Otaru Travel Guide

MyCal has everything under one roof. The whole complex is 0.8km in length and there are four levels for shopping. Excellent place to escape to when snow covers the city and the weather is less than wonderful. The Hilton Hotel is in the centre.
My favourite part is on the ground floor in the centre of the complex, an area called Outlet Town. Here you can buy at factory prices. My favourite store here is Columbia and I buy something from here at least once a month. Prices are anything up to 70% below what you pay at the Columbia shop in Sapporo!
There is a department store at the western end of MyCal, called Posful, and the Eastern Wing there's Wing Bay Otaru, with a variety of stores, including a fantastic book shop (3rd floor, English books and mags), furniture, electronics, HMV and a variety of other kinds of shops. On the fourth floor in the centre is MyCal Warner Cinema complex, and a gym and swimming pools.
Back to ground floor, in the centre of the complex is Seattles Best Coffee - and they have staff here who speak English!
MyCal opened in late 1999 and has been through a number of reincarnations. It's now back to almost full operating capacity again.
You can catch a train or bus to MyCal (JPY200 from Otaru Station, get off at Otaru Chikko), or if you drive, there's over 5000 parks, most of them covered underground or on upper levels. Outdoor parking can be found at the far western (Posful) end. The first hour is free, and if you buy over Y1000 worth of stuff (accumulated or in one hit - even the post office counts!) you can get your parking ticket validated for a total of five hours free parking.

Residents may seem a bit wary of you, the traveller. This is because of the number of Russian seamen that visit town. Some of these guys get quite drunk and abusive so there has been a lot of friction in the past between locals and visitors as a result. I'd like to stress that guys like this are a total minority - every Russian I have met to date here has been quite friendly - but unfortunately, those that have acted up in the past have made life really tough on everyone else. So don't be irritated or put off if you are asked where you come from. Have a smiley face when you give your answer. As for the stories about the onsens here, my family and I have never been denied entry - in fact, they have been quite welcoming - and the only onsen with the reputation of banning gaijin let in a kiwi friend of ours after she explained that she understood japanese bathing etiquette.

In the past some onsens have denied admission to non-Japanese. Thanks to a lawsuit this situation has improved, but the onsen that was sued, Yunohana, still denies admission to non-Japanese who don't speak Japanese.

Clothing/Shoes/Weather Gear: Winter equals snow, and mountains of it! If you come from mid-late November through to end-March or early-April, you will need good snow footwear - sneakers won't cut it and you will suffer from wet, cold feet if you choose to wear them. Be careful of plastic soled shoes because you will kiss the icy sidewalk more often than you wish if you choose to wear these. If you find the shoes you have brought with you are hopeless, pop into a shoe shop and pick up a pair of ice-grippers. These little devices use elastic (no damage to your shoes- they go on, and come off easily) to put a grip onto the ball-part of the sole of your shoe. Cheap and very effective!

Photo Equipment: It gets extremely cold in winter so take it into consideration if using photographic or video equipment outdoors. Our state of the art video camera choked when we wanted to do some night shooting last December!

Camping/Beach/Outdoor Gear: Watch for bears! Seriously! Oh, and bring your mosquito repellant.

Located about 30 mins. by car from Otaru station, there are plenty of ski slopes in the area. Hotels attached to the ski slopes offer free shuttle transport as well.