The goal for today was to manage to get to the Mitsui Outlet shopping center outside town, which without car takes some planning, especially if you can't really understand Japanese and don't have an internet connection outside your home base.
First I took the subway to the Fukuzumi station at the end of the Toho line. Then I just followed the directions to the bus station upstairs and found the bus stop for the No 88 bus. It is an open bus station so it is rather easy to find I think. Then you go with the bus to the final stop, which is the Shopping mall. This takes roughly 25 minutes I think. Remember, you only pay when you get of the bus. I had a With You card but it seemed like I couldn't use it which I think I actually should be able to do. Anyway, the driver was helpful in showing me how to exchange my bill for coins. Total cost 240+320 yen, and with bad bus timing it took roughly 1 hour.
The thing with Japan is that, in contrast with many other Asian countries, you can actually trust the stores to carry original brands and not copies, so the outlet got lot of international brands. It was all in all a very fresh and calm shopping center. I was hunting for gear to be able to go downhill (an I already before the trip was missing proper winter clothes), and had checked out the mont-bell outdoors store in Sapporo Factory already, so that proved also to be the only real choice here too. Really nice quality clothes at good prices.
There was also a farmers village store, with local produce, so I bought a nigiri bottle (mina NICORI from Kushiro in eastern Hokkaido) for my friends, which funnily turned out to be creamy white not from the rice, which is usually the reason, but from yoghurt! At 6% alcohol it is also a rather mild experience, I believe. Also, a heavenly "Polaris" cheesecake was bought and eaten.
(Click here for the next day)
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