Sapporo

So yesterday was my first full day here in Sapporo, and I gotta say this is a great city. Sapporo is the 5th largest city in Japan, and one of the newest. Which means one very big thing - streets here actually make SENSE. Instead of wonderful naming like <bank street> because 50 years ago there may have been a bank, its grid based and divided into N/S/E/W and how many blocks away from city center.

Anyways, I arrived here by train and met up with a guy named Neil, from Chicago. Nice chap. Asked him if he was staying at the hostel too and sure enough he was. So we head that way, I find out he:s up here a couple of days while his friend he was visiting is off working. Before this he was up in Russia. Anyways we make it there and I find out that hes staying, in fact, at a different Hostel. Shame really the place he is at, Ino:s Place, seemed very nice, had good internet (although not free), and just looked awesome, So I had to go back and find my own place. FINALLY got there about 9pm. Thankfully the place Im staying at is pretty nice, very friendly very clean. No decent internet though which bites.

Sapporo is very different from your traditional city in another respect. It has wide open spaces. Not nearly as cramped as Tokyo or any place I:ve been in, but still quite a big city. Right in the middle they have a TV tower done up to look like the Eiffel Tower. Tokyo has a similar looking structure. They seem to have a real big thing for France. Ran into a couple of other Gaijin, this time two guys who are here as missionaries for the Mormon Church. Didn't chat with them long but they helped me find the nearest subway station on the way back to the Hostel.

Needed to buy some things so headed to a department store.. ok first floor is womans so take the escalator up. 2nd is womans. 3rd is womans. 4th is womans... starting to get concerned here... 5th womans... 6th... household items... 7th.. MENS. Finally! I get the impression women here like to shop even more then back home! I get a kick out of the department stores though.. one woman takes your item, another takes your money, and a third wraps your clothing up and gives you the bag, all while bowing. Pretty cool service, if not a big excessive.

At this point I was pretty sore and tired so decided to use the Japanese style bath. Now for those that don't know a Japanese bath isn't at all like what we are used to over here. There are RULES you must follow see. The bath is a communal area you can relax in after showering off. The key is AFTER, because the last thing you want to do is sit in dirty water where other guys were, so its vital that you completely clean off and completely remove all soap before entering. Far more clean then what we have in North America. So here I am scrubbing off when some Japanese guy goes in and goes into the bath FIRST, without scrubbing off! I was absolutely disgusted, and found it a bit ironic that the one guy in the room that should know the rules didn't, and me being a gaijin was sitting there disgusted. Sufficed to say I wont be touching that bath while I'm here.

So thats my story for yesterday, today I'm off to the Sapporo Beer tour, and then Otaru.

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