Otaru is such an octopus city. She is small and exquisite, but she also has everything. When I first arrived in Otaru, it was the end of October when winter was coming in Hokkaido. In the off-season of tourists, the first snow had not yet come, and the cold and wet weather was brewing a bleak atmosphere. I found a bicycle rental shop by the pier and strolled around the canal. All the trees on both sides of the canal have lost their leaves, leaving only bright orange-red fruits, which robbed the warehouses on both sides of the antique elegance.

otaru is a very European city, and its European style is very Japanese. Along the canal, I saw Sushi Tong, which is said to be a comic book based on Taitai's sushi, and also found Otaru's famous Beiyi Xiaozi (glass) workshop, as well as the Haiming Building, VENEZIANA Art Museum and the classic cafe Haimao House, which was converted from a warehouse. I drank a cup of coffee gently next to the fire resistance, took out my notebook, and unloaded my love, hate, sorrow and happiness since those days.

otaru is full of museums and gourmet restaurants. On the first night, my friends and I chose a grilled seafood restaurant called Canal Warehouse. We ordered a sea-land dinner for two people. We thought that the price in Japan was very high, and things were delivered, which was dumbfounded. In addition to delicious Hokkaido steaks, sausages and vegetables, there were dragon king crabs, mussels that could not be named, which were bigger than the palm of your hand, and more than ten fresh marine fish. We ate as hard as we could, and in the end, five or six fish watched us helplessly. It was like a dream that a person could be treated with such grand hospitality at a cost of less than RMB 3.

However, sushi is too expensive if it is a single order. Near Sushi Tong, there are almost all Hokkaido crabs sold all year round. According to my experience, the bigger the better. The ugly hairy crab has elastic meat and no fishy smell, which is much better than the dragon king crab with long hands and feet and red and clear shell color. In the inner area of Otaru, some shops also have ready-to-eat service. You can sit directly in the seafood discount store and eat hairy crabs. The kind Obasan will cut the crabs open with scissors, which will make it easy for you to eat crab meat, and also give you tea and coffee. That's my favorite way to eat crabs.

a salmon roe rice with transparent red pearls on it, cold on the top and hot on the bottom, with fresh perilla leaves and dried kelp silk, is delicious in the mouth, which is like a natural sound to the mouth. In this way, I stayed in Otaru for three nights, with delicious food and beautiful scenery, and I couldn't think of any reason to leave.

the second time I went to otaru, it was in the snowstorm in early January. It's only about 5 meters from Otaru Station to Otaru Canal, and it's hard to walk. The snow piles on both sides are one foot high, and it's easy to slip. The Otaru Canal is also blocked by snow, but the scenery is the most beautiful. The gloomy sky, the misty lights and the white snow piles are like the scene of making a movie, and the travelers stumble in it.

All the museums, cafes, restaurants and sushi restaurants are closed, because it happened on the first day of the New Year, and the lonely Spring Festival was spent in cold and hunger. A year later, the silence kicked off.

In summer, I went to Otaru again, and the tourists were weaving, but the scenery and mood were not as beautiful as when everything was empty.

Beautiful scenery needs a little imagination. Thinking about summer in winter, imagining snow in summer, remembering off-season in peak season, recalling prosperity in loneliness, longing for the city in desolate desert, and longing for the countryside in the city is a real life.