On the weekend of June 15th, I went out to Sapporo to stay the night with some friends! Originally. I booked a night for myself that weekend because it was the weekend that the Spirited Away stage play was coming to Sapporo, but unfortunately, I couldn’t get tickets when they went on sale a couple months back. I still kept my hostel booking until the very last minute of my free cancel, and by then, I heard a few friends would be spending the weekend in Sapporo too. They invited me to stay in the Airbnb they were getting with them, and being social would be a good change of pace, so I happily agreed. There were also quite a few events happening this weekend, with the 2024 Hokkaido Handmade Village, Hokkaido Shrine Festival, another festival in Nakajima park, a Rose Festival in Odori Park, aong others.
June 15th: I left at my normal time on my usual bus, and after arriving in Sapporo, I got on another bus to get to our Airbnb. My friends had already been there a couple days, so I didn’t have to wait to check-in to drop off my stuff.
One of my friends main agenda for the day was to go to the Hokkaido Museum, so after a brief Family Mart stop for some sustenance to hold us over until lunch, we headed over by train. At this point, we were all hungry for lunch, so before heading to the museum, we stopped by a yakiniku place near the station for lunch. There was a ton of Korean around the place, and the outside was super fancy too. The seating was also private rooms, with an essentially free drink bar for 2 hours (you get the drink bar for ordering 400 yen or more, which is essentially free). Be warned, there was a room fee of 220 yen, and a service fee of 110 yen per person.
Ironically, we all ordered the same thing, but with different amounts of rice (I got large, because any size is the same price!): the Yakiniku C Lunch set. It comes wit your choice of rice size, miso soup, pickles, salad, wagyu galbi, premium sagari (tender skirt steak), and premium salted tongue. They had another one on their premium recommended menu of the day with the exact same, but swapped out the sagari with harami (skirt steak from the diaphragm) for a little more, which was tempting before I spotteed the C lunch.
Everything was so yummy, and I think the whole set was a pretty good price. The pickles ended up being a sort of radish kimchi, and the salad was dressed with sesame dressing. The meat all came marinated, and after cooking, came out super meaty, and the variety was great. I loved that the tongue was thick, but not thick enough to warrant a ton of chewing.
We walked over to Hokkaido Museum, and paid for a combined ticket for 1400 yen for that and the Historical Village nearby. If you pay combined, it’s a 400 yen discount than if you pay separately!
There were 5 main galleries, plus a limited time one, going over the history of Hokkaido from prehistoric ages, the Ainu people, modernization, and going forward. There were many artifacts and recreations, and even quite a bit of interactive exhibits as well. We decided to go here first since the museum would close at 4, and the village at 5.
We sped run through the historical village, and the entry building is actually a recreation of the old Sapporo station! Inside, there are a ton of buildings in the style of eras up until the early 1900s from all over Hokkaido, with recreations of the interior. Many had plaques outside with explanations, along with “donated by ~”. I’m not entirely sure how possible it is to transport actual buildings, but they were still pretty cool. I was not a fan of the fake people though.
We made it out just as it closed, and chilled at our Airbnb for a bit because we had walked a ton that day. For dinner, we were feeling a bit lazy and wanted to try ordering delivery, when my friend stumbled upon Subway as an option. Unfortunately, Subway on Wolt doesn’t let you customize your order (that’s not even Subway anymore!), and we wanted to go to Round 1 later anyway, so we hauled ourselves over to the closest one. My first Japanese Subway, ha!
Subway here essentially works the same, where you go up, ask for your main protein of choice, and they load up on the vegetables and sauces with bread of your choosing. I went with my standard footlong with ham, lettuce, and tomato with toasted wheat bread. No cucumbers here, and I wasn’t feeling like adding on bacon that day. They also sets here, and they have a sweet red bean sandwich…No cookies, but they have this pretty dry brownie that my friend bought. They also got a BLT, which includes salami for some reason. The girl who made mine kept making recommendations, and when it came to the sauce, she was all ready with her suggestion, bottle in hand, with mayo, and I declined on the sauces.
First of all, I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve never dined in at a Subway before, but they put it in this funky folded paper on the tray. The way the ham was folded and the ingredients coming out of the sandwich really made it look picture perfect, as expected of Japan. The bread was also super fluffy with only a slight toast, but I don’t think I’ve had Subway bread this fluffy before. I did miss putting some potato chips in my Subway though.
We headed to the Round 1 north of Sapporo station, since we figured that one was probably less crowded than the Susukino one. For all-you-can-bowl, it was 2870 yen per person, including rental shoes. We also ordered additional refreshments at our seat, and I found some boba…Round 1 bowling was also doing a collboration with one of my favorite franchises, but after getting a boba for sure, I wasn’t really feeling another drink just to get a small paper stand of a random character. Anyway, read about my boba here!
We ended up taking the last trains back to the Airbnb, right before midnight.
June 16th: Everyone needed to go home on Sunday because we all have work the next day, but our goal this day was to go to the Hokkaido Handmade Festival at Sapporo Dome, and also hit up the Ghibli Exhibition at Sapporo Factory that’ll be up until July 7th.
We checked out of our Airbnb around 9, and first headed to Odori Station so my friends could store their suitcases in a locker. Turns out, the coin exchange machine at one friend’s 1000 bill, so after calling the company, we waited a bit for the guy to come and return it for us.
While we were there underground, we passed by a Vie de France, a pretty common bakery chain, and grabbed something light to eat for breakfast. At first I was holding out to buy some bread at the handmade fair, but since everyone was sitting down and getting something, I bought a Red Bean Croissant since it looked good and is unique. My friend later couldn’t finish the salted butter roll they bought, so they gave it to me to eat too.
The croissant was pretty good! I thought it wouldn’t be super crispy because I wasn’t sure how long it was sitting there, but it was actually pretty flaky and cripsy! There were some sugar crystals on top which added some layer and flavor, and there was a decent amount of red bean inside. The plaque also says there’s salt and cheese powder, which seems kind of odd paired with red bean, so either this is the wrong description, or the cheese actually goes pretty well…As for the salt and butter roll. it was super buttery, and pretty greasy and savory on the outside, but it had a nice crispy outer layer while also being super fluffy on the inside.
We rode the subway all the way to Sapporo Dome, and paid a 700 yen entry fee to get into the area. There were a ton of booths in this stadium, from various arts and prints, to clothing, to vintage, to art of any aesthetic you could want, to animal figures and plushies, jewelry, and a food area in the back. I didn’t end up getting the bread I was hoping for, and instead had money stolen from me in the form of ultra cute ear cuffs. I don’t have my ears pierced, so I’m always looking for ear cuffs, and I stumbled upon one booth selling them at first and bought some. Then I saw another, and another, and another, and realized my mistake…Money well spent though I believe.
On our way back, I noticed we passed by the Sapporo Dome Miku Manhole. This was a lucky surprise, and that’s 3/5 Miku manholes down! I knew there was one here, but it totally slipped my mind until I saw it.
We left the stadium around 11:30, and made our way to Sapporo Factory to go see the Ghibli exhibition. Technically, it’s the Animage Magazine and Ghibli Exhibition, but I’m pretty sure most people that attended went for the Ghibli stuff. When we went in, I even heard a kid tell his mom, “It’s all nostalgic stuff!” No kidding, kid. Entry fee was 1500 yen per person.
The exhibition started out by having some displays focusing on different eras of the magazine, and all the historical magazine covers and artifacts from the era. It slowly transitioned into focusing on Hayao Miyazaki, and finally, the giant Ghibli area in the back. At this point, there was a huge line, which turned out to be the line just to get to the souvenir shop. We were on a time crunch because my friend had a flight to catch, and no one really wanted to shop or wait in the line, so we left, and headed back to Odori station to get the suitcases back.
We said our goodbyes around 2pm, and because I hadn’t eaten anything since morning (good thing I got something!), I headed to Bisse nearby to grab some food at one of the restaurants. This one Japanese one seemed the most enticing, and them closing at 3 still left me plenty of time. I went with the Aburiya Set, which came with 6 pieces of assorted sushi (tuna, mackerel, salmon, scallop, shrimp, and ikura), grilled fish, tempura, chawanmushi, salad, a side dish, and miso soup. Funnily enough the tableside tray came with sushi soy sauce and sashimi soy sauce.
I liked all the variety of items that came in the set! The vegetable side dish was light and refreshing, and the tempura was hot and crispy (though it could have used some sauce). Salad was ok, the sauce was almost a bit too acidic when it all stayed at the bottom of the bowl. Chawanmushi was still super warm and nourishing, and pudding-like. Miso soup was miso soup. The grilled fish was really good, and not salty at all! Unfortunately the sushi had a good bit of wasabi in it, and after removing as much as I could, there was still a bit of a kick, but the fish was pretty good I think.
The restaurant is high up enough that you can get a good view of the city if you get a window seat. Despite being pretty rainy, I spotted some kind of parade procession happening on the streets, and realized that might have been part of the Shrine Festival this weekend.
I can’t end a Sapporo day without getting dessert, so I quickly ate my lunch, and went downstairs to the first floor to grab a parfait at Machimura Farm. I was deciding between the matcha red bean one and the chocolate one, but ended up with the chocolate one because I felt like I had a quite a bit of matcha recently. Take out is actually slightly cheaper, but I felt like it’d be easier to eat in. Pro-tip: if you ever eat in the Bisse desserts area, get a friend to reserve and grab a table, or use one of the “RESERVED” signs and get yourself a table.
It was yummy, and small enough to be a post-meal dessert! The sof serve was creamy and milky, with a cookie and chocolate baton and whipped cream as toppings. The chocolate syrup was pretty standard.
I finished off my day with some Boba at Gong Cha! Read about my boba here!
And then I rode the bus at 3 to go home, do some groceries, do my laundry, and get ready for work the next day.
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