We left Hakodate for Sapporo early in the morning and arrived just before noon. I think I immediately grew to like Sapporo. First of all, compared to Tokyo, Sapporo is so wide open and spacious. It has a city feel, without the density. I would say that this city reminded me of home. See, compared to so many other Japanese cities, the buildings here are fairly new. It doesn’t really scream out “JAPAN” like other places, and yet…it is. I don’t know. It’s rather bizarre in my mind how I’m able to connect the ideas of “Japan” and “spacious urban places” but apparently you can with this place.

Well, first stop of ours was the city’s clock tower. The place has become a real symbol of the city, and it’s said that no trip to Sapporo would be complete without a visit to the clock tower. Although, it was also ranked by Japanese as one of the country’s most disappointing tourist attractions. See, therein lies the issue. It’s not really touristy at all. I mean, yes, it’s a tourist attraction, but the tower’s appeal lies more in its historical context, right? Anyway. In the end of it all, because we went there focused on the historical side of things we really didn’t find it that bad at all.

After a rather disappointing lunch we took a bus over to the beer park. As soon as we got off, we spotted an ice cream shop next to the stop. We ventured in and as expected we found beer flavoured ice cream. Not just that, but it was dark beer flavoured ice cream. Naturally we had to get some. Naturally. And yes, the ice cream tasted like beer. There was a bitter edge to it, but like, it wasn’t unpleasant (to me at least). I thoroughly enjoyed it.

After the beer sweets we started wandering around looking for the exhibits and tour. As we passed by the tourist information booth this middle aged guy came out and greeted us. He seemed to have a little bit of a grasp of English. He was doing rather well communicating with us but he switched syntax often. He asked about ourselves and where we were from. He also asked if we were students. My friend said yes and that he’s going to Columbia University for business. The man uttered an astonished “waaaaaaaa!” and patted him on the back. When it came to me, I tried to say Waterloo. In Japanese though, in never sounds right.

me: Waterloo Daigaku (University of Waterloo)
him: ?_?
me: mm… ウォータール　大学
him: Wataru Daigaku ?_?
me: ¬_¬

Haaarsh. I realize that it might not be as well known internationally as the Columbias and Harvards of the world, but still, it kind of hurts. Instead I followed it up by saying that I studied computer engineering. At that point I got the “waaaaaaaa!” and the pat on the back that my friend got. In fast Japan-glish the guy started saying that he was in the army before, but then tried programming and hated it. I laughed. He was also saying something about how astonishing it is that memory has shrunken down so small into these tiny chips. Yup yup yup. Man, that guy was great! He made our day.

He pointed us over to the beer exhibits where we took in the history of Sapporo Beer Museum. Fascinating stuff–and fascinating displays, really. I never made the association of Hokkaido and beer before, but now…Hokkaido is Sapporo beer. Yes, it is. We made it over to the beer tasting area which was nice. I took a look at the menu and decided on the sampler–3 different kinds of beer for only ¥400. Three half-pints for about $4? Score. They gave me a tray with two light beers and a dark one. At 2 in the afternoon, that might have been a lot of beer. I didn’t get drunk of my ass because we still had some sights to see. Ha. Regardless, it was all quite nice. By far, this was an unexpectedly great stop.

We took a subway out west and then a bus to get to Mt. Moiwa. After the disappointment in Hakodate, we kind of wanted to see a good view at least somewhere. This tourist spot is kind of out of the way and requires a bit more effort to get to, but regardless it really does offer a stunning view. We took a cable car to get up there to the summit. From the observation platform, you could see the trees and buildings all kind of existing harmoniously. Sapporo stretched out a really long way. Off in the distance you could make out Mt. Hakodate–still shrouded in fog. It was all quite exciting to take in. The platform was really windy, and it got cold really fast. There was a school trip that went up to the platform. All of the girls were squealing because the wind was blowing up their school uniform skirts. It was kind of amusing seeing them try to hold them down. SQUEEEEEE. We arrived there late afternoon and wanted to wait for at least dusk to get a view of the night, however, knowing that it took so long to get there (and that it’d take a long time to get back) we just left shortly after sunset. Only about half the city was lit up at that time. Regardless, that was a great stop as well.

Well, we got back to the factory area at around 8:30 or so. We were starving and fully intended on going to that Genghis Khan place we saw on the way to the museum. That restaurant is kind of like a Korean BBQ type place, except that they specialize in lamb meat. Also, the location we spotted was out in open air, so that meant that we wouldn’t get too smoked up. We fully intended to do the all you can eat/drink thing. However, because we got there a bit late, they warned us that we’d only get an hour. We were just too hungry at that point, so we agreed and proceeded to hurry and get stuffed. I had like..2 mugs of beer and a mug of oolong tea. The lamb was so good! All greasy and fattening but holy shit that was just awesome. By the end we didn’t think we got our money’s worth, but it didn’t matter because we were in such a good mood after such a nice day.

That’s Sapporo. Day 3 was the hike back to Tokyo for a quick break. Yesterday I just finished a bit of Kyoto. Today will be Osaka.

More to come!