As a port sightseeing city in Hokkaido, Otaru is located northwest of Sapporo and is very convenient to access; it takes about 30 to 40 minutes by JR rapid train from Sapporo. If your travel goal is “easy to stroll, easy to shop, easy to take photos,” your itinerary can actually be concentrated along this downtown walking line: “JR Otaru Station—Otaru Canal—Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street.”

In the morning, you can first have seafood at Sankaku Market next to the station, then take a walk along the canal to take photos, and on the way visit the Otaru City General Museum Canal Hall; then turn into Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street, which has everything from distinctive shops such as Otaru Music Box Hall Main Building and Kitaichi Glass No. 3 Building, to classic dessert favorites like LeTAO and Rokkatei, and places to buy glass crafts, miscellaneous goods, and sweet souvenir treats all the way.
With a high density of attractions in central Otaru, you do not need to transfer frequently, and you can capture cultural spots, must-eat food, and shopping plans all in one go. Below, centered on Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street, we will outline transportation, must-visit shops, must-buy souvenirs, and cultural walking routes.

From JR Otaru Station, it takes about a 10 to 15 minute walk to reach Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street, and you will also pass the well-known Otaru Canal on the way. Located in central Otaru, Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street is the main sightseeing district that combines historic buildings, souvenir shops, crafts, and famous dessert stores. It consists of Sakaimachi Hondori Street and Ironai Odori, is about 1.3 km long, and has about 120 distinctive shops along the route, making it one of the most representative shopping-walk routes in Otaru’s city area.

In addition, if you plan to visit Otaru in winter, please pay special attention to the fact that Otaru’s winter slopes and stone-paved roads may become extremely icy, wet, and slippery due to snowfall. It is recommended to wear snow boots with deep anti-slip treads, or shoes with stronger traction. When walking, also be especially careful to slow down your pace and avoid snow falling from eaves, so that you can enjoy the snowy scenery while ensuring safety as well!

Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street offers a rich selection of stores, and when you actually walk there, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the many choices and not know where to start. To make your itinerary more focused and better match the rhythm of a leisurely stroll, below are eight carefully selected shopping and strolling spots mainly centered on Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street. Whether it is your first visit and you want to cover the representative stores all at once, or you have been to Otaru before and want to round out your purchases with unique and limited items, consider using this as a reference and adding them to your travel itinerary!

The Otaru Orgel Museum Main Building , which feels like stepping into a fairy-tale world, is Japan’s largest specialty music box store, and also one of Otaru’s most representative classic attractions.

The red-brick building, constructed in 1915, was originally built as the company headquarters of a major rice dealer in Hokkaido, and is now designated as Otaru City Historic Building No. 17, making the building itself well worth seeing. At the entrance, there is also a British-style bronze steam clock, about 5.5 m tall and weighing 1.5 tons. Every 15 minutes, it plays a gentle chime melody, causing passersby to unconsciously stop and linger. It is a very popular spot for photos and photo spot!

This three-story building is laid out with five exhibition floors, displaying about 3,200 types and nearly 38,000 music boxes, ranging from delicate and compact pieces to gorgeous artistic models. The second-floor corridor lets you overlook the entire interior space; on the third floor, you can admire the unique beam-and-column structure of the triangular roof and feel a cozy, attic-like atmosphere. With a century-old building paired with romantic music boxes, it is definitely worth taking your time to enjoy, and bringing home one music box of your own.

If you have enough time, you can also stop by the experience workshop next to the Music Box Hall (Handmade Experience Yuko Kobo) to try hands-on courses such as making your own music box and glass crafts, leaving an even more special memory of your trip! (Advance reservation required)

Kitaichi Glass traces its origins to 1901, starting out by manufacturing oil lamps and fishing floats (it was called “Asahara Glass” at the time). As times changed, it gradually transformed into Otaru’s representative brand known for glass products, and also expanded into areas such as an art museum, a café, hands-on activities, and a specialty liquor shop.

Among these, the most beloved by travelers is the Kitaichi Glass No. 3 Building and the café inside. Around 9:00 each morning, staff light the building’s 167 oil lamps one by one, and visitors can view them up close and take commemorative photos. This quietly unfolding lighting ceremony has become one of the most captivating sights of Otaru’s morning.

If you continue along the building’s corridor all the way to the end, you will reach the Kitaichi terrace area (Sango-kan Terrace). In addition to coffee drinks, the beautiful and eye-catching “8-color rainbow soft-serve ice cream” (8-tier soft-serve) is especially popular. There are also single-flavor soft-serve options, including milk, chocolate, coffee, Hokkaido melon, strawberry, and white peach, and the flavors change depending on seasonal ingredients. Other combinations such as 6-color and 12-color soft-serve are also available. Delicious, beautiful, and perfect for photos, do not miss it!

In addition, as part of Kitaichi Glass’s related facilities, within less than a 5 minute walk, you can find the Kitaichi Venice Art Museum. On the second floor, the Noble Experience & Commemorative Photography lets you take photos wearing Italian-style costumes, and you can also use your own smartphone or camera during the shoot. If you want to make something by hand, you can go to the Craft Experience Workshop to try the sandblasting experience, in which you etch patterns on glass surfaces with sandblasting, or the glass-bead combination experience, in which you freely combine glass beads and accessories, and take home a one-of-a-kind souvenir.

*The café lamp-lighting event is limited to 25 people who can enter to observe, and you need to line up at the entrance on Sakaimachi-dori.

*The sandblasting and glass-bead crafting experiences must be booked online, by phone, or by email by 17:00 two days before the experience date.

With an exterior full of a sense of bygone years, Otaru Romankan was, more than a hundred years ago, a bank building called the Former 113th Bank Otaru Branch; today, it has transformed into a distinctive shop brimming with a retro atmosphere. Its heavy stone-built façade and elegant architectural details still preserve the appearance of the Meiji period.

Inside, with antique furniture as the foundation, the shop sells a wide variety of glass goods, accessories, and small items. It is perfect for choosing souvenirs or picking up a keepsake to treat yourself, and truly lives up to its name as a “Romankan” filled with a romantic mood. If you get tired from shopping and want to take a short break, there is also the secluded-feeling cafe DECO inside, where you can relax in a quiet space and enjoy some time at a slower pace.

Stepping into Okuno Shoten feels like walking into the familiar neighborhood candy-and-snack shop of childhood, giving you a warm sense of nostalgia. Originally a hardware store opened in the Meiji period, the long-established building’s exterior still retains the look of an old shop. After the shop closed in 2019, it was repurposed, and reopened again in 2020.

With the theme of “a shop selling household-goods that you just can’t bear to throw away,” the store sells everyday items once used at Okuno Shoten, as well as various nostalgic lifestyle goods, woven baskets, dried flowers, and more. You can also view and purchase works by local artists from Sapporo and Otaru. With a rich lineup, it is a distinctive little shop that makes you want to carefully dig for hidden treasures.

What is especially unique is that the shop offers eco-friendly shopping bags handmade by the staff using newspapers and flyers, full of creativity and ingenuity, which is also why it has become a beloved specialty goods store on Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street among both tourists and locals.

MIFFY PORT TOWN is a soothing and delightful stop that Miffy fans visiting Otaru won’t want to miss. Originally home to Miffy Oyatsudo, which opened in April 2023, the space was renewed in 2025 as MIFFY PORT TOWN. It has since developed into a multi-themed facility offering sweets, desserts, and goods. Its charming exterior stands out along the historic streets of Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street and is sure to make visitors stop for a photo.

Inside, visitors can find Miffy-themed Japanese sweets and desserts, as well as cookies and senbei rice crackers. These adorable treats also make excellent souvenirs. One of the popular items is the Otaru-exclusive “Miffy Dorayaki An Butter Style,” made with Hokkaido red bean paste and rich butter. The shop also offers Otaru-exclusive items, giving fans something new to discover with each visit.

Illustrations Dick Bruna © copyright Mercis bv,1953-2026 www.miffy.com

As you stroll along Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street in Otaru, you may spot an adorable building that catches your eye. This is SNOOPY Village, a complex that brings together three shops: SNOOPY Chaya, SNOOPY Chocolat, and WOODSTOCK NEST Sweets & Goodies. The building has a brick-style exterior, and inside you’ll find Snoopy stained glass. With goods available only at the Otaru location, the shop also has an irresistible charm that makes you want to take photos.

The shop has two floors. On the first floor, you’ll find Snoopy-designed goods and a takeout corner. The second floor offers Woodstock-themed sweets and goods, as well as original chocolates from Kyoto-based SNOOPY Chocolat. The shop also carries a variety of goods and sweets available only at the Otaru location making them perfect as souvenirs or collectibles.

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After leaving the nostalgia-filled Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street, consider heading to the large shopping complex Wing Bay Otaru by Otaru Port. This department-store mall sits right next to the coastline and is spacious in scale; its biggest highlight is that you can shop while enjoying an expansive ocean view, and on clear days the outlook is especially wide open!

Inside, it brings together fashion, lifestyle goods, restaurants, and entertainment facilities, so you can satisfy shopping, dining, and family fun all at once. It also has a cinema and a large supermarket, making it a multi-purpose mall visited by both locals and tourists. You can also find many brands familiar to Taiwanese travelers here, such as MUJI, ABC-MART, and Nitori, which sells home goods; and beyond that, there are also drugstores, capsule-toy shops, and more. It is suitable to place in the latter part of your itinerary as a backup spot for resting, eating, or sheltering from the rain, and as a place to complete your shopping mission in one go before returning home.

Alongside shopping, enjoying local food is also an indispensable part of the experience, and Sankaku Market, located right next to JR Otaru Station, is a great place to taste fresh seafood from Hokkaido. Many shops in the market sell fresh seafood, and among them, Takinami Shokudo, known for its lavish ingredients, and Takeda Fresh Fish Shop, where you can both buy seafood and enjoy made-to-order seafood rice bowls, are popular choices for many travelers visiting Sankaku Market for the first time.

Hokkaido’s signature ingredients such as king crab, sea urchin, and salmon roe are lined up, and the seafood bowls made to order are generously topped and hearty in portion size, letting you taste a variety of seasonal seafood all at once. Compared with shopping streets that feel more touristy, Sankaku Market adds the friendly atmosphere of a traditional local market, and it is suitable both as a proper meal and as a convenient stop along your route for a light snack.

After visiting Sankaku Market and enjoying fresh seafood, many people also buy some dried seafood as souvenirs. There are also shops in the market that sell dried or cooked processed seafood products, and representative dried goods such as dried scallops and kelp are very popular beginner-friendly choices.

However, souvenirs that are suitable to take home from Otaru are not limited to that. From famous dessert shops and classic Western-style confectionery on Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street, to distinctive snacks with refined packaging that are easy to carry, there are many different types of souvenirs you can choose depending on your itinerary and preferences.

Next, we will organize Otaru’s must-buy souvenirs that are easy to pick up during your trip and are also beloved by travelers. *Whether dried seafood and processed products can be brought into your country, please confirm each country’s customs rules and airline flight regulations in advance.

Otaru Beer is one of Otaru, Hokkaido’s most representative craft beer brands, founded in 1995 in the historic building Otaru Warehouse No. 1 by the Otaru Canal. The brand insists on using traditional German brewing techniques and brews in accordance with Germany’s Beer Purity Law, becoming one of the few local beer brands in Otaru known for an authentic German style.

The so-called Beer Purity Law is a beer regulation established in 16th-century Germany, stipulating that beer may be brewed only with water, malt, hops, and yeast, and that no other spices or chemical components may be added, in order to ensure pure flavor and stable quality. Otaru Beer follows this philosophy, brewing beers with a refreshing mouthfeel and clearly defined layers of taste. In addition to choosing your favorite beer to take home, it is also well suited to sit down and savor the flavor of a freshly brewed beer, one glass at a time.

When it comes to Otaru’s local sake culture, you cannot overlook Tanaka Sake Brewery. Founded in 1927, Tanaka Sake Brewery has nearly a hundred years of history and is one of Otaru’s most representative long-established sake breweries. The brewery insists on using Hokkaido-grown rice and pure water sources, continues traditional methods, and at the same time keeps trying new flavors, making it a local sake brand that combines history and innovation.

At the main shop in the city area, in addition to selling sake, you can also see exhibits related to the brewery, and tasting experiences are offered, so even people who are not familiar with sake can easily find a flavor that suits them. Besides classic sake, Tanaka Sake Brewery also offers plum wine and fruit liqueurs, which have a refreshing taste and broad appeal, making them very suitable as souvenirs.

Stepping into Tanaka Sake Brewery feels like opening a small trip to learn about Otaru’s sake-brewing culture. Whether you are interested in sake, or you simply want to learn more about local tastes, it is well worth visiting and experiencing!

When it comes to Hokkaido’s classic dessert brands, Rokkatei definitely holds an important place. Rokkatei’s Otaru Canal shop, located near the Otaru Canal, is conveniently situated and is perfect for stopping by while you stroll the shopping streets. Its simple yet refined storefront naturally blends into the canal-area streetscape.

In addition to signature sweets such as white chocolate, butter-and-raisin sandwich cookies, and monaka wafers, you can also find many room-temperature desserts suitable as souvenirs, and you are sure to leave with bags full.

Next to Rokkatei is another representative Hokkaido dessert icon, Kitakaro Otaru Main Building. Otaru Main Building, renovated from a historic structure, has a calm and elegant exterior, and when you step inside, it opens into a spacious and bright space.

Kitakaro is known for making sweets using Hokkaido local ingredients. Its most representative products include the cream puff Kita no Yume Dome, with a crisp, fragrant shell and a smooth filling, and the baumkuchen Yosei no Mori, which has a moist texture and delicate layers. In addition, the Otaru main building also sells a limited fruit cake, Kaju-en no Rokugatsu, in which the juice of matured apples is slowly soaked into the cake, creating a moist and delicate texture with a rich aroma. It tastes even more refreshing after being chilled, and is a distinctive sweet that can only be enjoyed here.

If you want to pick up Hokkaido’s classic sweets all at once on Sakaimachi Dori, Kitakaro and the neighboring Rokkatei can conveniently be planned as stops along the same section of your route.

LeTAO has almost become synonymous with Otaru sweets. As one of Otaru’s local sweets brands, LeTAO is known for its cheese desserts, and its most representative item is the light-textured Double Fromage Cheesecake, drawing countless tourists who come specifically to taste it. LeTAO’s main store on Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street has a European-style exterior that naturally blends into Otaru’s streetscape around it, yet remains impossible to overlook, and it will definitely make you stop in your tracks!

In addition to its classic cheesecakes, the shop also offers many sweets such as chocolates and cookies, with a very rich selection. Besides the dessert sales area on the first floor, the LeTAO main store also has a café space on the second floor, where you can sit down to enjoy freshly made desserts and drinks and take a short break.

Ryugetsu, from the Tokachi region of Hokkaido, is a long-established sweets brand loved by locals; its sweets style is simple yet easy to keep eating, and for many Hokkaido households, it is a taste they have grown up with since childhood.

Its most representative product is the baumkuchen Sanpōroku, patterned like tree bark with chocolate and white chocolate. Highly recognizable in appearance, it is a Tokachi classic and also a classic choice among Hokkaido souvenirs. Besides Sanpōroku, you can also find many other sweets in the shop and take your time choosing.

In addition, the shop also sells multiple limited sweets. Among them, the most popular tart-style sweet, the Otaru Tart, features an almond tart crust made with Hokkaido fermented butter. The buttery flavor is rich yet not heavy, and it is also topped with sweetened red beans, making the overall texture even more layered; it has received quite a lot of positive feedback on social media.

During the spring and summer season, you can also enjoy the seasonal limited jelly sweet Otaru Jelly, made with 100% Niagara grape juice produced in Yoichi Town, located in western Hokkaido and known for its fruit. The clear, glossy jelly carries a refreshing fruit aroma, paired with springy kanten cubes—it is a seasonal sweet worth trying!

In addition to shopping and food, Otaru is also a city rich in cultural depth. Warehouses, banks, railways, and corner squares are all traces left by this port city in the course of its development. Below are seven carefully selected cultural and historical sights that can be linked on foot. The locations are concentrated around the canal and the city center, so they can be perfectly integrated into your shopping-and-strolling itinerary.

When it comes to Otaru, for many people the first thing that comes to mind is the Otaru Canal. Taking a walk along the canal during the day, you can see stone warehouses reflected on the water, creating a relaxed atmosphere; after dark, the streetlights light up one by one, and the entire canal becomes quiet and romantic, making it a very representative Hokkaido night view. If time allows, it is also highly recommended to take an Otaru Canal cruise, enjoying the warehouses and bridges from the water and experiencing scenery completely different from what you see while walking.
In fact, the Otaru Canal was not originally built for tourism. In the past, Otaru was an important port city in Hokkaido. Goods from various places were unloaded here, sent directly along the canal into warehouses, and then transferred to different parts of the city. The canal that now looks so romantic is, in fact, the very starting point of Otaru’s past prosperity!

If you want to understand why Otaru was able to develop into a port city, you might step into the Bank of Japan Otaru Museum and take a look. This sturdy-looking stone building stands in strong contrast to the surrounding shopping streets. It is currently open to the general public, and through its exhibits you can learn about how the bank operated at the time and the background of the city’s development.

In Otaru’s most prosperous era, this area was not only around the port, but also a financial hub where banks and trading companies gathered, and it was once known as the “Wall Street of the North.” By entering the Bank of Japan Otaru Museum, you can admire the architectural details while imagining how lively the district was back then. Next time you visit the canal area in Otaru, do not forget to set aside some time to stroll and see the exhibits!

Located within the former warehouse district by the Otaru Canal, the Otaru City General Museum Canal Museum is a great place to quickly understand Otaru’s city background! The building itself is the former Otaru Warehouse built in 1893, and viewing exhibitions inside this historic-feeling stone structure is a rare experience.

The museum introduces, through topics ranging from Ainu culture and Kitamaebune ships to the herring fishery, how Otaru developed along with the port and became an important commercial and financial base in Hokkaido during the Meiji to Taisho period (1868–1926). Through ship models, old photographs, and reconstructed streetscapes, you can concretely sense how goods and capital were gathered and circulated here.

The former Temiya Line site of the Japanese National Railways is now a railway relic suitable for strolling; but in Otaru’s most prosperous era, it was an important freight route that supported the city’s operations. Coal unloaded at the port, and marine products such as herring and kelp, were first gathered and distributed through warehouses, and then transported via the Temiya Line to various parts of Hokkaido, forming an important network linking the port, commerce, and railways.

After the Temiya Line was abolished in 1985, Otaru City purchased an approximately 510 m section from JR Hokkaido in 2001 and developed it into an open space. Today, the tracks and some railway facilities are still fully preserved, serving as an important venue for events such as markets, festivals, and the Otaru Snow Light Path, and it also attracts many railway fans and travelers who come to take photos. Next time you visit the canal and the city center area, consider stopping by to take a walk here and feel another side of Otaru that is different from the shopping streets.

Otaru Denuki Koji is an alleyway bringing together restaurants, izakaya pubs, and distinctive small shops, with an overall atmosphere that feels nostalgic yet lively. The architectural style here echoes Otaru’s history as a commercial city, but it is presented in a more relaxed, everyday way, and before you know it, you find yourself staying a little longer.

During the day, you can choose a restaurant here for a meal; as evening comes and the lights turn on, the mood of the entire alley instantly becomes lively, making it a great rest stop in the middle of a day’s itinerary. With a diverse range of shop types, whether you want a full meal, a casual drink, or simply to wander around, you can find a place that suits you, and it is well worth coming to take a look.

The “Fairy-Tale Crossroads” is one of Otaru’s most representative streetscapes, and also a scene many people consider a must-photo when they come to the Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street area. With European-style streetlights, a gently stretching slope, and exotic-looking buildings around it, it feels as if you have stepped into a fairy-tale setting.

In the daytime, the light is soft and good for photos; from evening into night, when the lights come on, the streetscape takes on a different expression. Even if you only stop briefly, you can feel Otaru’s unique charm that sits somewhere between romance and everyday life.

Compared with the lively atmosphere of Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street, Otaru Shussemae Square feels much quieter. Rather than being crowded like a typical tourist spot, it retains a pace that is closer to local everyday life. Around the plaza are distinctive small shops, cafés, and small-scale dining spaces, making it suitable for a casual stroll and for finding a place to sit down and take a break.

The plaza itself is not large, and for travelers who do not want to keep walking on the main sightseeing route, it is a small corner where you can temporarily step away from the crowds and reset the rhythm of your itinerary. It is suitable for a short break while shopping, or as a perfect wrap-up when your day’s plans are nearing the end.

While walking between these cultural and historical sights, you can also, depending on your itinerary, flexibly include the hands-on activities introduced earlier. For example, you can take a canal cruise around the Otaru Canal area and enjoy the port-town scenery from a different perspective; or stop by Kitaichi Glass and the Music Box Hall to join glass craft and music box making experiences; you can also schedule a visit to Tanaka Sake Brewery along the way to learn about Otaru’s local brewing culture.

Most of these experiences are concentrated around the city center and the Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street area, naturally connecting with the route for strolling the streets, so you do not need to extend your travel distance in any special way. Within your itinerary, you can enjoy shopping, food, and local culture at the same time, and easily complete a comfortable-paced Otaru walking trip.

Many of Otaru’s main sights in the city area are concentrated in the city center and can be easily linked on foot. Below are two walking routes suitable for first-time visits to Otaru, with smooth flow and easy flexibility to adjust depending on your available time!

Next time you visit Otaru, consider setting aside a bit more time to stroll the JR Otaru Station—Otaru Canal—Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street route. Whether you are buying souvenirs, tasting local food, or simply walking along the streets at your own pace, you can, in a relaxed rhythm, complete an Otaru shopping trip that is all your own.

If you want to use your time and budget more efficiently, below we have also consolidated two major must-buy priorities on Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street: dessert souvenirs and local Otaru goods.

For sweets, make sure to pick up the classic LeTAO Double Fromage Cheesecake, as well as shelf-stable sweets from Hokkaido long-established brands such as Rokkatei, Kitakaro, and Ryugetsu. If you want to bring home a bit of an “Otaru limited” feel, you can also choose limited-package sweets and cute goods at OTARU MIFFY PORT TOWN or SNOOPY Village.

For keepsakes, if it is your first time in Otaru, you should definitely include the Otaru Music Box Hall Main Building and Kitaichi Glass No. 3 Building in your itinerary: the former is suitable for picking a personal music box as a memento, while the latter lets you have a cup of coffee in the gaslight atmosphere, choose glass crafts, and even schedule hands-on experiences. If time allows, do not miss the fresh seafood at Sankaku Market, or stop by Tanaka Sake Brewery for a tasting and choose a smooth, easy-drinking bottle; and at the end of your itinerary, head to the Wing Bay Otaru department store to round out your shopping needs in one go, including clothing, daily necessities, drugstore items, and souvenirs—so in a single day you can easily complete a city-center Otaru itinerary of shopping, food, and strolling!

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