Susan's Shanghai Blog - Week 85

We  spent additional time just roaming around Sapporo. Near to our hotel is this church, which had a bright blue tin roof with a very old English style.

And speaking of hotels, this is our hotel from across one of the larger roads. It looks quite big from this view. One good thing is that it was taller than alot of the buildings around it, so we could get directions by looking for the top of the hotel building.

The Clock Tower is the historical and cultural symbol of the city of Sapporo. The building is of American design and is one of the few surviving Western-style buildings in Sapporo, a city developed in the 1870s with assistance from the American government. It originally was a drill hall for the Sapporo Agricultural College, which was the first institution for Agricultural Studies in Japan. The addition of the clock was completed in 1881,with the clock being manufactured by the E. Howard Watcch & Clock company from Boston, and shipped to Japan. Upstairs, there is a display which explains the parts of the clock and even has letters from the company in Boston.

Lots of bikes in Sapporo, and they are all nicely lined up along the sidewalk.

This the famous Sapporo TV Tower, which was just a couple blocks south of our hotel. It was built in 1957 at the Eastern edge of Odori park. It is 147.2 meters tall with an observation deck at around 90 meters. It was built by the same architect who planned the Tokyo Tower. The digital clocks that you can see (at about 65 meters up) were installed in 1961. We don't normally do this, but we went ahead and bought the picture of us super-imposed in front of the tower (and then I took a picture of the picture).

From the observation deck, you get a great view of Sapporo, which sprawls out.

Looking West from the observation deck platform, you can see Odori Park. Odori means "large street" in Japanese, and the park stretches from Nishi 1 chome to Nishi 12 chome, dividing the city into North and South sections. Nishi means West and chome means block in Japanese, so the park runs from the first "west" block to the 12th "west" block. They hold several events in the park, including the Sapporo beer festival and the Sapporo snow festival. You can also see the mountains out to the West of the city.

As we walked through the park, there were flowers and water fountains everywhere.

As the name indicates, this is the Pencil building. I couldn't find any information on the building itself.

There are a couple covered shopping arcades, this one being Tanukikoji. It is a ten block long outdoor shopping arcade where you can find everything from clothing, jewelry and souvenirs to nightclubs, cafes and restaurants.

Of course with Tom being a Jersey-boy, we had to take a picture of the Jersey Bar :-)

Lunch was Ramen. Ramen is famous in Sapporo (or perhaps Sapporo is famous for its' ramen). They even have a "ramen alley" in the Susukino area. We wound our way around until we found it, and then we eventually found the one ramen shop that we were looking for. Aji no Karyu is the ramen shop that was showcased in an episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations show. It was quite a little shop, with probably only 10-15 stools at a counter.

One of the interesting things that they highlighted on the show was the use of corn in the ramen. We ordered two different types of ramen, one with corn, along with a set of gyoza, which are pan-fried japanese dumplings. I make these at home now (my Japanese friend Hitomi taught me how to make them), but we had to try the "real thing" as well.

The meat with the ramen is seasoned and cooked right there, and we were lucky enough to try to get some pictures (although not that great of ones, sorry) on the meat getting turned and back in the oven.

Next up was a ride on one of the street cars. There are basically two tram lines in the area around Odori Park and Susukino, so we made sure we grabbed a ride on one. The first section on the network opened in 1909 as the Sapporo Stone Horsecar Railway. It moved from horse-power to electrical power in 1918 and at its' peak in 1958, there were 11 lines and covered 25 kilometers. Most lines were removed due to the opening of the subway and the increase in car ownership. We rode on a red one and you can see that it is still quite an old-style car.

We saw these mini-vans everywhere. We don't really know what they are, but we assume that they are for political candidates, driving around telling people what the candidates stand for.

The Sapporo Grand Hotel was opened in 1934 and at that time, it was the tallest building in the city. Supposedly constructed at Prince Chichibu's suggestion that the city needed a Western-style hotel. It had a room where it kept photos and memorabilia of the famous people who have visited, including the New York Yankees in 1955.

The Former Hokkaido Government Building was built in 1873, and was then one of the largest buildings in Japan. It was destroyed by fire in 1879. If you remember the historical village from Week 82, one of the first pictures shows the replica of the Kaitakushi Sapporo Headquarters of the Colonization (the same building) as it looked prior to burning down. You can see the similarities with the octagonal dome. When it was rebuilt (1909 and again in 1911), it was done in red bricks. It was restored in 1968.

Last of the tourist-stuff for the day was the Botanical Garden of Hokkaido University. We first headed to the Rose Garden, where 200 rose bushes are planted from 20 different varieties. We ended up being there at a decent time of the year since alot were in bloom.

This one is called "Superstar" and the variety dates from 1966 (we were looking for ones that came from my birth-year).

Then we came to Hokkaido's oldest museum, built in 1882, the Museum and National Treasures. Inside the colonial-style building are stuff animals, including the only existing specimens of the Ezo wolf.

Then through the Canadian Rock Garden, which was opened in 2001 to commemorate a partnership with the University of British Columbia, and the Alpine Plants Rock Garden (opened in 1938).

Then into the Greenhouse, which contained a zone for tropical rainforest plans and ferns, and a zone for succulents and orchids.

Another time at the beer festival and yes, for those of you keeping track, that is Susan with ANOTHER beer. This is what ... more beer in a single trip than the rest of my life???

As we headed for dinner, we went by the big ferris wheel.

Dinner was this little tiny place in an older building. It doesn't really look like much from the outside, does it? This is Robata-yaki Utari. A typical Robata with a small menu where you picked out which things you wanted. The restaurant was quite small and very rustic. You can see that it has the typical bar with stools around it. In the middle, you can somewhat make out the little grill. In one of the picture, you can also see the fish hanging from the ceiling.

We went with the Plum wine and the Yuzu wine tonight.

The meal starts with the "cover charge" item, which is listed as pickles although it was more like pickled veggies.

We grab a couple pictures of the lady cooking things on the grill. You can see the big thing she has with tongs is bread, and then the green is asparagus. The white round things are actually rice balls that get grilled.

We ordered grilled scallop, then fish (I don't remember which one). We quickly figured out that we aren't very good at eating a whole fish, tho at the end, it reminded us of the cartoons that had the fish skeleton. Then a couple prawns/shrimp .. also a bit difficult to eat. The foil-covere

The potato ended up being a baked potato with butter, cooked on the grill (yummy). The rice ball was a little interesting. You remember it was white on the grill to start, and ends up having a crispy brown coating on it.

And then to end .. we headed back to the hotel, catching a few pictures of the lights of the Susukino area.