Sapporo Day 3 - Hungover at the Beer Museum

When I finally dragged myself out of bed Monday I headed to the last place on my itinerary, the Sapporo Beer Museum. I didn't really want to go. The highlight of the place is the beer tasting, and that was about the last thing I wanted to do. But since it was on the itinerary, I had to do it.

Got to the museum around 11 or so. Too early to start drinking (on a Monday) so I decided to tour the museum first.
The building looks impressive (it should, it's a former brewery), but the museum only takes up a tiny bit of it. Other than the gift shop and the "Museum Bar", there's only one room of museum. I took about 20 minutes looking around and I learned that beer is made by elves during the off season.They were on the cutting edge of museum technology. Besides the island of misfit brewers, they used the magic of Viewmasters to teach you about beer.I finally felt up to it so I headed for the Museum Bar. They have the cheapest beer in Sapporo. 100 yen for a small, or 400 yen for the 3-pack sampler with a snack. No surprises, I'd had them all before, but it was on the itinerary. I forced my way through about half of each before I had to give up.After a nice long trip to the gift shop, I headed outside to look for the beer garden to eat lunch. Before I found it, though, I noticed that the Sapporo factory is dedicated to the dark lord Satan.
I found an okonomiyaki place in the mall next door and ate lunch before reversing the whole subway-train-monorail-shinkansen path back to Utsunomiya.

In case you haven't heard, I'm going to be in Cleveland for the next 2 weeks (8/2 - 8/15), so look for me. You probably know my email, or my parents phone number (where I'm staying like a grown-up), or you can get a hold of me through this.

Sapporo Day 2 - Baseball & Beer

Saturday morning I got up sort of early to head to my one remotely cultural plan for Sapporo, Hokkaido shrine. Nice little shrine, quiet, not much to see. There was some sort of pottery / dish sale going on, almost like a flea market with about 10 different shops set up selling the same type of tea pots and plates. After I did some shopping, I had to run to the other side of town to get to the Fighters game.

The Sapporo dome looks like a giant thing of jiffy pop with a straw pointing out of it. The straw is an observation deck, but I didn't think there would be much to observe so I didn't go up.It's another one of those multi-sport stadiums. It's got good old fashioned AstroTurf baseball field, and when it's time for soccer, they drive in a grass field and shift the lower deck around. But for baseball, that means that there's a ton of space between the foul lines and the seats. This actually came into play a couple of time where I thought the ball would be in the stands but they just ran over and caught it.
I sat through one of the less exciting 10 inning games I've seen and watched the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters lose 2-1 to the Seibu Lions. Then I waded through the subway station back to the hotel for a little break before heading to the beer gardens.

I had scoped the place out the day before and decided to bypass the Suntory and Asahi gardens and went straight to the Kirin beer garden. It had the best music. It was Sunday night, but the whole park was packed and after I bought some Japanese chicken nuggets I scouted around for a place to sit I finally found a spot at the end of a table and started to sit down, but when I asked the people on the other end if it was OK, they said to join them. Nice people. I had a ticket for a beer, but they immediately poured me one from there giant beer tube. I hung out with these guys for a couple of hours. They apparently got a much earlier start than I did. They were my immediate friends. The one guy kept trying to give me his shirt. I finally managed to chip in 1000 yen for the next beer-tube, but I must have gotten 6 beers and paid for one. Worked out really well for me.
The beer gardens shut down at 9:30 on the dot, when they turn off the lights and the music and urge everyone to leave. My new friends (whose names I don't remember) went home and I went to the next bar.

Also the night before, I had noticed a bar that the internet recommended, so I headed over there. Rad Brothers bar. They had a good slogan on their menu, so I new it would be OK:I sat down and started trying to talk to the Russian girl next to me, but the only language we shared was broken Japanese, so we both gave up pretty fast. Meanwhile, another guy came in who looked like he spoke English, so we started talking. I asked what he was doing in Sapporo and he said working. So I asked what he did, of course thinking English teacher. But when no, Pro Wrestler. So I talked to him for a while, since there's a lot of interesting conversation inherent in "I'm a Pro Wrestler in Japan". Then another guy came in and sat down. What's he do? Jazz Musician. Usually, I think I can make my job sound cool. This night was an exception. All I cold think of was "An engineer, a wrestler, and a pianist walk into a bar..."

I hung out with the jazz guy and Phil Atlas for a few more hours and a couple more bars until it was time to give up. Lots of beers, new friends, and an invitation to go to a wrestling show. All in all, a good random night in Sapporo.

Sapporo Day 1 - Planes, Trains, and Monorails

This weekend I made the last long baseball trip I had left, up to Sapporo to watch the world-famous Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters at the Sapporo Dome. Getting there was a bit of a headache, though.

First, since my credit cards don't like to work in Japan, I had to find another way to pay for the plane ticket. Luckily, since Japan is still a very cash-based society, there was another option in place. When I made the reservation (a couple months back) all I had to do was head up to the 7-11 with the cash. That was the easy part.

Saturday morning, I got up nice and early and walked to the train station, got some coffee, and jumped on the early shinkansen for Tokyo. Then I just had to transfer to the Tokyo loop line local train, then transfer to the Tokyo monorail to get to the airport. Flight was of course delayed. Then, once I got to the Sapporo airport, the plane parked on the tarmac and a stairway pulled up, so you have to take a bus to the terminal. Then I took a train to Sapporo station, a subway, and a short walk, and I was at my hotel by 2:30.

I was meeting my Japanese teacher there around 4:00. She's from Sapporo and was going to be there anyway, so she volunteered to show me around town. While I waited, I went to check out the big park that runs down the middle of town, Odori Park.

During the winter, Sapporo is famous for the snow festival that takes place in Odori park. During the summer, they set up beer gardens instead. The park is around 12 blocks long, and each brewery sets up their own beer garden, taking up about a block of the park. All told, there were 7 or 8 city blocks worth of beer gardens.

They've been doing this for a while, so they know how to cover all the bases.
After I met up with my teacher, we went to see the sights. First up was the former Hokkaido government office building. It's a big brick building, mostly famous because it's old.
Next, we went to Sapporo's most famous attraction, the Sapporo Clock Tower. Also mostly famous for being old. It's also not as big as you think it will be. That's why it's on the list of "3 Most Disappointing Sights in Japan".
Last stop before dinner was Sapporo Tower, an imitation Eiffel tower. There's an observation deck that overlooks the park, so we went up and had a look.
After the tower, we went to have sushi. My teacher had a favorite sushi place she wanted to take me to, so I got a taste of what good sushi is, as opposed to the conveyor belt stuff I usually eat. After dinner, we went to a couple of bars for drinks, so I got an idea of where to go for the nightlife in town. Then we called it a night and I went to bed. I had big plans for Sunday. First a temple, then the ballgame, and finally the beer garden. Better rest up.