Visiting Sapporo

We arrived at Sapporo after a trouble-free flight, and made our way to our hotel, and settled in. We arrived pretty late, so hit the sack early, trying to sleep off what remained of our jet lag.

The next day, we got up, and headed off to explore town. Sapporo is a pretty big city, with a population of nearly 2 million, but the town centre is pretty compact, and easy to explore on foot. Sapporo is a very vibrant, modern city (founded in 1868, so rather recently), not that much of historic interest to see. Our self-guided walking tour took in the main historic attractions.

First on the list was the clock tower, which is one of the oldest buildings still standing in Sapporo, dating back to 1878. Today it houses a museum. From there, we headed off to the Former Hokkaido Government building, an impressive red-brick American-style building dating back to 1888. It housed, as the name suggests, the Hokkaido government. Quite an interesting building, and surrounded by a quite nice park.

We carried on our tour, checking out a part of Sapporo I really insisted we had to visit - Sapporo beer garden ;-) A Japanese version of a German beer garden, it has to be seen to be believed, right ? ;-) It wasn't very busy at the time we visited, but it did bring back memories of Octoberfest !

Our pedestrian tour done, we decided to split up for a while - Mathilde went off to explore the Depatos (Japanese for department store!), while I went off to take some pictures at JR Tower Observation Deck T38. Finding the place in the department store labyrinth complex that surrounds the train station turned out to be challenging, but I eventually made it. The views from 160 meters above the ground were predictably impressive. I also liked the panoramic view from the toilet ;-)

Our next destination was Sapporo Factory. This is where the famous Sapporo beer was brewed - in fact it was the first brewery in Japan - dating back all the way to 1876. Today, it's been redeveloped, quite well I would say, into a modern shopping/entertainment centre. We quite enjoyed strolling around, there are plenty of nice and quirky shops to be found in the old brick building. There's a small museum dedicated to the original brewery as well, but all explanations were in Japanese unfortunately... (in spite of our 2 years' worth of courses, our reading skills are still of hardly any practical use, I'm afraid...). I did rather enjoy the Sapporo beer we had outside in a courtyard next to the big main chimney, though, kind of felt like drinking the beer at the source!

We ended up having dinner at the Sapporo Beer Garden. As often happens in Japan when there are drunk salarymen around, somebody eventually drinks enough beer, and comes and has a chat with you. This time the rather drunk bloke turned out to be some sort of provincial council member from Wakkanai (a town in the North of Hokkaido). It turned out to be a very memorable evening indeed, as he insisted on us trying various culinary specialities in Hokkaido (and also plenty of beer), with some of his sometimes embarrassing-seeming subordinates also coming over for a chat. Priceless!

We started the next day by strolling around in the park near our hotel, where we checked out a photo session with a pretty lady dressed in kimono being photographed. Unfortunately the photo session was cut short by an impressive downpour of rain - which also meant a quick return trip to the hotel to fetch some umbrellas!

Properly equipped for rain, we made our way into the town centre. We started off by visiting the Nijo market, Sapporo's fish markets. We were expecting something resembling the impressive Tsukiji market in Tokyo, since Hokkaido is famous for its superb seafood. I suppose our expectations were a bit too high,  we were a bit  disappointed with the place. No complaints about the sea food we had there for lunch though!

Our next stop was the Shiroi Koibito Park, a bit off the beaten track, but easily reachable on the tramway. The best way to describe the place is "chocolate theme park". It's a kind of mixture of a historic museum, working factory and candy store. The museum bit was sort of interesting, telling the history chocolate making in Hokkaido. Then there was a bit where you could see the factory in action, which was more interesting. All very well coordinated and Japanese, kind of how I'd imagine a Japanese factory (a well-trained and disciplined workforce interacting with highly advanced machinery!).

The last bit is the candy shop, where you can buy all sorts of chocolate, biscuits, whatever your heart desires. We took quite a liking to their Langue de Chat & White cholocate biscuits. Possible the best bit at Shiroi Kobito Park is the fake Tudor garden/building complex outside the factory, a sort of Japanese take on Charlie and the Chocolate factory ? Very tacky, but in an irresistible Japanese way...

We finished off by trying some of the famous Sapporo Ramen. The best place to have it (according to Anthony Bourdain, at least) is in a small alley near the Susukino area, unsurprisingly called Ramen Alley. So we went - and even managed to find restaurant Anthony had enjoyed his Ramen. Well, it's more like a bar actually, with punters eating their ramen on a long table around the area where the cooking is done. And where the Ramen good? Oh yes....

That brought an end to our visit in Sapporo, time to hop on the train and head off to our next destination, Hakodate!