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SAPPORO |
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With a population of some 1.75 million, Hokkaido's booming capital
SAPPORO is the fifth largest city in Japan and, as it's the transport
hub of the island, you're almost bound to pass through it. Despite its
size and bustle, this is a pleasant and vibrant city, dominated to the
south by the mountains that served as the location for the 1972 Winter
Olympics, it is less than thirty minutes from the coast. It's also
generously endowed with parks and gardens and is laid out in an easy-to-follow
grid plan.
Sapporo is perhaps best known for the beer brewed here since 1891: a
visit to the handsome, late-nineteenth-century Sapporo Brewery is a must,
as is a stroll through the gardens and museums of the Botanical Gardens
, which date from the same era. After dark, the bars and restaurants of
Susukino (pronounced "suskino") spark to life and you'll be hard pressed
to find a livelier nightlife district outside of Tokyo or Osaka.
Pleasantly cool temperatures tempt many visitors to Sapporo's Summer
Festival (July 21-Aug 20), which features outdoor beer gardens and other
events in Odori-koen , the swathe of parkland that cuts through the city
centre. This park is also the focus of activity during the fabulous Yuki
Matsuri , a "snow festival" held every February , which draws over two
million visitors to the city.
There are some good day-trip possibilities around Sapporo - top of the
list is the Historical Village of Hokkaido , a huge, landscaped park
featuring over sixty restored buildings from the island's frontier days.
The nearby port of Otaru , one of the entry points into Hokkaido, has
some appealing nineteenth-century architecture and can be easily visited
in a half a day from the capital. Just about possible as a day-trip, but
better experienced over a longer stay, are the ski slopes of Niseko ,
some 100km south of the city.
Sapporo's name comes from the Ainu word for the area, Sari-poro-betsu ,
meaning "a river which runs along a plain filled with reeds". The city's
layout was designed in the 1870s by a team of European and American
experts engaged by the government to advise on the development of the
island. Statues of these advisers can be found around Sapporo; the most
famous is the one of the American Dr William S. Clark , who set up
Hokkaido University and whose invocation to his students - "Boys, be
ambitious!" - has been adopted as the city's motto.
The City
Although there isn't much to see in central Sapporo, it's a pleasant
place simply to stroll around. The single best attraction is the compact
and pretty Botanical Gardens (April 29-Sept Tues-Sun 9am-4pm; Oct-Nov 3
Tues-Sun 9am-3.30pm; ¥400), at North Three, West Eight, a ten-minute
walk southwest of Sapporo Station. Immediately to the right as you enter
is the small but interesting Ainu Museum , which is also known as the
"Batchelor Kinenkan" in memory of Reverend John Batchelor, a British
priest and author of The Ainu of Japan , considered to be the definitive
work on Hokkaido's aborigines. The museum has a collection of around
2500 Ainu artefacts (though only a fraction are displayed at any time),
ranging from clothes made of bird skins from the Kuril islands to a
sacred altar for performing the ritual slaughter of a bear cub - there
are English-language explanations.
Following the red-gravel pathway around to the right of the museum will
lead you to Miyabe Hall , with its intriguing displays of letters and
journals belonging to Professor Miyabe Kingo, the first director of
Hokkaido University, who established the gardens in 1886. Miyabe's
descriptions of his travels abroad, written in English and illustrated
with photographs, make fascinating reading.
The gardens themselves are very attractive, with a long pond, a
greenhouse, a rockery, shaded forest walks and neat flower gardens,
including a collection which shows the plants and flowers used by the
Ainu in their daily lives. In the centre of it all stands a natural
history museum , housed in a pale-green wooden building dating from
1882. Inside you'll find a staggering collection of stuffed animals,
paintings and other bizarre objects, including snarling wolves, huge sea
lions, and a dog sled from Sakhalin.
On the way to or from the gardens, check out the Old Hokkaido Government
Building , at North Three, West Six. This palatial red-brick building is
a fine example of the Sapporo-style of architecture that fused the
late-nineteenth-century European and New World influences flooding into
Japan. You'll see the same style on the campus of Hokkaido University at
North Eight, West Seven, and at Sapporo Brewery . Directly in front of
the Sapporo International Communication Plaza is the Tokeidai , a wooden
clock tower that attracts hordes of Japanese tourists. You'd be right in
thinking that this newly renovated building, which is a symbol of the
city, would look more at home in somewhere like Boston, because that's
where it was made in 1880. One block south lies Odori-koen and the
contrasting 147-metre red steel TV Tower . There's no need to fork out
¥700 to go up to the viewing platform; the vista from the nineteenth
floor of Sapporo City Hall opposite is free and just as good.
The neon-illuminated excess of Susukino , the largest area of bars,
restaurants and nightclubs north of Tokyo, begins on the southern side
of Odori-koen, and is best explored at night. If you've not yet had your
fill of parks, Nakajima-koen , at West Four, South Nine, is the third of
central Sapporo's large-scale green spots and is only worth visiting to
see the Hasso-an, an early Edo-period teahouse, virtually the only
traditional Japanese building in the city. A better use of time is to
head to West Seventeen, North One, to the large, white Hokkaido Museum
of Modern Art (Tues-Sun 10am-5pm; ¥250 for permanent exhibition), which
holds a modest but absorbing collection of paintings and sculptures,
some by Japanese artists. The nearest subway station to the museum is
Nishi Juhatchome, on the Tozai line.
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