Sapporo, Hokkaido

Jalan.net is a great website for booking accommodation in Japan.

It has a really good search system where you can look for accommodation in specific parts of Japan (e.g. Asakusa area in Tokyo) which is something most websites don’t offer, as well as narrow down your choices according to room type, budget, with meals etc. You also earn points for all the bookings made through the site, which can be redeemed on your next booking in most cases. The only drawback is that the site is in Japanese only, but it’s so easy to use if you know enough Japanese to navigate around.

it was through Jalan that i booked my accommodation for Hokkaido. Our first hotel in Sapporo was the Weekly Sapporo 2000 in Susukino, the entertainment district of Sapporo. It was a business hotel and cheap at 2500yen, with all the amenities of a business hotel (shower and ofuro, towels, bathrobe, etc) and even a microwave, sink and stove, cooking utensils and cutlery.

Our second hotel was Hotel Tokeidai (clock tower) and was even cheaper at about 2100yen per night. It’s within 5min walk from Sapporo station, has really friendly receptionists and all the amenities of a business hotel too, plus an electric kettle and green tea. It’s so cheap and good that i’d recommend it to everyone who’s thinking of visiting Sapporo.

nearby our first hotel is this really cool building:

check out the crazy detail on the facade of the human’s face – i think there was a claw somewhere too. i like the spanish-style building opposite too.

we didnt do much in sapporo, except go for breakfast at Nijo market. All the food seemed really expensive, and we finally went into this store that promised crab soup with every set meal ordered – an empty promise by the way. this stall has been patronised by many famous people, but i didnt really like the food there. seafood dons are usually served with sushi rice – cold and seasoned with sweet vinegar. but this was just regular rice, warm and bland. needless to say i was a little disappointed.

 

there was also this funny sign in the ladies’ toilet at Nijo market. i’m just wondering how anyone could use a sitting toilet incorrectly. I understand that lots of places in Japan – Hokkaido especially – have a problem with tourists from China throwing the used toilet paper into the wastepaper basket as they do in their own country, but i’ve never seen a how-to poster for a sitting toilet – the signs are in English too, and as far as i know most English-speaking people have a problem with squat toilets but not sitting ones:

we also went to the Sapporo Beer Festival. it was cool because each major beer company in Japan occupied one spot of Odori Park; you can ‘bar hop’ from Asahi to Kirin to Sapporo and so on by just walking down the length of the park. Unlike beer gardens in Osaka, the food and drink aren’t free flow, so if you want to drink and eat lots it’ll come up to quite a lot.

it’s nice though, for a mid-day drink and relax, which is what most people there were doing. being in Sapporo, we had to try the local beer, but i ended up having the Yebisu premium dark instead – Yebisu, by the way, is the best beer in Japan. The larger mug below is 1.5 litres if i remember correctly, but surprisingly it wasn’t very popular with the crowd that was there.

the Ishiya factory is one must-see in Sapporo, as it’s the manufacturer of the famous Shiroi Koibito cookies and is housed in a beautiful Tudor-style building:

its interior is gorgeous:

 

it was very random, but i liked this exhibit – part of a feature section on japanese toys over the years:

and proof that calpis is quite an old drink and no recent invention – this section was featuring things from the 1950s i think:

the production of shiroi koibito requires more manpower than i thought it would, and check out the many discarded biscuits that didnt meet production standards because they’re either too charred or under-baked:

 

at the start of every hour, the clock tower and the area surrounding the rose garden outside the factory building will have a musical performance. my favourite part is where bubbles are released into the air. again, it’s best to visit Hokkaido in mid-july – the Ishiya factory has a rose-festival that was from 11th to 19th july this year where its garden’s huge, gorgeous roses are in full bloom.

 

 

on this visit, i even managed to take a ride on the train – it was quite a lame ride (most were children :P) but it’s fun to do this kind of silly stuff on holiday:

when in hokkaido, you have to eat seafood. nearing the end of our trip, we splurged on crabs at the restaurant with the famous moving crab signboard – it’s a photo-op on the dotonburi in osaka, but we had to go all the way to Hokkaido to eat at their restaurant. there was a lot of food involved, like tofu with crab meat, and this really really delicious porridge with egg and crabmeat. the porridge was the last dish, and i was really stuffed by then, but it was so tasty and i ended up finishing almost all of it:

and the rest of our crab feast. the hairy crab was boiled – it’s apparently in season now – while the snow crab came in sashimi form. i dont think the snow crab was very fresh though, but the hairy crab was delicious!:

i want more of that crab porridge…