Sapporo's Snow
Trip Start
Dec 16, 2007
1
36
42
Trip End
Feb 24, 2008
Sapporo,
Japan
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Our first day in Sapporo was set aside for exploring the city itself and, more importantly, the Snow Festival. We had to set an alarm to make sure we were up in time for the end of the free breakfast at 9:30am, however this wasn't too bad because Steve takes considerably less time to get up in the morning than Belinda.
Following breakfast we walked a few blocks up from the hotel in the snow-filled streets to take the tram. The 8.5km system is a balloon shape, running from the centre of town out to the southern suburbs and then returning to terminate just a few blocks south of its start point. We used it to travel south to the base of Mt Moiwa, where the city's "ropeway" (cable car) is located. It was a short walk to the ropeway base station from the tram stop and Steve was very trigger happy, which is appropriate considering how new and fresh this must be for him compared to myself.
Steve and I ended up on the first ascent of the day, along with a large tour group that had arrived before us.
Sapporo Tram
It was still quirky for us that all of the staff were bowing and thanking us all the time, having spent less than 24 hours in Japan and immersed in its culture. At the top we were ushered toward mini buses with caterpillar tracks instead of wheels. We had to enquire if this was included in the ropeway ticket, which it was, so we boarded and soon discovered that they were to ferry us the final few hundred metres to the summit of the mountain. Here was a shop and lookout on the roof of the building, from where one can see the city and the surrounding mountain ranges.After we had enjoyed the panorama and Steve had purchased a little something from the shop and enjoyed his first proper, fluffy snow experience we descended to the city on the bus and ropeway. Instead of just returning the way we had come on the tram we continued around the balloon, arriving into the main part of Sapporo at the happening Susukino intersection. With lunch on our minds we visited the adjacent McDonald's, where we dined with a nice view over the busy intersection.
Following on from lunch we walked down to view the Susukino Ice Festival, a defacto part of the overall Sapporo Snow Festival. The ice sculptures were all very intricately carved and it was interesting to note that they were made up of layers, presumably so they could better be constructed and transported. The Ice Festival ran down the middle of the main street for about 5 blocks, necessitating the closure of the street but not its intersections, which was a bit tricky when you just walk down looking at the sculptures, without paying attention to the world around you.
From the Ice Festival we walked back up and along to the hotel for some free drinks and a bit of an afternoon rest.
Crowded Cable Car
This is when I hopped on the net and uploaded the pre-typed Hamburg entry and added some photos to older entries.As the day grew older we headed out, once again on foot, to Sapporo's Odori Park, the main site of the Snow Festival. The park stretches down the middle of a main east-west street in the city and is quite wide, allowing space for large snow sculptures in the middle with smaller ones on the side. There are also food, help and shop stalls in groups and dotted along the park for the festival. It was a well managed affair, with the paths on either side of the park being 1 way only and lots of staff around to assist guests in general and also to cross the few intersections that were not closed. It took Steve and I around 2 hours to take in the whole site.
By the time we were finished it was dark and we once again found ourselves on the hunt for food. Figuring it was the happening part of town and closer to our hotel, we walked down from the festival back to Susukino for dinner. On the way we caught glimpses and reflections of a large ferris wheel nearby and were summoned by the light. It turned out to be on the roof of a large shopping centre and we couldn't resist the kitch randomness and the nighttime views so we hopped aboard for a ride. Afteward we were back on course to Susukino, where we acquainted ourselves with MOS Burger, a Japanese burger company that we find satisfies our criteria of Japanese but safe with its fusion burger menu, all of which is only in Japanese!
To cap off the night we walked around the district (briefly via the Ice Festival to see it in the dark) a bit and Steve stopped at an outlet of the "Sapporo Drug Store" to buy some gloves because he was so freezing.
Different Cat Bus
Eventually we found ourselves back at the hotel, ready for some sleep ahead of our next big day.The alarm woke us too early for our liking but it was necessary for the day ahead. From the nice free breakfast we walked back to Susukino subway station for a quick trip up to Sapporo Station. Unfortunately we weren't at the station to take a train but instead to get to bus terminal located there. We were successful in locating the right stand and pre-purchasing tickets from the small office there for the 90 minute trip to Sapporo Kokusai (Ski) Resort.
A bus or coach trip is never a cause for celebration but this particular one wasn't so bad. The host lady was extremely friendly and happy and the seats actually provided us with some leg room! Added to the comfort of the ride was the fact that it didn't take as long as advertised; we arrived at the resort after only 70 minutes.
Our first task inside the resort's main building was to locate the ski school counter, which we discovered by accident up the escalator as the English signage at the entry was quite limited. We checked in to our private English lesson easily as the lady there was happy to try her relatively good English. Soon enough our instructor Juno was there and he took us downstairs to get some ski gear from the hire centre. This process went smoothly thanks to Juno's Japanese and we managed to save $5 each by using our sunglasses instead of hiring goggles.
After we had changed into our ski gear and locked our valubles away we were out on the mini-slope on the ski lift side of the building going through the basics.
Steve's Shoes
As it was my 2nd time skiing this was familiar and I found that what I had learnt came back to me quite quickly. This was all new to Steve so he had troubles initially but never actually fell over. Although he wasn't feeling confident and thought he was going to be bad at it forever (I kept telling him it's all a matter of practise, he'll be fine as we keep going) the instructor suggested we head up on the quad chairlift so we purchased single trip tickets and off we went.The beginner run was nice and even and Steve soon found his feet (or skis?). It was fun and the instructor was periodically stopping us (if 1 of us didn't do so by falling over anyway) to teach us new things and improve our technique. By the time we had reached the bottom our first 2 hours were up and it was time for lunch. Inside it was clear that the resort was busy although on the slopes it didn't seem that bad. There were a few places to eat but we didn't want to keep wandering around in those annoying ski boots so we settled on the first place and purchased meal tickets from the vending machines at the entry. Despite the absence of English we had managed to make sense of the pictures and purchase correctly from the machines - a bizare way to order food.
Lunch was over before we knew it so we were back on the slopes with our instructor, beginning with a trip up to the highest point of the resort on the 8 person gondola. Juno told us that this was 1100m up and he gave us some time to appreciate the view, even taking our photo.
Mt Moiwa Lookout
First we skiied down the beginner slope to a mid-point where a double chairlift returned us to the summit. Without saying anything our instructor led us down the intermediate slope all the way to the bottom. As I said to Steve, at least he must have confidence in our abilities, even if we don't! We were getting tired by the time we reached the bottom so our "bum ploughs" became a little more frequent, although we managed to keep a pretty much even score. To cap off the day we had a final ride up the quad lift for a relaxing descent down the beginner run again.After saying thank you to Juno we had a drink break and got rid of our ski gear. It was a bit of a wait for the bus back to Sapporo so we grabbed some stuff from the shop and checked our cash situation. We were just a little bit short of enough cash to take the bus all the way back to Sapporo station and, with no ATM at the resort, we couldn't get any more. We were only able to buy tickets to a subway station, at the end of a line, hoping that somewhere there we could find an ATM to get money out and buy subway tickets home!
On arrival we headed into the station to find an ATM. There was 1, but it only accepted Japanese cards. We asked at a few of the shops if they would do cash out or sell subway tickets, one kiosk did sell tickets but did not accept cards! Becoming slightly worried and unsure if even taxis took credit card, we walked out in the cold wind and dark down the main street from the station. We tried a petrol station to see if they had an ATM, which they didn't, but the staff very nicely pointed us in the direction of a 7eleven. Thankfully the 7eleven not only had an ATM, but 1 that accepted international cards so we could actually take money out. To break the money we purchased some water and then made it back to the station.
When we were purchasing our subway tickets a nice western lady provided us with her all day ticket that she would no longer use so we only had to purchase 1 ride home. However we did not travel directly home to Susukino but instead all the way up to Sapporo Station as we had seat reservations to make for our onward travel the next afternoon. Upon arrival at Sapporo I could not locate my ticket so I exited the station through the gate with Steve, causing it to malfunction as we wondered off through the crowd as if we had fare evaded. Unfortunately we needed Steve's pass, which he did not have on his person, to make the reservations so we returned home via the subway and MOS Burger for some R&R.
