there are family rooms that can accommodate quite a few people, making it a good fit for larger families. You can also rent lots of kitchenware and tableware at the front desk.

The password lock also requires you to enter the room number first, which is a bit of a hassle. I forgot to take a photo of the room again. It was pretty spacious, and the bed was a very low platform bed, which felt a little tiring to lie on. For the three of us, we were given two beds that were roughly queen/full size.

Out for dinner, passing the Ferris wheel.

And passing Tanukikoji 4-chome again.

Dinner that night was the highlight of the entire Hokkaido trip, and the meal we were most satisfied with. The restaurant was みえ田, tabelog 3.77: https://tabelog.com/hokkaido/A0101/A010103/1007034/

Getting a reservation was also incredibly difficult. We couldn’t find any online booking method anywhere, and only found the restaurant’s Instagram. So we contacted them on Instagram, only to be told that the entire month of July was fully booked. Not willing to give up, we asked the hotel concierge for help, and the concierge was pretty awesome—they managed to get us a table. But maybe there was some communication gap, because the message was very vague: they said something would open up after 8:30, but weren’t sure exactly when, and told us to wait for a call at the hotel.

Getting a reservation was also incredibly difficult. We couldn’t find any online booking method anywhere, and only found the restaurant’s Instagram. So we contacted them on Instagram, only to be told that the entire month of July was fully booked. Not willing to give up, we asked the hotel concierge for help, and the concierge was pretty awesome—they managed to get us a table. But maybe there was some communication gap, because the message was very vague: they said something would open up after 8:30, but weren’t sure exactly when, and told us to wait for a call at the hotel.

So we actually arrived at the restaurant feeling a bit resentful, but when we got there, they acted as if they had already been expecting us, without any explanation. Even now, we still don’t know what went wrong in the communication between the hotel and the restaurant.

At least once we learned that we were being seated at the counter even with a kid in tow, we knew this meal probably wasn’t going to be bad.

The first dish was a savory chilled soup with a jelly-like texture; the crisp bite and the bouncy texture complemented each other perfectly. Unfortunately, our kid didn’t appreciate it and refused to eat it, so my partner and I polished it off completely.

This is kappo cuisine, and for our first visit, the chef chose relatively conservative dishes for us. By the time we got to the second course, a few regulars had arrived at the counter, and the dishes they were served became more and more different later on. I asked the Taiwanese staff member who speaks Chinese and learned that because they were regulars, the chef would offer them some more adventurous items. This restaurant also doesn’t insist that everyone be served at the same time. We were eating more slowly because we had the kid with us, and the regulars actually overtook us and ended up ahead of us in the meal.

From the second course on, our kid’s taste buds were awakened, and he kept asking us to save more for him. He ended up eating almost as much as we did... The second dish was a rich sea urchin tofu soup topped with freshly ground sesame seeds. It was so fragrant, though the downside was that our kid ate a lot of it.

The restaurant had the chef and three apprentices working away, and one of them was the Taiwanese guy who spoke Chinese and helped explain a lot to us.

The chef grilling fish.

The fish was served as sashimi after being lightly seared, and that small amount of searing really made the dish stand out. It also came with three different sauces, turning what should have been an ordinary sashimi dish into something unexpectedly delightful.

The chopped pistachios in this dish were another great finishing touch, and again our kid grabbed a lot of it...

When I saw the truffle in this dish, I was a little dismissive inside. After all, we’d already run into plenty of truffle misses at Michelin-starred places before: “Isn’t this going to be another gimmick built on expensive ingredients?” But again, it turned out to be an amazing dish. The ingredients complemented each other beautifully and blended together really well. My partner said that after a long day of driving, this dish completely re-energized him.

Next up was the simmered dish.

What made this one special was that the wagyu was completely not greasy at all, but incredibly, incredibly tender—melt-in-your-mouth tender. The sauce served on the side had its own charm whether you dipped it or not. I’m embarrassingly drooling as I write this... We ended up finishing the whole bowl, vegetables and all.

Last came the pickled eggplant and rice. Based on past experience, rice is usually the most underwhelming dish in kaiseki, but this rice looked ordinary at first glance and turned out to be absolutely amazing. The corn kernels were sweet, fresh, and crisp, and the crunch—no idea what it was made of—was crispy and flaky, not hard and not greasy. The grains were distinct and separate. The kid ate two bowls, while my teammate and I held back a little and only had one bowl each. When the server asked whether we wanted it packed to go, for the first time, we happily accepted the offer to take the rice home. The next day, we reheated it in the hotel microwave and polished it off in no time, smacking our lips again over how delicious it was.

The pickled eggplant beside it was less special by comparison, but for this dish my usual expectation is simply that it not be too salty. This one clearly exceeded that bar—it was not only not salty, but also pretty tasty.

Finally came the coffee jelly with coconut ice cream. The coffee was unsweetened, which cut the richness of the coconut ice cream nicely. After this meal, both my teammate and I were full of praise. Although we were only halfway through the trip, we already had a hunch this would be the best meal we had in Hokkaido, and that turned out to be true.

Along the way, I tactfully complained to the Taiwanese server that the kid didn’t have a separate meal. He said it was because the hotel concierge hadn’t told them to prepare food for the kid, so it looked like another communication snafu. Those communication problems also left a few blemishes on this restaurant, which otherwise came very close to perfection.

Fortunately, from the second course on, the kid really enjoyed the food here. After the chef noticed that, he increased the portions of every cooked dish so we could share with the kid, and the picky kid was impressively cooperative and ate a lot. The chef said he was very pleased.

When we left, the chef and the staff bowed us out at what felt like a 120-degree angle. We really have a hard time getting used to this kind of scene at a high-end Japanese restaurant.

After drinking our fill and eating our hearts out, we walked back to the hotel. As soon as we stepped outside, we couldn’t help but remark, so many people! Even though it was already past 10 p.m., the streets were still bustling. Compared with Hakodate’s quietness, Sapporo really felt like a big city.

We ducked into a few drugstores to look around, but there were so many people we could barely move. Better hurry back to the hotel and go to sleep.

Back at the hotel, only after the kid had fallen asleep did we realize they had given us just two pillows. The front desk had already closed, and my teammate and I ran downstairs to look for extra pillows, but failed. So the kid’s own mom and dad decisively folded up a bath towel and swapped out the pillow for the towel. The next morning, the kid kept asking why his pillow had turned into a bath towel. Luckily he asked with a smile and didn’t blame us.

What a roller-coaster of a day.

Next up, Otaru, the dream destination for fans of Love Letter.

2023 Japan Trip Series

This series records the author’s travel highlights in Japan after returning home to visit family and before heading back to the U.S.

About the author

This article is reprinted from the WeChat public account "Lazy 33 Eats, Drinks, and Plays" by a reader in the WeChat group. It’s all original, high-quality content, so if you’re interested, feel free to follow and connect.