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Published: October 5th 2007
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So, seeing as it keeps raining in Tokyo, I decided to go ahead with my plans to goto Hokkaido. Turns out that I basically only had 1 day and a half to spend in The Way to the Northern Ocean. So I decided that I will spend that day in Sapporo. Three things that I really care about from Hokkaido.
1) Their famous Ramen
2) Their famous beer
3) Their abundance of fresh sea food
So on arrival, at 9PM, I checked into a Ryokan and quickly ran to the closest Ramen establishment. Actually it's called Ramen Republic, and it's basically a group of stalls representing some of the most famous Ramen restaurants in the city, and yes, it's in a mall.
Speaking of malls... I've definitely got my share of malls in Japan. The Underground Mall in Sapporo actually stretches 6-7 city blocks. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
After I had my shoyu ramen (my server looked like a girl out of an anime, constant smiling with her big eyes and saying "ok" while making the ok sign with her hands), I took a stroll over to the clock tower, which looked like a miniature eiffel tower with
Sam
The King Crab lights, and as soon as I arrived at the tower, the clock struck 10PM and all the lights turned off around me, leaving me standing there in the dark with a bunch of kids practicing their break-dancing moves... But a brief stroll in the Sapporo night left me with the impression that this was a far more "residential" city than tokyo. With kids playing outside in the park and family walking around the main squares of the city. On my way back I planned for my only day in this city.
So this is how I divided up my day in Sapporo (if you care to read about my Hokkaido adventure in excruciating detail):
First, I would wake up in the morning, and figure out how to use the subway system. This ended up being a little harder than I'd expected (seeing as that there are only 2 subway lines in the city), and took up a little more time than expected, and in any case I ended up walking most of the way to the fish market.
The reason I walked the whole way to the fish market was because I thought I was walking in the subway station,
and unbeknownst to myself, I was actually walking through half of the city through the underground mall. By the time I found the "train station," I was already at the stop that I was supposed to get off at... at least I was walking in the right direction =P
So the fish market... it's basically a block of vendors selling fresh seafood, and at your request, they will make whater dish you want right there for you. The Hokkaido King Crabs are pretty famous, and they are bigger than my head. I took a picture with one of the king crabs, and I named it Sam. I asked if I could have Sam for breakfast, at which point the store owner laughed and told me Sam would cost 100 bucks to eat or keep as pet. So I returned Sam to his tank.
So instead I had some salmon sashimi and salmon roe over rice... it was pretty damn fresh, and good.
After my little adventure in the fish market I decided that I will check out the famous Ramen Alley. Which is supposed to be an alleyway lined with ramen shops. Awesome...
Except when I got there, there were
more strip clubs and pink cabaret than noodle shops. Yep, the ramen alley is the city's pleasure district. It's really just too good to be true... music and women AND ramen?!?!
In anycase, I got totally sketched out when a dude came over and told me he's got beautiful japanese girls "upstairs," this was 11 in the morning mind you, and a few of the noodle shops weren't even open.
So I left, thinking fondly of Ramen Republic the night before.
My next destination was the Hokkaido University Botanical Garden. There were nice flowers and lots of plants and fresh air. But not much more there. It was a good break to sit and relax and plan my journey to the other garden: The Sapporo Beer Garden.
The Beer Garden lies at the perimeter of the city, and to get there I took the subway to the last stop (there are maybe 5 or 6 stops all together in the entire city), and when I got out, I was shocked to find that I was in New Jersey.
Or Silver Spring, or any of the other suburbs in the world. Yes, I suppose all suburbs look the same. According to
Lonely Planet, after I get off on the last stop, just walk south and I will see the Star that is the symbol Sapporo. So there I was, walking around like a mad man after about 30 minutes, not seeing any stars of any sort. And no one around to ask directions. Just me walking on the sidewalk amongst passing cars... Until finally, finally! a middle schooler led me to the promised land. Turns out that the beer garden was overshadowed by a humongous complex that can only be the japanese version of Walmart or Costco. So there I was, content, standing infront of the old beer factory, wondering if this was just a mirage...
Sapporo beer was Japan's first beer, established in the 1800's after this dude went to Germany and was impressed with beer, blahblahblah, so anyway after zipping through the museum part of it, I sat down and ordered myself some barbeque meat and some sapporo beer.
I was modest, and ordered a medium. In the country where my extra large orange juice looked like a happy-meal size, I figured a medium would be a good place to begin, and maybe I'll order some more later...
So
a medium sized beer in this beer heaven is about 1.5 liters. Which makes me feel like I really should've ordered a large if only to see just how large "large" is... So 40 minutes later, content with barbequed lamb and 1.5 liters of beer in my belly, I waved goodbye to this beautiful place and took the train back home. On my way back, I got caught in the rain (yes, it seems that in Hokkaido rain can just start out of nowhere and then stop 15 minutes later, with sunny blue sky all over again.
At some point in the night, I got a headache. After flipping through my phrase book, I decided that I would either say atama itei (head pain) or zu-tsu (headache). And so I walked over to a 7-11 and asked for medicine for zu-tsu.
The guy looked at me.
Atama Itei! (good thing I had a backup phrase). So he lead me to the drug aisle, and all I see are meds for diarrhea...
Atama Itei! ... No?
The guy stood there, and nodded his head.
No medicine for atama?
Again he stood there and nodded his head.
at this point I didn't
really know what else to say. So we stood there, looking at each other, the situation not helping with my already killer headache. Finally... tentatively, I said "ok," more to myself than to him actually. At this point he bows politely and walked away.
So I guess he was standing there that whole two minutes looking at me waiting for me to say ok so he can go back to work...
So that's sapporo... To be honest I really liked it, a very charming city with really nice people.
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