Sapporo Diaries: Chatting with Strangers, Sweets Galore, and Early Christmas Shopping?

Here’s the next edition of a new series I’m dubbing Sapporo Diaries, because whenever I go out it’s really a Sapporo day trip. I really should explore more of the smaller cities or even Otaru, the next big city over, but Sapporo just has that big city vibe that nothing else really has, plus all the big brand name shops for serious (window) shopping and honestly more food variety. I’ve also lately been obsessed with youtube lifestyle videos of the “Living Alone Diaries” and “What I Eat in a Day” variety, so there’s some inspiration there too. This day, there was an itinerary with more food spots and window shopping planned, so again, I was excited and looking forward to the trip.

I went to Sapporo on October 29th, and again, took the same bus as I usually do. Now this was Halloween weekend, so I’m sure there were Halloween festivities happening. The ones that I were aware of didn’t exactly seem that appealing to me, so I just went on with my day and ‘normal’ activities as usual.

Rainy Day in Hokkaido
Rainy day, but I saw a rainbow on the way to Sapporo!

My first stop after getting off the bus, is Saera, a cafe known for their sandwiches. I heard of this place around, and figure it’d make a nice breakfast spot for the day. I arrived around 10:20, and for some reason I was surprised there was already quite a line forming. It’s a relatively small cafe, but I guess that proves it’s popular, right? The line moved relatively quickly, and I was able to sit down and order right away since they had us read the menu while waiting. Also, inflation is real, as the pictures of the menu I saw on Google were only a few months old and were at least 50 yen outdated. Quite sad, but such is reality.

The cafe was really cozy and cute! It seemed like their crab sandwich was a specialty, and I love crab, so I definitely went with that, and paired it with the pastrami sandwich as something a little more unique, as opposed to a ham, which I might usually eat. They were both very good, and I really liked the crab one. The pastrami was quite good, but I wish it didn’t have onions in it. This one waiter also kept refilling my small water cup, which was very nice service.

I had rough plans to hang around the Tanukikoji area afterwards, and since I just ate, I figured I’d do some light walking before my official lunch stop. Window shopping is always cool, so I stopped by the H&M to potentially scope out some other clothing options. It’s a more familiar brand to me, and not super expensive like other higher end places that I’d internally cry at all the prices while looking at everything (totally not speaking from experience). I did end up getting a couple sweaters because they were reasonably priced and cute!

My planned lunch spot for the day was at a casual yakiniku place called Yakiniku Like, marketed as a place for solo yakiniku. Originally I planned to go somewhere else for gyoza, but I figured Yakiniku is a little better to get, and the gyoza places I was going to go with was fairly normal as far as gyoza goes. Again when I arrived, there was a line outside, which I wasn’t sure to expect it or not. They open at 11, and I arrived around 12, so maybe that makes sense for lunch. Guess that’s popular too. There was actually a Vietnamese-American tourist couple behind me in line that was trying to Google translate the sign outside, and since they were speaking in English, I offered help. We ended up having a conversation while we were waiting, and it was very interesting to hear their stories and pass the time. I hope they have a wonderful rest of their Japan trip!

I was originally only planning on getting the Quatro Like set, which came with four cuts of beef, including beef tongue, which I love. The store was also doing a limited discount of the day for Kuroge Wagyu for half off the usual price, since it’s specialty for a discount, I ended up adding the 50g order. They also do free rice refills during lunch, and because I’m a rice bucket, I may or may not have gotten a refill. Overall, pretty happy with the quality of the meal for a quick solo yakiniku fix. The Kuroge slices were obviously far better, and the steak slices were bit chewy, but I’m not complaining with that meal.

I then made my way to the Animate and Book Off to do some anime merchandise window shopping. Since I was very full, I made a detour and just strolled around the area, and first did a quick window shop around the Wego, one of my favorite places to look at clothes. Then I kind of passed a cute coffee shop, and whenever I did, the owner would come out to greet me because I would just stare at the interior…I finally went up to him because he kept trying to welcome me in even after I told him I don’t drink coffee. We had a quick chat about coffee, and he let me walk around the interior and look around.

Mermaid Coffee Interior
Cozy second floor room in Mermaid Coffee!

Because I told him coffee is too bitter for me, he gave me a free sample for one that was “less bitter and more fruity”, but still wasn’t my cup of tea (ha!). I said I would take my dad here, but apparently they’re only test opening this weekend and preparing their real opening next year. A shame, but I don’t drink coffee, so maybe the next time I go they’ll have tea like they said they would. I bought a matcha scone because it looked good, and he said it was freshly baked that morning. Oh, and I like matcha. (Spoilers!) I also ended up in this small (not shady, I promise) alleyway that had a cute parfait shop called Cafe Satou behind another cute fruit sandwich shop, Majisand. Gah, too many sweet shops to try, not enough time or stomach space, and not enough mental space to think about all the potential sugar. I already have a dessert spot for the day planned, and so I added this to the endless list of dessert spots to try. I walked this area quite a bit before, and either it’s new, or I never noticed. Maybe both.

Back to anime window shopping. Or it was supposed to be window shopping, but I ended up getting a few things at Book Off and doing a couple gachas at Animate. Oops. Also, be me, and try to use the Book Off app and the cashier says, “we don’t accept that” and wondering why after being pretty sure there’s always some app discount in store and that I can’t earn points for this purchase, then realizing after leaving it wasn’t the book off app I was trying to use but the Animate app, which was right above it in my phone. And Book Off purchases are one time only. Oops.

After that I hit up the Ghibli store called Donguri located in the Parco Department Store. Although I did find that the Village Vanguard in Esta has a small Ghibli section, I was very happy to find on Google Maps that there was actualy a Ghibli store in Sapporo, because if not in Sapporo, then where else around this part of Hokkaido? God the store was overwhelmingly cute and aesthetic, with so much merchandise of every variety. Everything was very tempting, but I didn’t really have anything specifically calling out to me, so I looked around for a few minutes and left, before I could think about reaching for my wallet.

Kyouwagoku Donguri Store
Donguri Storefront

Parco also has this matcha cafe that I wanted to try, so I headed to Nana’s Green Tea for a treat. I paid at the counter, and it was free seating while waiting for my order to come out. I high key considered getting a drink with it, but with a boba later and costing more monies, I’d make do with a parfait.

Matcha Shiratama Parfait
Matcha Shiratama Parfait (1000 yen)

It was real good, and everything about it was real good. Matcha ice cream, whip cream with matcha syrup, red bean scoop, crispy corn flakes, mochi balls, soft serve, and matcha jelly. No food regrets.

After that, I went back in the direction of Sapporo station, and stopped by the Bisse building intending to scope out a few things as Christmas gifts. I’m pretty sure I know what I’m getting, so I’ll save those purchases for my next trip since those stores will always be there. The cafe there is tempting, but perhaps for a different time…I hear there’s an all you can eat sweets deal there. The last time I was in Sapporo, there was a pop up on the bottom floor selling locally produced only-apple apple juice, among other goods. I love apple juice and was tempted last time, but was going to save the consideration for today, the last weekend this pop up would be here. I decided not to get any of the remaining juices, and went on my way to the main Sapporo station area.

Apple Juice
Juice selections, from two weeks prior

I heard online that Village Vanguard started a Love Live merchandise collaboration with Hatsune Miku, so I went to the store here to see if they had it. They did, but I ended up not wanting any of the options, and bought a Christmas gift there while I was at it. Following that was more window shopping around Esta, including getting change from the arcade. Pro-tip(?): a good way to get change for a 10000 bill is to go to the arcade and get 1000s and 100s. At least, in my opinion, since it was in the vicinity, and I needed smaller bills.

Finally, I went back to Gong Cha (yes) to get my boba fix of the day. You can read about that more here, on my boba blog. At last, I hopped on a bus back home.

Gong Cha Mango Milk Tea
Gong Cha Mango Milk Tea (640 yen)

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One response to “Sapporo Diaries: Chatting with Strangers, Sweets Galore, and Early Christmas Shopping?”

  1. […] to do another food run, and some not so window shopping. Read about my day on my Japan blog here! Now, I would have tried to gone to somewhere not Gong Cha since I’ve been frequenting Gong Cha […]

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