The One Day Bus Tour of Hokkaido
Today the
For starters I had to get to the location where we were to depart. The place we all had to get to was the Gakuen Mae station which is on the Tohō subway line. I had two choices as to how I was going to get there; I could either ride my bike down to Shin-sapporo station and then ride the subway to Odori and then transfer to the Tohō (55-60min), or I could go via the JR Train to Sapporo Station then take the same Tohō subway down (40-45min). The later seemed the fastest and easiest. So I whipped out my JR time table and plotted the course. Here was my travel plan:
- Departed house at 7:53 and biked up to Oasa JR Station （大麻駅）(~10min)
- Got onto the 8:03 commuter train to Sapporo St.（札幌駅） (~20min)
- Arrived at
- Took the Tohō subway 3 stops to Gakuen Mae (~8-10min)
- Got off at Gakuen Mae and walked to
Total time: 42-45 minutes. Not bad eh? (That’s like going from
Total cost: ¥200~¥230 (*note I used June-chan’s JR Pass from Oasa to
So at the school I met up with my friends and was given a name badge with my name written in Katakana: “ジョシアウィラー.” We were escorted to a waiting room where I met other gaikokujin 外国人 (foreigners) from all over the world. Of the people I met: there was a group from 
At around
~Yamaguchi Koen~
Our destination was a place called Yamaguchi Koen (山口園) which I think was a wine vineyard but I’m not sure. They had lots of concord grapes that we were free to pick and eat at our leisure. There really wasn’t much of a plan then to just eat our fill of grapes then sit down for some lunch. The Grapes were great; they were mostly all wine grapes which differ from store bought grapes. Seeds galore! But they were very juicy!
After having our fill of grapes we sat for lunch. Lunch was a box of rice and either salmon and fish eggs or muscles and rice with a ginger slab. I grabbed both of them.
I honestly can tell you that this was the first time I had eaten this kind of fish egg. It was alright… I don’t think I’ll be snacking on them anytime soon…
When lunch was over, the group gathered around and we just talked about whatever. In the distance we heard a bell ring and people chatting. The weather was great! Not a drop came down and the sun shined bright! It was a pretty cool day. Next to where we were sitting we heard some thumping going on… Two farm guys in these cool outfits were pounding rice into mochi. Mochi is made of glutinous rice, pounded into paste and molded into shape; however, unlike the Chinese variety, it is molded right after it is pounded. Because of it being so glutinous, Mochi is very sticky and somewhat tricky to eat.
To make mochi, you need to participate in Mochitsuki the traditional mochi-pounding ceremony in 
- Polished glutinous rice is soaked overnight and cooked.
- It is pounded with wooden mallets (kine) in a traditional mortar (usu). Two people will alternate the work, one pounding and the other turning and wetting the mochi. The mochi must be kept wet to keep it from sticking to the mallet.
- The sticky mass is then formed into various shapes (usually a sphere or cube).
This mochi was formed into a sphere, but the fun part was pounding that rice into a sticky blob. The guys who were showing us how to do it quickly asked the audience to participate.
Volunteers were made to wear a mochi shirts and swing the big ole mallet at the rice blob while this old Japanese guy (who was missing his finger) turned and wetted the mochi rice. Of course yours truly wouldn’t pass up a chance to swing a cartoon like mallet at a rice blob as hard as he could… I put on the shirt and the old Japanese guy handed me the mallet. I’ll admit it was heavy, but with all the people looking around I had to give it my all.
The Master Mochi Man and I got a rhythm going with the pounding and the wetting. Every time I hit it the crowd cheered and the next time I swung harder till I could feel the rice being crushed. 
Many volunteers went and in time we had a fresh blob of mochi which was kneaded by “O-ne san” and distributed in little bowls where you could put sweet dressings on it.
Eating mochi is a little hard. Freshly pounded mochi is very very sticky. If you don’t eat it in small bits and fast it’ll stick to your mouth. Mochi is very good though… If you’ve never had it, you should. There is mochi mix in Asian stores where you can mix and bake it. It’s not like real mochi, but hey… if you wanted that you’d come here, right?
~Nikka Whiskey Distillery~
After mochi, we left Yamaguchi’s and headed toward Nikka’s Whisky Distillery. Nikka is a pretty fam
ous whisky around these parts. According to the brochure:
Nikka Whisky’s two domestic distilleries in Yoichi Town, Hokkaido and Miyagikyo, Sendai, was founded by Masataka Taketsuru (1894-1979), the father of Japanese whisky. Masataka [left] was the first Japanese to study the techniques of whisky making in
Out of the two distilleries, we were at Yoichi Distillery (Hokkaido Plan) i.e. the older one. The tour was pretty informative. Although the tour was in Japanese the guide pointed out that the
The tour started out with the history of the plant which was pretty facinating. Afterwards the tour went into the processes of distilling malt whisky: (Note this is how to make whisky. If you don’t care skip down to the next section)
1. Building 1~ Raw Material: Large-grain, high-quality barley is germinated to produce malted barley.
2. Building 2~ Kilning: The malt is dried inside a kiln tower with burning piece of peat. This is the process that gives malt whisky its unique smoky flavor. (Peat is carbonized piles of wateredge plants like reeds and sedges)
3. Building 3~ Saccharifying: Warm water combined with the crushed malt activates enzymes in the malt that convert starches into sweet-tasting wort.
4. Building 4~ Fermentation: The addition of teasts to the wort converts the sugar content into alcohol.
5. Building 5~ Distillation: The alcohol is taken out with a potstill. The distillation is repeated twice, yielding a colorless, transparent liquid.
6. Building 6~ Maturation: The whisky is matured in an oak cask. The rich aroma and amber color develop over many years (average is 10 years).
Ok so… after the tour ended we were served a very small (1/10th of a shot) of whisky to try out. The whisky served was very smoky and aged to about 10years. 
You could literally taste the oak barrel used to age it. I thought it was pretty good overall. (I.e. tasted like whisky)
Next was the gift shop like all good tours should end at, we were then escorted to some bar where you could buy whisky in small bottles or big bottles. I kind of thought they were too pricey though.
For Northwestern folks, it was like going to the Tillamook Cheese factory and getting the cheese sample. Then after you get the cheese you can buy a brick, right? But you know you could get that same brink at Safeway for ½ the price. Well, truth is… you can get that same 5th of whisky at a Super Market or 7/11 for ½ the price as well over here. It was cool to see where and how they made it though.
After a while of shopping and drinking samples we departed back to 
In retrospect, it was pretty cool for what it was: “a free tour of the local stuff.” While nothing was spectacular, I’m more aware of local fruits and wines, as well as, Nikka Whisky. I mean… when you guys think of
So I’m happy I got to go. It was a good experience overall. Some other time I want to explore Otaru some more, and also I found out about another bath house around that I got to try locally.
Ok it’s late…
~J out.