To Sapporo

On Wednesday morning we got up early and took our hotel’s concierge up on her offer to drive us to the bus station. It really was very nice of her, and we sadly didn’t have any good gifts on hand to give her, and so were forced to just buy the nicest chocolate that was available at the convenience store. The bus was amazing. It didn’t cost any more than the subway would have, but was comfortable, warm, and got us to Sapporo in one vehicle. The driver even stopped at a rest stop to allow everyone to get out and buy snacks or use the bathroom. At this stop I decided to sample something called ‘Potato fry’, which was basically like a thin layer of doughnut around a potato. It was very tasty. The bus dropped us off at Sapporo station, from which we rode the subway to Susukino, where our hotel was. Perhaps ‘hotel’ is not the right term, as it was more like a homey guest house run by an older Japanese couple, where we had a simple but nice room in a traditional style, with the bathing facilities shared between guests. We actually circled it several times before finally finding it. After we’d dropped off our luggage, we took a look at the Snow Festival that we had come to see. It was pretty interesting, with tons of people from all over the world visiting massive and extremely detailed snow and ice sculptures. After looking around a bit we returned to our room, rested, and then headed out for some dinner. We luckily happened upon a cheap but delicious ‘yakiniku’ or ‘grilled meat’ restaurant that had excellently tender meat and the best kimchi (Korean pickled spicy cabbage) that I’ve ever had.
-The streets in Sapporo are laid out on a grid, with all of the blocks numbered based on their distance north, south, east or west of the television tower that is roughly at the centre of the city. This should mean that it is easy to find places in Sapporo, but because it is the blocks and not the intersections or streets that are numbered it can get very confusing.
-Yakiniku restaurants essentially provide patrons with a sort of small grill in the middle of their table, on which they grill their own meat and vegetables to their taste. It’s a lot of fun.
-There are many young women in Sapporo who, despite below freezing temperatures, wear short skirts without stockings or leggings underneath and fashionable but not very warm-looking coats. While I have noticed this in Kyoto, it is far colder in Sapporo, leading me to believe that these girls have no nerves in their legs.