March 4th: Sapporo

After arriving in Shin-Chitose Airport, I caught the JR Shin Chitose line to Sapporo. The trip takes 36 minutes and costs 1040 yen.

Quickly finding the machiai basho (meeting point), I waited for the tour group to arrive. After 40 minutes of waiting, 4 of them came and greetings were made. The station was crowded and noisy and I quickly forgot all of their names. They led me through the maze of Sapporo’s underground shopping tunnels, bombarding me with questions the whole time. They were young and friendly and curious and I wished I could communicate better. We finally went up to the 10th floor of the Esta department store, where after a good deal more waiting (for more tour members to find us) we had lunch. We ate at the Sapporo Ramen Kyowakoku, which is a ramen “theme park” featuring 9 famous ramen shops from around Hokkaido, in a faux-retro setting (I think it’s supposed to be a Showa-era train station).

The place is crowded and each restaurant is small, so we paired up and went our seperate ways. I was teamed with Totetsu, a tour leader from Okinawa. Neither of us knowing much about Hokkaido’s ramen, we chose a place at random- Kushiro Ramen Kawamura.

We both had miso ramen (I was a bit disappointed we chose the same thing, since I always want to try what everyone else is eating, but perhaps it was too soon to be swapping ramen bowls). It was good, but not quite what I expected. I had been hoping for a more typical Sapporo ramen, with corn and butter and a deeper miso flavour, while this was a bit on the light side and had minimal toppings of the regular kind.

Next we went out onto the street, which was not nearly as cold as I thought it would be (apparently it was an unusually warm day). I was struck at how clean and orderly the city was, with wide streets laid in a logical grid pattern (unusual in Japan). Also, there was a thick layer of snow blanketing benches, fence posts and the like, and it was all pure white and untouched. Those virginal little piles of snow were so tempting and I wanted to step in or touch every one I passed, but I resisted. It seemed like a bad thing to do. Very different from Toronto, where any snow that somehow remains untouched quickly turns an ugly grey colour. Sapporo, however, seems to be free from air pollution, children, and dogs.

We broke up into groups, with 5 of us girls going to the Akarenga Government Offices, a historic red-brick building. I have no idea what happened to the others.

From left: Kaori, from Hokkaido; Yuna, from Okinawa; Yui, from Kyoto and living in Okinawa; and Nakata, from Hokkaido. We checked out the building and the small museum in contains, and they stopped a few people to conduct a survey. I wasn’t sure what it was all about, so I just took my time checking out the place.

I was happy to see this window with the original glass- I love antique glass and the way it makes everything all wobbly. Sapporo is a relatively new city, but has suffered less damage from war and natural disasters than elsewhere in Japan, so it has its share of historic buildings.

I would have loved to have checked out more of the city (especially the Sapporo Beer factory), but we had to hurry to get to the event marking the start of the tour. More on that later.

March 30, 2006 - 5:04 pm
Tags: Travel
Categories: Travel

Related Info

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