Starting from the North

Thursday, May 11, 2017
Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan

We experienced yet another seamless transition from Osaka to Sapporo on a short and pleasant two hour flight . I'm starting to think this is going too well. We took the more adventurous option and caught the train into town and then the subway to our hotel. Not too much of a drama apart from carrying a suitcase up and down multiple flights of stairs. 

Our optimism was soon dampened though when we emerged from the subway to find that it was raining quite heavily. However continuing in the theme of luck being on our side a taxi drove past quite slowly so on a whim I hailed it, it stopped and we jumped in as quickly as we could to avoid getting too wet. Our driver didn't seem to be familiar with our hotel so there was a lot of Googling and talking on phones to the depot but eventually our driver gave a triumpant nod and we were off. After about 15 seconds the driver pulls over and we are parked outside of our hotel. We all laugh and we ask the driver how much. He says no charge with a smile and we jump out and the driver pulls all our bags back out of his boot and we thank him profusely and wave good bye . What a great guy!

Our mission for the evening is to find an apparently elusvie Ramen alley. Turns out the Receptionist at the hotel speaks immaculate English and describes how to get there to us in great detail. We set off in light rain on foot. Its cold and wet but we are warmed by the festive atmosphere. There is music and light (in a Vegas kind of way) and an immediate sense of hapiness as we walk down the street. This is what I perhaps expected in the bigger cities but was pleasantly suprised to find it in Sapporo. We found a cosy ramen ya that served extremely cold beer and fabulous warming ramen complete with butter from the dairy cows of Hokkaido. Yet another wonderful welcome to a fascinating country. 

We were well aware that the Cherry Blossom Season in Sapporo had officially closed but only just. So I was still determined to see the flowers and experience just a little of that hanami madness. So with a fair amount of persistence we evenually arrived at Maruyama Park and to our delight quite a few of the trees were still in bloom and there were a significant number of stragglers just like us wandering amongst the blossoms as they fell to the ground like snow and snapping away with expensive cameras fitted with very large zoom lenses.

After wandering the length and breadth of the park we had walked our designated number of steps according the fit bit, backed up the by fact that my feet hurt and my legs were aching. We retreated back to consumer heaven aka Sapporo central and found a teppanyaki bar where we could rest and refuel on okunamiyaka and yakisoba - oishii desu!!

 

Comments

Lis Chappell
2017-05-12

Natsukashii!! So jealous. And so you've found your first ramenya with Nama-biiru. I loved those. Remember to ask for a good izakaya (jap-/style pub) - they are awesome!!!

2025-02-10

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