Day 31-33: 札幌 (Sapporo)

For our mid-term break, HIF organized an optional weekend trip to Sapporo, and it was a blast. After the 6-ish-hour bus ride on Friday, the 40-ish of us arrived at the youth hostel we'd be staying at and dropped off our stuff before beginning to explore the city. I had forgotten how exciting it was to be in a real metropolitan, and I was so glad for this chance to explore – Hakodate is lovely, but definitely a different feel.

The first destination of the group I was with was a huge shopping center located at the Sapporo train station – and specifically, the Pokemon center there. I'm not the biggest Pokémon nerd, but it still was fun to visit (even though the merchandise was very expensive). Afterwards, Aaron and I walked several blocks to visit the Sapporo Beer Museum / Brewery – a popular tourist destination.

Fishing for Pokeballs...

After a little more walking around in a group – passing by a lovely park near the town, and a group protesting nuclear proliferation – we all went searching for a good place to eat. After about an hour of wandering, we arrived at an 居酒屋 (izakaya restaurant) that turned out to be very delicious. At the end of the evening, everyone decided to try out a local club, and I decided to walk home – on the way stopping to ride the ferris wheel that overlooked the entire city.

Saturday, early in the morning, we had a meet-and-greet "party" with local university students. I'm not sure "party" was the right term for a 9:30am gathering, but all the same, it was another opportunity to interact with friendly local people and share our languages, backgrounds, and dreams.

The rest of the day, I was feeling the need to explore a little on my own, to refresh and reflect on my experience. I spent some time at the nearby botanical gardens, walking around and thinking and praying. Re-exploring the questions: What is my purpose here? What am I to learn? What do you have to show me, Lord?

After the botanical gardens and more walking, I found a restaurant that served hamburgers and tacos, and was intrigued at the thought of what a Japanese taco would be. The rest of the afternoon I spent reading a novel, The Alchemist, that I had received a few years prior but had never gotten around to reading.

 

In the evening, I dropped into a bookstore and was amazed by the quantity of books. It wasn't that different from any large bookstore you'd find in America, but the fact that they were all in Japanese – all containing information that was as of yet mostly beyond my comprehension – was fascinating. I eventually found a couple of Japanese workbooks at half the price they would be in the states, and bought them. I also stumbled upon a huge selection of sheet music in the bookstore, and was nerdily excited because you will never find this quantity of music books in a US chain bookstore!

That evening for dinner, eight of us went to a nearby Genghis Khan restaurant (delicious lamb meat cooked at your table – refer to my Onuma post), which was once again a delicious experience. Later that night, I and three friends went to do karaoke – my first time, in fact – and I had a lot of fun singing (perhaps more screaming at times) late into the night. 

Sunday morning we climbed back on the bus and I slept for most all of the 6 hours back. All in all, I quite enjoyed Sapporo, and could even see myself living in a city like this – busy, but not huge, and clean!

The youth hostel – 10 of us packed into a tatami room

Hello, Kitty