Pole Town

While walking though downtown Sapporo, I often came upon signs that said “Pole Town” with a staircase leading underground. Thinking it was a massive cosplay strip club I gave it no notice and went about with my business. But today I decided to see what this Pole Town was all about.

To my amazement, Pole Town was a massive underground heated walkway with shops lining the sides. What a fool I had been. I thought the streets of Sapporo looked a little empty. In reality everyone was smarter than me and instead of hiking through snow drifts were casually strolling through a heated wonderland.  

Pole Town runs the entire length of the main street in Sapporo and ends at the main train station. I never traveled long distances in the top world again. Still in awe of this magical underground street, I headed to the surface to once again try and find that silly government building. Once again I failed. I have no idea how I cant find this friggin thing. All of that aside I saw a few interesting things in my searching.

Around lunch time I stumbled into a blue collar lunch counter and ordered tempura prawns and soba in broth. I felt super out of place but the food was delicious and extremely cheap for Japan standards.

Having failed yet again in my quest to find this stupid government building I turned my focus on the Sapporo dome. Built in 2001, the Sapporo Dome is the home field of the baseball team Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters (yes this is their real name and yes they are sponsored by a Japanese ham company) and the association football club Consadole Sapporo. Of course getting to the dome involved multiple subways and walking on snow filled sidewalks, but I managed to find it without much trouble. The government building still laughing my my face.  

With some dumb luck I caught the last tour of the day. The dome is not in use during the winter so there were no fields set up but it was still an impressive sight. To mange both soccer and baseball fields the bottom section of seats rotates to facilitate the different field sizes. The soccer field is natural grass that is housed outside and pulled into the stadium on pneumatic lifts. The baseball field is just turf and is placed over the concrete.

We got to go on the floor and see the dugouts;

The underground bullpen;

The locker rooms;

And the big blue elevator!  

The elevator went to the top of the catwalk and the observation deck.

At the top you could take a photo of you holding a Nippo Ham Fighters emblem. I passed on the photo opportunity.

Throughout the tour I noticed the creative ways the stadium recycles. They not only have a station to dispose of the unused ramin broth,

but they found a way to recycle fire!

  

Having explored every nook and cranny that the dome had to offer I headed home. On my walk back I ignored the newly discovered pole town and went to look at the Sapporo Clock Tower. I was told it was the most visited attraction in Sapporo.

Boy was this underwhelming. Its worth a look I guess? Do not remember what I had for dinner. It probably came from the convenience store. The End.

 

Invisible Capitol

The morning greeted me as the night had left me, with snow continually falling.

All rested from my day on the train I started with a nice hot breakfast. I ended up with some strange saucy noodle concoction complete with a small birds egg on top. It was actually quite good and the warm meal really got me going.

After breakfast I ventured out into the city. The first attraction on my list was the former Hokkaido government office. This was the former site of the government for the prefecture of Hokkaido. They were responsible for developing the primitive ground of Hokkaido. As I was making my way to the old capitol I started to realize how much snow engulfs this city.

It was a workout just getting around.

They even have salt dispensers on the corners so that you can help keep the sidewalks maneuverable.  

As I plowed my way through the snow I was unable to locate my destination. I had a map, I could read the street signs, but for the life of me I could not find it. A bit frustrated I abandoned my plans and headed for the sight that was impossible to miss.  

The Sapporo TV Tower. It was actually built by the same guy that planned the Tokyo Tower, and like its ancestor is still fully functional as a TV tower. Although it didn't look that tall from the bottom, the views were quite breathtaking.

I am lucky that I went when I did because not too long into my visit a storm came and clouded the view. It pretty much snowed constantly for the rest of my stay.

In addition, It had started to get dark as I battled my way back to the hostel. There were many hot food options along the way.

I ended up settling with one of my favorites, a nice plate of curry.

I spent the rest of the evening watching the storm from my hotel window. It was quite pleasant.  

To The North

Kim and myself made our way to Tokyo station in the morning so she could catch her train to the airport and I could catch mine to the northern island of Hokkaido. Her trip was to take and hour and a half, mine clocked in at just under 12 hours.

Being as I wouldn't have any time to eat between my trains, I grabbed what would be the first of many bento boxes sold in the train station for trips just like mine.  

They all consisted of more or less the same itemss. A bed of rice with scrambled eggs over it then topped with diced and cubed meat. What accompanied the meat was a mixed bag of different things.  

With my bentos in had we were off. The first leg of the trip was pretty much the same landscape I had seen from the first half of the trip.

Then the landscape slowly started to change, with the snow becoming thicker the further we went.  

You could tell it was getting really cold outside, but I was nice and comfy in my big reclining seat. I basically had the train car to myself. There was also a vending machine in the car which was handy and weird.  

Switching trains was quite stressful. At times, I only had 5 minutes to figure out where I was going. I usually just followed the crowd in their frantic dash to the next train, hoping that they were going to the same place I was. It seemed to work out.  

When we finally got to the norther part of Honshu we had to take a underwater tunnel similar to the English channel tunnel to reach the northern island. At one point we passed this creepy passageway in the middle of the tunnel. It was truly spooky.

As we exited the tunnel I witnessed the final moments of daylight. I opened my last bento and enjoyed a quite dinner.

The rest of the trip was in the pitch black. I only had one more transfer and then I would be in Sapporo. When I finally arrived I had to take the subway to my hotel. I was quite tired of trains at this point but at least I was close. As I exited the station I was greeted with a huge snow drift at the entrance.

Everything was covered in snow, which made it difficult to find the hotel. I pieced together what little information I had and was able to find it down a random alley.  

The room was great and had a partial view of the main street in Sapporo. I ended my night watching cars slide all over the city streets.

We Are Holidays

The 2^nd of January is a huge shopping day in Japan. All of the stores have their biggest sales. Its similar to Black Friday except it is much more polite and people don't die. With everyone at the sales we headed out to see the last of the sights on out list. The first was the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.

At first glance this does not sound super exciting but the towers feature a free observation deck that offers a great view of Tokyo. I would love to share with you what the view was like but the towers were closed. We slowly learned that everything was closed.

As we walked around the ghost town formally known as Tokyo we did see a few neat things like the facilities for the 1964 Summer Olympics. But that was about it. Luckily we had a lunch date with a friend of mine who lives near the area so we headed off to meet her. The restaurant we picked happened to be in a big shopping area so it was open. We met my friend Nana and were seated.

I would love to show you photos of this event but I do not possess them at the moment. I will update with photos at some point. The restaurant featured tonkatsu which is essentially a fried pork cutlet that you dip in delicious sauce. It was good as always and we had a nice chat. With a successful lunch under our belt we thought our luck was turning but that was not the case at all.

Although we didn't really get to go into any attractions, we walked around a large portion of the city so at least there is that. Since we didn't get the view we wanted at the government buildings, we headed to the Tokyo Tower in the evening. It was in fact open.  

The view from the top is pretty amazing. You get a real perspective for how gigantic this city actually is.

After some quality time in the sky we headed back to the hotel. Once again most of the restaurants were closed so we had to settle on a local fast food establishment, Mos Burger.

The burger accurately summarized our day. A bit bland and missing some key elements, but in the end satisfying. I cant say it was the last day in Tokyo we were expecting, but it was something.