A stop over night in this transit city.  We fly to Sapporo from Toyama, so our stay is brief.  How much can we cram into an afternoon?  The landscape from the train on the way to Toyama was everychanging but you could always see the snowy peaks.

Travel Manager Jeff picked a convenient hotel right across the road from the train station.  A perfect location as it was raining when we exited the station 🙂

Toyama is a large city with an industrial feel.

The good food detective was right on task and had spotted an interesting tent outside the train station.  How does he do that?  His good food radar constantly scanning while quickly walking, heads down and dragging our bags through the rain.  It’s a true gift!

We headed back there after settling in to the hotel not really knowing what was inside, but intrigued by the aroma.  It was a BBQ street food tent with only fresh seafood and beef skewers on the menu.

Boy, it was soooo hot in there.  Each table had a hole in the middle where a hot coal fire raged.

The seafood was cooked on wire racks between us.  We cooked huge prawns, scallops in shells, a beef (well, I hope it was beef) skewer and something chewy on a skewer that Jeff later found out was one of those weird snail like shell creatures.  We also enjoyed a tray of the deep fried oysters – they’re fast become our favourite seafood treat, well apart from the sashimi.

It was a rainy day in Toyama but we managed to get out with the aid of a hotel umbrella.  A zig-zaggy walk through the streets found us at the Glass Museum which was a most fascinating architectural building of glass and timber.  It was 6 floors high built around an open auditorium that spotlighted a timber animated boat and other flying art pieces.  Quite spectacular.

Dinner – after a brief walk around the hotel area, we decided upon a yakatori restaurant in a back street behind the hotel.  It was busy and bustling with mostly young workers in suits dropping in after work for a bite.  We shared a variety of yakatori skewers – leek and asparagus, chicken, pork but our favourite was the special chicken meatball.

I love statues (you’ve probably noticed) and these ones near the train station were so interesting.  If only I could read about what they signified.

Jeff and Catherine xx