Yuki Matsuri

The next day we explored the festival displays more fully during the day, returned to our room for a rest in the late afternoon, and then decided to head out and see the festival at night. Many of the bigger sculptures are lit-up with coloured lights after dark, so we decided that we would eat our dinner at the food stands in the area while taking a look. The food stands sold many Hokkaido specialty foods, including grilled sweet corn (which we tried) and crab (which we did not). It got a little cold, though, as tends to happen in the north after dark, so we headed home. Or rather, we tried to. We got a little turned around. The following day we decided to see the Sapporo beer museum and old factory, and also decided that we should go there on foot, mainly because the bus that was mentioned in our tour book did not appear to actually exist. It was a little further than it looked on the map. Truth is, there are two different beer museums, both of which we visited, and both of which are former Sapporo factories that no longer make beer, actual production having been moved out of the city decades ago. The first location was more mall than museum, which was fine because we had already worked up an appetite slogging through the snow. We opted for okonomiyaki, which was filling and warm. After another trek through the snow we found ourselves at the second factory, which was more of the museum that we had been expecting. After the brief walkthrough of the history of Sapporo beer, we ended in the beer garden, which looked rather like a European bar with wooden floors and chairs and a big hearth. I didn’t get any beer myself, but I did find that they had various unusual flavours of ice cream, including curry, squid ink, cream cheese and shiso. I decided on black beer and lavender, both of which were delicious (and cheap). We decided to take the bus back to the city centre, and had lunch there at a very cheap dumpling restaurant (400yen for rice, a small plate of gyoza dumplings, miso soup, and some sort of cabbage salad. We were very tired afterward and simply fell into bed upon our return.
-Take some sort of transportation to the Sapporo beer museum.
-If I wear my gollashes, I will have no problem avoiding puddles and the like, but if I opt for warmer sneakers, I will inevitably find myself standing ankle-deep in a puddle.
-Yebisu, Sapporo and Asahi beers were, at least initially, all made by the same Nippon Brewing Company.
-The Hokkaido baseball team, the Nippon Ham Fighters, train by next to the Sapporo beer garden. Coincidence? I think not.
-Foods for which Hokkaido is famous: crab, dairy, melon, ramen, ‘jengisu kan’ or thinly sliced sheep meat, ikura fish ro, squid.
-sapporo- style okonomiyaki involves a thin pancake, on which you place cabbage and bean sprouts, noodles, sheep, and a fried egg. It’s really good.