On Februrary 1st, I went to see a movie in Otaru! We love a movie discount day, and I was hoping the live action Cells at Work movie that came out in December would still be playing in theaters by the time a discount day rolled around. Luckily, it was! Time for my first weekend outing of the year post-coming back to Japan!
I got on the bus I usually take, and arrived to Otaru pretty early around 9. Most things don’t open here until later with the exception of a few shops, so I would recommend trying to visit Otaru around 10 at the earliest. Nevertheless, it was nice to just walk around in the morning when the weather was nice, and without the tourist crowds either.
I ended up walking around Sakaimachi a bit, and took a peek at LeTao’s main store’s menu. Usually their website updates on the first of every month, but this morning, both the main store and Patho’s menu refused to update on the website this morning. The main store opens at 9, so I was able to go and look at the menu for any new seasonal items. Luckily, none really appealed to me, so I headed to Pathos to check out the menu there. While I was at it, I got a bunch of free samples, ha!
Pathos’ cafe opens at 10, so I went to check out the menu. I was more interested in the monthly lunch offerings. Turns out, February’s pasta looked pretty good, so I stuck around until 11, when their lunch menu starts. I ordered the pasta for lunch, and the monthly parfait as a sweet treat.
The pasta uses white wine and anchovies as the base, with the fish cooked “acqua pazza”. Essentially, just poached white fish. The sauce itself was quite peppery, but not heavy. Contrasted with purely the flavor of tender fish, and the butteriness in the clams. The pasta came with a few veggies, including olives, broccoli, tomato, and shimeji mushrooms. The noodles chewy, and the perfect texture. The serving itself was not very large, which was great for my parfait.
The parfait comes with berry jelly, chocolate pudding, chocolate cream, raspberry bits, a chocolate ice cream, and a strawberry and raspberry ice cream, and a chocolate feuillantine. It also was topped with frozen raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, and some chocolate cake. Overall, I really liked the chocolate pudding and cream, with it being chocolatey but not too sweet. I also enjoyed the crunchy berry bits combined with the cake and ice cream for some textural contrast. My only complaint is that the frozen raspberries really could have used some thawing.
I always walk past this one cafe on Sakaimachi, and noticed they offer boba. For a change of pace, I decided to try out their boba instead of getting Mister Donut. Unfortunately, it looked like they weren’t open yet or operating that day, because it was completely closed at 12. Sad.
I bussed over to Wing Bay, where I would be seeing my movie. I did get there a little early, so I did some shopping. This year they’re doing the Snow Miku “main event” again, an exhibition at Wing Bay. I went to see if there was anything set up, but there was just an empty, mostly closed off room. Guess the event people are procrastinating, or trying to spoil as little as possible.
With some time leftover, I went to check out Lloyd’s, a coffee and gelato cafe. February is here, which means Snow Miku season is upon us. Like every year, some Wing Bay establishments are doing collabs with Snow Miku to give out a random sticker if you buy the collaboration item. I’ve never been to Lloyd’s, and out of all of all the collabs, gelato seemed the best pick for me. They have many normal flavors, but only their “collab flavor”, aka mint chocolate chip, was elligible for the limited sticker. It did come with a scoop of Hokkaido milk though.
I’m not usually one to pick mint chocolate chip, but this one was pretty good. It was definitely minty, but not too overpowering or toothpaste-y, and the texture was soft and creamy, with lots of chocolate shards evenly spread throughout. The milk one was fine. It was a little icy in texture, and tasted like low-fat milk and not too sweet.
I think the gelato was supposed to come with a 2025 Snow Miku stuck into it, but the guy gave it to me separately because sticking it in the ice cream would have no point. That was nice of him. Out of the 6 stickers in the collection, I got Kagamine Rin!
10 minutes before the official movie start time, they opened up the theater. I got a seat smack in the middle of the theater, and there were a surprising number of people for a movie that had been out for over a month.
Overall, I liked the movie. Although I haven’t read the original manga for Cells at Work, I did watch both the animes. The movie starts out similar to the original, but adds in some “real-life” elements, and fuses the story of the original and Cells at Work Black to create an interesting original ending.
After my movie ended, my backup non-Mister Donut boba was going to be the crepe place in Wing Bay near the station entrance. For some reason, crepe places in Japan tend to offer boba. Unfortunately, this shop was closed for some reason, despite having a sign on the front with business hours that clearly contradicted reality.
I got to the station around 4:20, but there was something clearly wrong. There were a ton of people waiting around, a train that was supposed to leave at 4:17 was waiting at the platform, and the timetable was emptier than usual. From what I can tell, a train coming from Sapporo missed a signal or something. The announcement going around said there would be an indefinite delay of at least 30 minutes. The staff were recommending people in a rush to take a taxi or the bus, so I took the next bus back to the station. Good thing there was one coming soon.
After I got off at Otaru station, I made one last attempt at boba. When I searched up any last hopes of boba around Otaru on Google, it gave me this recently opened cafe next to the station. There weren’t many pictures, so I had to look in-person. Turns out, the menu is very American-style, with hot dogs, donuts, acai bowls, crepes, and frappes, but no boba to be seen. I gave up at this point, and decided to just head home early on the soonest bus.
Little did I expect the giant crowd at the bus terminal! It was overflowing with people, that it was very difficult to see who was lining up for which bus. It must have been a combination of the train suspension of service, plus the massive amount of tourists that were there. Many were looking for the bus to Sapporo and to Niseko. Although my platform had quite a line, it turns out people were waiting for the next bus, and the amount of people for mine wasn’t too many.
I took the 5:30 bus home!
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