First Day in Sapporo

We were up really early during our first day in Sapporo -- couldn't sleep past 5:00.  Thus, we decided to head out into the city and see what we could find for breakfast.  Being a Sunday morning, the simple answer was not much!  Most places were closed until about 7:00. 

We are staying in a part of Sapporo called Susikino which, while having a very affordable place for us to stay, is also the main nighttime entertainment district of the city -- in other words, it can be a bit "seedy" in places.  It is packed with young people looking for a good time at night.  By morning though, most of these people don't look too good!  We saw all of these "all nighters" heading home while we were just getting ready to eat breakfast.  Many of them went to the same McDonald's that we went to -- McDonald's being the only thing open this early.  I'll say this -- the food at McDonald's here (eg. Egg McMuffin, etc...) looks better than it does at home as the quality control is a lot better but it is still pretty damn unhealthy.  When you're dying of hunger though, you do what you have to do, just like the desperately hung over people with us did!

Next door to our hotel is a "love hotel".   If you're unfamiliar with what a "love hotel" is, consider how crowded Japan can be and how extended families sometimes still live together.  When this is the case in small apartments, it can be difficult for young married people and other young couples to find any quality time alone.  Thus, they will rent hourly rooms at love hotels.

Once we made our way out of Susikino, we went down to the main JR station.   An interesting site here was a beer garden, right outside of the station.   This is something that I have never seen in North America.  It was a pretty neat little place with lots of seating.  We did not stop in because it was too early and it was too cold in the morning (temp was around 17C).  In the afternoon it got really hot and it would have been nice to stop by and try Hokkaido's finest beers (Hokkaido, being the major agricultural prefecture of Japan is known for its beer) but water seemed like a healthier choice.  We'll probably stop in there some afternoon before we leave.

 

Another interesting observation was how every company here seems to have some sort of animated "cute" mascot.  A bank we walked by had a display of little animated characters which represent the company.   Again, not something that one sees often in North America for these types of companies.  We also saw something that we thought was funny and strange.  At a small police station near the beer garden there was a wall with posters of wanted individuals.  Along with these mug shots was a poster for the latest Bruce Willis "Die Hard" movie!   I guess that the police here really like that film...

We went for a really long walk away from the station and found ourselves at the campus of Hokkaido University.   This is a huge and beautiful campus.  It would be a pleasure to attend this university just for the scenery (although in the winter I'm sure that there is tons of snow and it is probably quite cold).  We could have strolled around this campus all afternoon.   In fact, a lot of people seem to do this -- non-students walking their dogs, drawing pictures, or just taking in nature.  One of the funniest things (from the perspective of a Saskatchewan person like myself) was the "Institute of Low Temperature Science"!  Now, it does get very cold here in Hokkaido in the winter relative to the rest of Japan and I can see how this would be a seemingly important area of study.  But, it gets a lot colder in Saskatchewan in the winter -- if anything, our universities should have this type of institute.  We could probably teach the world a lot.

At the end of the day, we headed out to a pub for supper and then to a summer festival taking place in Sapporo's Odori Park.  This park is quite interesting as it basically straddles the middle of the city.  The original intent of the park was supposedly to act as a fire barrier in the days when most of the city was constructed of wood.  The park takes up many city blocks and is an oasis of green in a sea of concrete.  It is interesting to note that Sapporo is one of the few large cities in Japan that is built on a grid street pattern.  This gives Sapporo a sense of order that is lacking in most other Japanese cities.  Sapporo was designed in the 1800's on European/American principles -- it wasn't designed to keep out invading samurai armies!  Thus, it is really easy to get around in. 

The summer festival was packed with lots of people -- old and young.  More beer gardens and lots of singing and dancing. 

At one point an old man said "herroooo!" to me in English but I didn't get it -- I just kept walking as I thought that he was saying something to someone in Japanese.  Hana was kind of ticked off at me for being rude!  I felt bad as I like to be a friendly foreigner but I just didn't know that the guy was talking to me.  We saw one funny site -- a guy with his dog dressed up like a person.  The dog was "driving" a remote-control car and was covered in anti-drinking and driving slogans.   Apparently this guy's job was to go around with his dog (which attracted a lot of attention) promoting sober driving.  This was the most original anti-drinking and driving idea I've ever seen....