02 Jun 2023

At the Top of Otaru's Mount Tengu

After a delightful evening acquainting with our fellow travellers at our hotel in Sapporo, today marked the first day of exploration on our Discover Eternal Japan voyage starting with an exploration of Otaru's stunning Mount Tengu.

The best way to experience Mount Tengu is via ropeway, where we were able to absorb the fantastic views, visit the chipmunks at the Squirrel park as well as the Tenguyama Shrine and the Tengu mask museum which contained fantastic masks collected from all over Japan.

Mount Tengu is well known as one of the hardest ski slopes in Japan, during the 1972 Winter Olympics it was classed as Expert level.

We once again took the ropeway down the mountain, boarded the bus and made our way to Otaru city centre. During our time in the city we explored the glass workings, one of the oldest tram systems in Japan which was once used by the miners in the area from times gone by.

Some were treated to the specialty 8-layer ice cream for a pre-lunch dessert.

Once we were full of ice cream we boarded the bus once again and made our way to the port for our first glimpses of Heritage Adventurer. We embarked the vessel and made our way to the restaurant for a delicious lunch and then it was straight into our lifeboat drill with the Captain Tomasz announcing instructions over the PA system. All up on the 7^th deck wearing our vogue orange lifejackets.

Once the drill concluded we were able to explore the ship at our leisure followed by an introduction to the Expedition team and a briefing for the following days activities including tomorrow's visit to Hakodate.

Image (c): R.Morris