Sapporo - May 2018

Photo album

Tuesday 22nd May

Kado irete kudasai...

We drove out of the mountains and onto the expressway at Asahikawa. For some reason, Mariko picked the Burt Bacharach collection from my phone's playlist to accompany our drive - it suited the drive very well. An hour-and-a-bit on the freeway cost something like $30 and halved the travel time to Sapporo. Does the penultimate expressway exit lead to Sapporo? No-pporo! Our hotel room had been upgraded and was very spacious, the bathroom by itself seemed as big as some of the other hotel bedrooms we'd had.

We walked into town to check out Odori Park, which was hosting the Lilac Festival - it felt though that the flowers were an afterthought, with most people flocking to the food and drink stalls. We looped around to the Government Office (museum) where we got some extra insights into Japan's view of the Kunashir Island situation. Our touristy route took us to the iconic clock tower building, and then TV Tower observation deck, very amused that the young lift attendant shyly recited her spiel into a handheld microphone, facing the corner... even though we were the only two passengers and barely a metre away. There were big crowds around the city enjoying the summery weather - at least, they were obeying the city edict (as per ubiquitous signage) to smile, regardless. Mariko found the Ramen Yokocho (Ramen Alley) which I would've walked straight past - a great way to round out the day.

Wednesday

We walked up to the Sapporo Fish Market, which was nice to see but not a patch on Kushiro's. We were on the lookout for a coffee shop, and stumbled on a fantastic cafe tucked under a set of stairs in a side entrance to a station. The barista performed some amazing alchemy and the coffee was fantastic!

We took the train to Shiroi Koibito Park - a Willy-Wonka-esque complex of a factory (currently free to tour), garden and mini theme park, featuring lots of very daggy animatronics. A lot of it was very silly but it was a lot of fun! And the cafe was very elegant.

Next we took the train and the tram to the base of the Mt Moiwa ropeway - however our plan was to walk up to the top. The obvious path led up to a stupa and then curled back down - a quick bit of Googling showed that the path up actually started around a kilometre away, next to Jodoshukanon Temple. It wasn't warm, maybe around 20deg (perhaps mid-teens at the summit?), but there was a heavy haze and I found the climb, through lush forest, a decent challenge. The view from the top was fantastic! I definitely enjoyed a bit of a break. We debated whether to return the same way or to continue across the the mountain and in the end, our sense of adventure won through. We bumped into a group of very exuberant Nepali guys who asked to interview me for the video they were making. The descent was fine, but brought us out quite a way from where we'd set off, and our energy levels were getting pretty low. We spotted a suburban bus and took a punt that it was heading towards the centre of town, from where we were able to the train back close enough to our hotel to freshen up and to prepare our dirty clothes for the coin laundry we'd just discovered.

For dinner, Mariko took us to another new experience - Garaku Soup Curry. We had to wait in the queue for a few minutes, which built the anticipation to the very yummy dinner.

I don't think we had quite adjusted to being back in a big city, since we spent much of our time in Sapporo getting back out into the parks! Next time it would be great to check out the Botanic Gardens of the University as we ran out of time (note the limited opening hours).

Thursday

We drove an hour-and-a-bit (on the regular roads) to the seaside town of Otaru, and then had a frustrating search for a car park, compounded by not being quite sure of the procedure for paying for it. We rewarded ourselves with some yummy LeTao cheesecake, and then took a stroll down the main tourist street. We were keen to see the music box museum, which turned out to be very crowded with tourists and much more of a retailer than an actual museum - sort of interesting but not quite as good as we'd hoped. In fact most of the tourist street seemed to be either music box shops or LeTao shops, and all full of tourists - perhaps a cruise was in town. We turned towards the canal, but this area seemed a bit tacky as well. What was turning out to be a slightly disappointing visit was saved by a delicious lunch, and a short stroll along the former railway line. Next time it'd be good to check out the railway museum slightly further along, and it seems there are other attractions through the city.

We retrieved our car (satisfied that we'd worked out the parking payment) and headed west out of town. This section of the drive had views of tantalising hills and coastal areas (and we passed near the Yuichi Space Apple) - definitely worth further inspection on a future visit.