1. JN63JPN

Trip to winter wonderland - Day 2

While I was waiting for my buddy to get to Sapporo, I decided to visit a couple of places that are popular tourists spots. My first stop was the Nijo Market. It's a fresh seafood market, mostly centered around fresh crab. I'm not a fan of crab. I went to a market hoping to find a diner that served breakfast with fresh grilled salmon, like the market I went to for breakfast in Hakodate. Sadly, all I saw were diners offering rice bowls with fresh raw fish and crab. I eat neither. le sigh. No breakfast. I must say, I liked the market in Hakodate a whole lot more. At least the diners had cooked fish that wasn't outrageously priced. I wasn't about to pay $25 for some grilled fish when I could get the same thing (maybe not as fresh) for $8 locally.

The next stop was the Maruyama Zoo. To get to this zoo, I took the train a couple of stops away, then I was planning to take the bus. What I didn't know was that the bus service was canceled due to snow. So, I ended up waiting 45 minutes for a bus that will never come. But I wasn't the only one who was waiting for the bus not knowing it got canceled. I ended up hoofing it to the zoo. Normally, the walk would take 15 minutes, but with the snow, it took a bit longer. One advantage of walking was that the route to the zoo took me through the park, which was beautiful covered with fresh untouched snow.

The zoo was relatively small. Maybe because it was a weekday, maybe because of the snow, but it must've been the quietest zoo I've ever been to. Most of the noise were birds of prey squawking at each other. Most of the outdoor enclosures were buried in snow, so the animals were in the indoor enclosures. Only a few animals were outside, their outdoor enclosures cleared of some of the snow, but not entirely.

One of the animals that were outside was the tiger, pacing back and forth. It seemed like the tiger made sure to walk past people who were watching. At first, the tiger was pacing at the far end, where there were people watching him. Then it seemed he noticed that there were people showing up at the other end, so he widened his range and started pacing around the entire enclose to walk past everybody who was admiring the tiger.

I was thinking about grabbing some lunch at the zoo, but none of the food offered at the restaurants there looked appetizing. However, there was Hokkaido melon soft serve ice cream. Now, that looked good and it was as good as it looked. The ice cream was as if they simply froze fresh melon and ran it through the server. Totally hit the spot.

My buddy texted me updates while I was out and about, grumbling about the delays he was experiencing. I think a lot of the delays and cancellations he experienced was from how he scheduled his flights. Not knowing much about airports in Japan, he chose to fly into one of the smaller airports and not the major international airport because he thought it was closer to central Sapporo. Well, he wasn't wrong. It was closer, but he would've had to take a bus from the airport to the nearest subway station, which can be inconvenient if the snow suspended bus operations. When he first mentioned the airport he was flying into, I had to google it since I never heard of it. The poor boy made things unnecessarily harder for himself. His alternative route took him to Hakodate, then to the smaller airport in Sapporo. He liked what he saw in Hakodate, making that another spot he might be interested in visiting. I've been to Hakodate twice, and I liked the quaint town.

My buddy finally made it to Sapporo and checked in. I told him I'd be there in 30 minutes, which gave him the chance to freshen up. Not really knowing the train lines in Sapporo, I took the subway to his station, thinking I'd save myself some walking. Nope. The distance I had to walk to transfer lines felt like I walked half way there. Man, did the boy look exhausted when I saw him. Poor boo. We went out for a late dinner to a Genghis Kahn restaurant (lamb/mutton BBQ) I found online that was close to where he was staying. The reviews didn't lie. The food was really good. We tried the popular lamb cuts, a plate of sliced mutton, and lamb sausage. The meat was tender and we had fun grilling. The shop was thrilled to have tourists visit their place and we even got another helping of veggies to grill with our meat. It was a cozy diner style place, totally casual. It's totally someplace we'd go to again given the chance.

To our delight, there were ice sculptures lined up along the street in preparation for the snow festival. Out of what we saw, the sculptures were fabulous. It looks like they stacked blocks of ice and carved out the shapes. The work was pretty intricate. Not all sculptures were as elaborate, but there were a few amazing pieces. We wandered down the street oohing and aahing at what we saw.

We went back to his hotel and he asked if I wanted to come up, but knowing how exhausted he was, I decided to go back to the hotel I was staying at. Instead of taking the subway, I decided to walk since Google map told me that it was a 10-minute walk. The walk back to my hotel was shorter than the train ride, and much easier. I got back to the hotel just before the communal bath closed. I dropped off my stuff, grabbed a towel, and headed down for a quick soak before bed. Ah, bliss. I was out like a light as soon as my head hit the pillow.

To be continued . . .

My, what big teeth you have!

 Feb 12