3 days in Sapporo

Tower, Bon Odori and malls!

Oct 17, 2024

We have 3 days in Sapporo before we fly home. We’re working while here, but that’s a comfortable amount of time to see Sapporo because it’s a fairly contained city.

I’m starting to miss raw fish again, and clearly, breakfast is the best meal for it, so on the first morning we head to Nijo.

Breakfast at Nijo Market (二条市場)

The best spot in Sapporo for a morning fish market experience with restaurants is Nijo Market (二条市場). Located centrally, it opens early (around 6-7 AM). It’s not too hot yet in the morning, just 82 degrees F instead of 90. So we take a nice 20 min walk through the city to get there. The theme at this market is crabs. There’s a crab statue, and snacks featuring fried tiny crabs. We find a restaurant with kaisendon and walk in.

As we’re ordering, I feel super proud when I realize that I can read the Japanese fish names hanging in front of the sushi bar!

Nijo Market (二条市場),Sapporo Japan — Nijo Market (二条市場), Sapporo, Japan

This restaurant has an amazing Kids meal, which includes cooked salmon flaked into a bowl of rice, topped with Ikura, Baby Bear’s favorite, for about $5.

After breakfast, we take a 15-minute walk to the next attraction.

Sapporo TV Tower

Located at the eastern end of Odori Park, the Sapporo TV Tower is one of Sapporo's most iconic landmarks. Built in 1957, the 147.2-meter tower offers a fantastic observation deck at 90 meters, providing sweeping views of Odori Park, the bustling cityscape, and on clear days, the distant mountains.

We walk around the bottom levels of the tower to collect all the stamps, a very Japanese thing to do. Then we visit the gift shop and buy a Hokkaido-themed bag. But we decide to skip going up to the tower.

I have no idea where this picture is from, but we find a tiny table somewhere. So we decide to put our tiny souvenirs on it for a picture. Here is our Kura sushi keychain from Okinawa and our "Shichimi Togarashi" (七味唐辛子) keychain from Nagano.

I’ve been waiting to spend more time at the 100 yen stores, and Sapporo has all of them! Before this trip, I only knew about Daiso (ダイソー). On this trip, I spent about 90 minutes at the Watts (ワッツ) in Asahikawa. Today Baby Bear and I find the Can★Do (キャンドゥ) and take 90 minutes here. Then we drop by the Daiso for a quickie 30 minutes, before meeting up with Papa Bear again for lunch.

The mall

There’s a mall in every direction, but most are street-level only. In our last few walks, we’ve walked past a 5-story tall neon display showing a guy’s reaction videos to many different foods. Eventually, we figure out that he is advertising the food court in this mall, so we decide to check out this mall.

At the food court, they’re giving away iced tea samples, but not just a shot of iced tea, instead it’s a whole bottle. There’s a process though, as with everything in Japan. First, they pass us a small ticket each, then they show us where to line up. There is no actual line so we walk to the end and exchange our tickets for the bottle of tea. Then they show us into another line to take a photo in front of their poster. There is no line here either, so we speed through our photos. Here’s Papa Bear with his poster moment.

We are now in love with Hokkaido curry soup, so we find the curry soup place in the food court… yum! We find a nice flower ball that Baby Bear wants a picture with on the way out.

Bon Odori

It’s nighttime and we walk back to the Odori Park near the Sapporo TV tower, because there is an event here that we are quite excited about, and the reason we are in Sapporo at this time.

Bon Odori is a traditional Japanese dance performed during the Bon Festival, a summer event that honors the spirits of one's ancestors. Typically held in mid-August, Bon Odori takes place at community gatherings, parks, and temples, where people dance in a circle around a yagura, a high wooden scaffold often used as a stage for musicians and drummers. The dances, set to festive folk music, vary by region and are performed in colorful yukata (summer kimonos). As we approach Odori Park, we can hear music that sounds a lot like the music in Okinawa!

The Bear Family loves to dance, so we join in and learn the dance!

Penguin Bread

The next morning we head to a local bakery with penguin and koala bread. We “adopt” some and bring them to the nearby viewpoint to enjoy.

The out-of-town Mall

It’s a hot day today, so we head to an air-conditioned mall out of town with parking, American style.

Our first meal on this trip was an all-you-can-eat nabe, Japanese hotpot. We haven’t had it again and it’s been on my list to hit before we leave. Luckily we find it in the mall! It’s a different restaurant brand. This one has a cat robot AND a cotton candy machine too!

We then find a micro pig cafe. These are some very spoiled pigs.

We take some shopping time.

Then we find a magic show! This guy is good! I really love how organized they are in Japan. For this show, they laid down a big cloth and everyone took their shoes off before sitting on them. Instead of only the first row seeing the show, everyone sits on the ground and can see the show. It’s so nice. I love Japan.

Goodbye Japan

One last stop before we head out, and that’s Narita airport. Our flight from Hokkaido takes us to Narita for a layover, and we enjoy the artwork of mossy wood arranged in a fish tank. We find an outside area where we can watch the airplanes take off and land. And we stop at our favorite airport restaurant, Hanamaru udon.