Snowy, snowy, snowy Sapporo
Sapporo was the first stop on my Japan trip with little planning, and you’ll have to keep reading to see if it showed.
Upon Arrival
First of all, don’t arrive at the Sapporo airport after 9PM.
Everything that could be useful or helpful to you will be closed.
I arrived after 9PM in Sapporo, and it took me a loooong time to figure out how to exit the airport and arrive at my hotel. My friend, who had arrived earlier in the day, said it took her 2 hours to leave the airport because of all the little inconveniences we were unprepared for. Even with her advice, I felt frustrated at each part of the arrival process.
I wonder if this process would have been easier if we had arrived in Tokyo rather than Sapporo because that airport is highly geared to foreigners comparatively.
On the flight, I somehow missed the arrival documents that we needed to fill out. When I was in the immigration line, they officer asked for my paperwork, and I handed him my passport. He then pointed to show me that I needed to fill out the document. Because there were so many people filling out the paperwork that there wasn’t any surface space to write, I stood amongst them like a double parked car using one of my hands as a flat surface. This seemed to annoy one of the airport employees, so they made only me walk to another section of the airport the fill out the form.
I felt embarrassed for being singled out and for being somehow perceived as a nuisance while worrying if I would have to re enter from the back of the line after filling out the information.
The officer who moved me away from the crowd ended up letting me through the line from the front, and then I walked to the next section, which seemed to be customs. There were signs to scan a QR code to fill out information and register yourself to make it faster. There was a bunch of machines to scan your passport to fill out the information. I tried these machines 4-5 times to no avail and then tried the QR code.
There were parts of the web registration that were also confusing, and I didn’t fill it out completely until I walked up to an officer, who finally told me that I should just fill out a paper form for customs and submit it. AFTER ALL THAT TIME.
This is when I finally contacted my friend, and she told me that I could try to head to the train station ticket booth to buy a rail pass for Hokkaido. She also emphasized that I would need to buy a train ticket to leave the airport, but also I would need cash to buy a subway ticket.
Did I exchange any money while in Taiwan? Nope. We were booking hotels the day before arrival.
All the exchange places were closed because it was after 9PM, and when I arrived at the train station ticket booth, they said that they could no longer sell me a rail pass because that section of the office was closed, so I bought an airport rail ticket to the subway station.
Next, I walked around the airport to find an ATM, and for some reason, I only found ATMs that had phones attached and saying they were for local banks. Furthermore, these ATMs were CLOSED because they required calling someone with the attached phone.
I started to panic that I wouldn’t be able to get out of the airport, or I would be stuck at the subway station somehow. After taking the train to the subway station, I found an ATM that took international cards and was able to buy the correct subway ticket to the hotel. WOOO
As soon as I left the subway with my carry-on roller suitcase and backpack, I was in a park in three inches of snow dragging my carry on with my body weight to the hotel, which was a 10 min walk from the station. It was quite exhausting to say the least.
First Meal
While I was on the airport train to Sapporo city, I saw this heartwarming group of young men shouting, waving, and cheering their friend who had boarded the train. If you look at the first picture in the gallery, this is a glimpse at their love and joy. I found this especially heartwarming in the midst of a country who is dealing with immense loneliness.
By the time I arrived at the hotel, it was 10:30 PM, and my friend and I were hungry. We ventured off to a bar restaurant that opened late, and the staff were so surprised to see us both as two women and as two foreigners. There were some Japanese businessmen at the table behind us well into their drinking.
Looking through the menu felt like looking through an American diner menu because there was such a random assortment of food genres. We were finally ready to order, and when no one came to take our order for 8 minutes, I walked downstairs to the bar area to ask if we could order. A staff person came to take our order, and he pointed to our table that there was a button where we could call them over. So funny and embarrassing because we have those in Asian restaurants in America now and in other parts of Asia. For some reason, neither of us noticed this button, so we all laughed together. The staff asked where we were from and seemed excited to have foreigners eating there.
Above in the photo gallery is all of the food we ate for our first meal in Japan. We had raw octopus with basil and tomatoes in the dead of winter, an uni omelette with cheese sauce, pork belly with a kind of sacha sauce, and teriyaki chicken. I can’t tell if we were so tired and hungry that everything was delicious or if it was delicious regardless. No matter what, when I look at this first meal, it doesn’t seem like a stereotypical Japanese meal in the least.
Official Day 1
[Video description: Someone holding an umbrella as a shield against snow and wind on a city street.]
The weather in Sapporo was hectic y’all! From the video, you can see that we bought a typical Japanese umbrella at Family Mart and are using it as a shield against the snowy wind that never ceases to blow us this way and that on the streets of this northern city. We were likely a spectacle in this quiet Japanese city. Heh
Late last night, we had seen a long line in front of this restaurant on our way to our 10:30PM dinner and wondered what it was. It looked like it was miso ramen, which is a must have in Sapporo. It’s the birthplace of Miso ramen!
Therefore, the next morning, we walked by it, and already there was a small line forming. When we looked it up on google maps, we found that it’s called Yukikaze and had 2,594 reviews at 4.0 stars. Since it opened at 11AM and it was already 10:30AM, we decided to wait in line and see what the hype was all about.
While the gyoza was nothing to write home about, the miso ramen was truly delicious. Because of the long lines, many places in Japan like this one will have a waiter come outside and take orders for the front half of the line. Once you sit inside the restaurant, the food comes out quickly.
While I consider myself a fast eater by American standards, MY GOSH, they eat ramen SO FAST in Japan. We had barely eaten a quarter of our ramen before many of the people who entered before and after us were leaving because they were done. The slurp is no joke! The ramen broth was almost TOO RICH, which feels weird to say. It was so good that it felt overindulgent.
Afterwards, we went to the Sapporo Beer Museum and Beer Hall by calling an uber. The Ubers in Japan are the same as the old school taxis where they crank the doors open from the driver side of the car. That taxi driver told us that he was Korean but grew up in Japan. Mouth open in awe, the first thing running through my brain was “Wha! Like in Pachinko!” When he dropped us off, without coordinating, we both bowed and said, “감사합니다 gamsahamnida!”
The museum has a free self-guided experience where you can go at your own pace and read as much or little as you want about the history of Sapporo beer. It ends at the beer hall where you can order a flight, a speciality beer, or other drinks through a vending machine. My friend ordered a speciality beer and I ordered a corn tea that they put in a Sapporo glass, so I felt included in the beer hall experience.
The last picture in the above gallery is a box that has bags of salt that encourages people to spread when it’s icy and snowy where they’re walking. This is an example of the communalism at work in Asian culture.
Nijo Market
[Video description: Shellfish of varying sizes and types on ice like a fruit market display with prices written on pieces of paper.]
After the Sapporo Beer Museum, we went to Nijo market where they sell so much fresh seafood. In the video, you can see how big some of these crabs are! Amazing!
After walking up and down the Nijo market salivating for all the different shellfish, we tried to buy from this kind old man, but he ended up gesturing to us that he couldn’t cook the seafood for us right away. Choosing a vendor became easier after that since my friend and I looked for places that could cook the seafood right away. We ended up choosing two giant crab legs that weren’t even King Crab legs but a bit more medium. Regardless, it was fascinating to watch him steam, chop, and carve the legs before serving.
They were so fresh, delicious, and actually affordable compared to buying this much crab at a restaurant. Because we were both bad at math, we didn’t realize that we had spent $80 on crab and decided to forgoe dinner after that. The American part of me did wish that I could have eaten it with butter or mayonnaise rather than soy sauce.
Day 2
On our last day in Sapporo, my friend decided to dye her hair after I dyed my hair the evening before from blonde to dark gray (a story for another time). I ended up wandering around downtown Sapporo while having continuous diarrhea. Lucky for me, the easy access to public toilets and the prevalence of bidets made this more bearable. I blame the fresh Hokkaido dairy products for my pain. Delicious and devious.
We had curry ramen from Soup Curry Garaku for lunch, and this restaurant also had a long line to the restaurant. When we finally sat down, we noticed that the restaurant was not full at all. Only about 80% of the seats were filled at once! While the ramen was good, it was not as memorable to me as the miso ramen from the first restaurant. It did have a good spice level though.
I have a deep love for soufflé pancakes, and the picture outside this restaurant made me think this would fulfill my soufflé pancake dreams. Unfortunately, they were not the cloud-like texture that melts in your mouth. Rather, it was mostly cream as you can see and the taste and texture of the pancake was more like a traditional pancake than the lightness of a soufflé. We also got a Hokkaido basque style cheesecake, which also was not life changing.
While we were supposed to go to Otaru on day two, we ended up staying in Sapporo instead and did a lot of shopping. The top two things that I bought here that I highly recommend and are not at Donki are the Orbis Hair Milk for my bleached dry hair and the Prédia Kose Head Cleanse Spa for my sensitive, dry, and itchy scalp. Both of these products are so life changing, and I’m so sad that you can’t get them anywhere else but Japan!
