JAPAN
Japan 2023 Day 10 - Sapporo
Today is the start of the Sapporo Snow Festival which we did in fact plan the timing of this trip around. It lasts a week and features tons of snow sculptures in a park spanning several blocks.
The Sapporo TV tower is also in the path of the festival, which you can go into and do some shopping or ride the elevator to the observatory. It’s pretty funny that they have a cartoon character mascot for the TV tower and each level of the staircase features him in different scenes and “did you know?” type posters.
We didn’t pay the 10 bucks to take the elevator, we heard it wasn’t really worth it. Unfortunately from the gift shop right below the observatory you can’t see the rest of the festival going on but it was alright.
So we did a lot of walking today and looking at all the snow sculptures. They range in size and quality quite a bit, some are made by the community and some are made by bigger time sculptors or are commissioned by bigger groups.
Totoro from My Neighbor Totoro
There’s a holiday market type area by the TV tower with food stalls and gift shops where we picked up some snacks, hot wine and a new ornament for our Christmas tree for next year.
We did more walking before deciding on lunch at Shikihanamaru Tokeidai.
This was nice because we got to walk by the Sapporo Clocktower which was not really what I was expecting. It looks like a big house at first glance, not like Big Ben or anything like that. But it was cute, there was an ice sculpture version of the house out front along with some snowmen.
Lunch was also pretty good although featured another long wait. We ordered sushi in 2 piece sets so we got to try a few different things. The seared salmon and ototori were standout options here.
Of course we needed to have more boba so after lunch we caffeinated ourselves at a nearby spot called (appropriately) The Tea. I tried the hot pudding latte which was brand new territory for me, boba wise.
Some of us went back to the hotel to rest while some of us finished walking along the festival to see the rest of the snow sculptures.
After we went back to blog or nap before dinner at Yoshitune, a lamb BBQ restaurant.
Apparently lamb barbeque is kind of famous in Hokkaido. You’ll see it called ‘Ghenkis Khan’ or ‘Jingisukan’.
We arrived very late to the restaurant and they nearly couldn’t seat us but they were pretty accomodating and we ended up sitting in their “Japanese room” where you sit on cushions on the floor.
The food was basically lamb yakiniku and the waitress showed us how long to cook the lamb for. It was amazing! Great lamb flavor. I also thought our drinks were good too.
The restaurant closed up shop but we were still a little hungry so on our way back to our hotel we took the subway and stopped at a Mister Donut in the subway station. We got a few donuts and a milkshake. My personal favorite was the chocolate covered in nuts.
