Sapporo

The Japanese people have a tremendous amount to offer the world, and I feel robbed by them that they have yet to export their most precious commodity; hot coffee in a can, dispensed from a vending machine. I'm going to have to write a stern letter about this injustice. I've spent the last few days sampling all the different kinds that are available, and have definitely found my favourite with Suntory's "Boss". I know it sounds like a devastatingly bad idea, but this stuff is incredibly good!

Anyhoo, I arrived in Sapporo late yesterday afternoon and felt ambitious after spending 5 hours on two trains so I started the 3km walk to my hotel carrying my backpack. I needed the street 'eki-mae-dori' (pronounced "ehki-maheh-dori"), but couldn't manage to find it. Lonely Planet maps are pretty useless, I've found. After a 20 minutes of fruitless searching I asked a guy installing a sign if he could help me find Eki-mae-dori. This far north, good luck finding a guy on the street who can speak English, so I asked him in Japanese. He fired off at me for about 20 seconds, mindlessly ignoring my attempts to interrupt him and ask him to speak more slowly. Once I got that in, he repeated himself, just as quickly. I whipped out the guide book and pointed to where I wanted to be, and he pointed to where I was; the wrong side of the station. I thanked him and proceeded back through the station and, once on the right side, found my street easily.

Sapporo is the capital of Hokkaido, Japan's northmost (sufficiently populated) island and has a population of about 1.85 million, similar to good ol' Brisbane. It's also the home to Sapporo beer, admittedly my main reason for coming here :P. Like all Japanese towns I've been to, the main street extending from the station is a hive of activity and the city itself seems to live off of it (Eki-mae-dori translates as 'the street in front of the station'). The walk was easy (Sapporo is thankfully flat) and took me past the two subway stations I'd decided to skip, Odori and Susukino, and almost as far as the third. I checked in and decided I'd talk a breif stroll around before getting an early night before a big day.

This morning I slept in. I must be catching up on a few years of missed sleep, but I was out of my hotel at 10 and had a mission. I needed new headphones (my old ones fell apart on the plane from Taiwan), to organise my train ticket to Sendai tomorrow, and to pick up a new book for said train ride. I spent $10 for a day pass on Sapporo's subway system (not covered by my Rail Pass) and headed to the main terminal, where I picked up my tickets without issue, so I was off to buy a book.

It's at this point I learnt a valuable lesson about buying the latest Lonely Planet. The two book stores I wanted (which were listed as selling English books) had disappeared! Not that I could be sure since, again, maps in the Lonely Planet are shit. I asked a lady who was doing some cleaning outside the building I thought I needed and she told me that they'd moved to the main terminal. She complemented my Japanese before making a comment about how she was at first afraid to be asked a question by a foreigner, but explained that she was relieved. I've seen this a lot in Japan. Either the person you're talking to speaks no English, or their simply too embarrased to try to speak to you. There's a general reservation about foreigners here, which works okay since I have no problems working through on oncoming crowd. Everyone just instinctively moves out of your way. I could get used to it :P

I decided I'd try the other book store, and on my way stumbled upon the Apple store (awesome) and picked up my headphones for a fraction of what I'd paid for the old pair in Melbourne. I asked the guy if he knew where this second book shop was, and he told me it used to be where we were, but had moved. He started giving me directions in English and I said to him, quite bluntly, 'you speak english? then why am I talking Japanese?'. We had a chuckle and I was on my way. Found the book store with no problem, although it only had about 20 books in English (but about a million in Japanese).

After that it was time to get on to the main attraction - Sapporo beer museum. I took the subway again (which I'm pretty sure runs on tyres and the car is attached to a guide rail, but it's pretty fast still) and a breif taxi ride and I was there. The museum is actually where they used to make the beer from about 1880 to 1970, but the new place was about 40km out so I skipped it. Inside a very old brick building of three stories I went, surprised to find pretty much no English. Looking at exhibits and movies in Japanese was fun though, but I can't say I understood very much of it. On the second floor they had a little tasting area, where you could buy 3 pots of very unique (and possibly only available there or in Hokkaido) beer for just $4!! The bar staff took my photo with them and off I went. All three were unique, fresh, delicious, and gone quicker than you can say "how much hot canned coffee can I get through customs"!

With my light beer buzz and camera in hand I then headed out to the main lookout of Sapporo, which I knew nothing about but decided to go to after picking up a brouche in the main terminal before organsing tomorrow's train tickets. This took a fair bit of effort, but I enjoyed the journey immensely. I walked back to the subway station (determined to save the $6.50 taxi fare), caught the subway back into Susukino, and then jumped on the street car (tram) to the Ropeway, or Gondola, which heads up the mountain.

I really had no idea what to expect, and I think that made the experience that much more enjoyable. I walked up to the Gondola (picking up a hot canned coffee on the way), paid me $11, and waited patiently. Not a single westerner could be found. Hokkaido is said to draw a lot of tourism, but it must be just from Japan. The Gondola only went up for about 5 minutes, and after walking off the guide said something in very fast Japanese that I couldn't understand. Everyone seemed to mulling around in this sort of waiting area, so I decided it would be best for me to do the same. After we were all collected, the guide continued to yack away for a couple of minutes, but all I could understand was '55 minutes' being said several times. Jokes were made and everybody laughed... so I laughed so as not to look out of place, which of course made me look really out of place.

I was getting confused at this point. I'd paid my money, gone up the ready-to-wet-my-pants-in-fear-gondola ride, and just when I thought it was all about to happen, we were standing around laughing at something, anything. Finally she said something that must have conveyed a sense of urgency to the rest of the group, and everyone started huddling out a side door. I followed, and felt an immense sense of disappointment. There seemed to be no real viewing area, and trees were obstructing an otherwise impressive view. I then noticed that I was the only person trying to take in this particular view, and the only one with a camera out (I'm in Japan people! That's gotta be weird). I turned around, and saw too mini-buses coming down the snow-covered road with treads on. I must have looked hilarously stupid! We had further to go, and it seems a gondola just wasn't going to do the trick.

I would have welcomed the Gondola's relative safety. This was crazy! Up we went on this slippery little windy road towards the top. For camera loving people, nobody seemed to understand that a flash was kind of a silly idea inside a glass box.

Needless to say my earlier apprehension was not warranted. The view from the actual top of this lookout, at 513.03 meters (there was a sign) and just on the edge of Sapporo, I felt completely overwhelmed. Never have I seen anything quite as magnificent as this. Feeling refreshed and seeing a middle-aged couple taking a photo of themselves one at a time, I interrupted as politely as possible and offered to take a photo of them together. We continued our polite conversation in Japanese, talking about where I was from, and how to get the best shot. I felt totally energized by this exchange, which was quickly deminished when I went to the guy who was taking photos of people against the back drop and asked him to take one of me. He explained his little system in Japanese and made me feel like a total retard. I didn't understand anything. Nevertheless, a photo was taken and $6 later I had a nicely printed photo of me standing before Sapporo for my memory box :P

Sapporo is definitely a recommendation for anybody thinking of visiting Japan, but maybe if you don't plan on snowboarding or skiing, you should come around in May or June. The weather right now is incredibly cold. Snow still lines most of the streets, and the lakes in the parks are still mostly frozen over. I don't mind, of course, having never seen snow before in my life I still marvel at it and deliberately walk on it whenever possible, no matter how crazy I know I look to all the locals. Maybe that's why they avoid me in the streets...

Tomorrow, off to Sendai for the night and then an early morning trip on the bullet train to Tokyo!!! I'm very excited about that as I have about 5 friends there that I'm very anxious to catch up with. After nearly a week travelling alone, a warm conversation over a cold beer is just the thing I need.

Hope everyone is doing great, I miss you all very much!
Mike