Fall Colors and Kidneys

Besides wanting to escape the heat, the fall colors were a highlight of Hokkaido I was hoping to see. I headed to Jozankei Onsen in the mountains hoping that the altitude change would bring more color. I was probably a week or two early for peak color change, but even then, the town and nearby area was beautiful. I hiked up to a small peak near the dam and saw beautiful reds and yellows throughout the forest. After my hike, I soaked my feet in a public foot bath near the bus stop. It sounds like a recipe for shared foot fungus, but the water was constantly cycled out with fresh onsen water and was amazing after a hike.
I headed back to Sapporo and went to the Sapporo Beer Museum. I learned how it was originally a government based operation as part of the rapid modernization of Japan during the Meiji-Restoration period. It later was turned into a private business, and was the first beer brewery in Japan. I think Sapporo Beer is usually just alright, but was shocked when I tried the brewery-exclusive heritage batch that resembles the original beer recipe. Totally different beer from the usual draft, and far better. Afterwards I ate at one of their cafes and started my walk back to the hotel. With a bit of a buzz and still room in my stomach, I thought I'd hit up ramen alley once again for a cheap bowl. While there, I met Jeong and Pae, both traveling for vacation from Korea. Jeong was an accountant living in New York working for Hyundai, and Pae was a chain smoking sushi chef in Korea with a voice that closely resembled the low baratones of certain animal crossing villagers. They were super friendly, and within a few minutes of talking invited me to go with them to a yakitori place they had reservations for. I figured why not and headed down to a basement of a mall for more food and drink. I joked with them on how I'd never follow strangers into a basement restaurant in the US, and that I'd be lucky to keep both my kidneys. They burst into laughter, and that became the running joke of the evening where anything we had to eat or drink had an estimated percentage of kidney as the cost. We enjoyed delicious yakitori and chikuwa (tube shaped fish cake) with beer and shochu, and followed it up with two more bars afterwards. It was a riot of a time, and it sounds like if I ever go to Korea I'll have some connections for sushi and more drinking.もっと詳しく