Day 19 – Asahikawa – Beautiful sundown and robatayaki

2019-09-09

Well earned rest day in Asahikawa. Tobi needed some sleep, but I got up earlier and walked through town. One record shop I wanted to go to was closed, but found another hidden obscure one, which was yet also closed.

Walked to the main station and found a huge Aeon mall. Got some breakfast from the foodcourt and checked the rest. There were so many nice shops, strange anime memorabilia, stylish bookshops and so much more.

But while walking through them, I realized, that I was still in a rural nature mode from the calm days before. Everything but nice, but way too much for me at the moment, so just left a little bit dazed.

Tobi got up in the meantime, synced up and decided for chilling just separately. After checking the second record store, which was still closed, thought about going to the park.

Before that, I wanted to to go to the Fuji bicycle shop around the corner for some cycling cap. Very nice old shop, looked around while the owner was talking talking to some woman, who wanted to buy a new bicycle.

As this is a longer process, I slipped in a free moment and asked for the cap. With the owner not understanding me, the woman just jumped in as a translator.

With the shop owner not having any and the woman being super kind- she offered me to guide me to a shop which could potentially store some. While walking there, we got into further talks. She was quite glad to exercise her english and I having a guide.

So after a second miss at the shop we decided to go for a tea/coffee together and introduced each other. Hello there サトコ!

Had some really nice talks, noticed that everyone loves food, especially that of the other ones culture. So サトコ is really interested in European style bread. Sure I can help with some recipes…oh yes, she translated the website of the second record shop for me as well, so this one is closed as well. Damn…

After that we split ways, I walked for another visit to the Aeon market and then went finally for chilling at the local park. Such a great park. While relaxing there, I noticed some people with big cameras rushing to the river just beside it. Following them, I found an excellent view on an extraordinary sundown over Ishikari river…incredible. Changing its colours finally to a deep orange and red.

Did I mention that the sundows on Hokkaido are one of the bests I ever encountered in my life?

After meeting Tobi for a beer again, we synced with サトコ to get some food together at the local Izakaya street. サトコ recommended us a really nice one, Robata style. I didn’t know that kind before, it’s meaning fireside cooking.

The place was so nicely decorated, rough but super stylish. We got a bottle of local Sake for the food as well, a really nice one, fruity with hints of apple.

The food itself was also a highlight. Juicy fish filet, whole octopus with innards and financial shitake and buttery eggplant. So delicious!

While having dinner we got into deeper talks with サトコ and made friends…the owner and chef was also really nice, talking a lot about music.

What a great stay. サトコ, thank you so much for being such a great person and introducing us to Asahikawa!

After saying goodbye, I went to the next convenience store for a couple of beers and keeping up the blog. Phew, got quite late…

4 comments

        1. Those kind of touring bicycles are so common for buying in Japan. Was so cheap!

          We should get our hands on the magazine I had posted photos of, there was a full overview. Then we only need to do the importing :-/

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *