September 5, 2025
Day 3 — Sapporo
Marilee here.
This was our day to both see some of the sights of Sapporo and accomplish a few must-do tasks: buy train tickets for the next day to Wakkanai (the northern city from which we’ll truly begin this cycling odyssey), source camping gas for our stove and buy the special covers needed to bring bikes onto trains in Japan, known as rinko bags.
As usual, Tom was up at dawn so we were able to get an early start at our to-do list.
But first, breakfast! I have read a lot about the breakfast buffets of Japanese hotels, and I was looking forward to experiencing one. It did not disappoint!
We emptied our plates too quickly to take any pictures (sorry foodies, we’ll try to remember next time) and, after a few cups of coffee, rolled out, replete, into the Sapporo sunshine.
Where it seemed that more than a few people were still not quite finished with the previous night’s partying, so the streets were filled with an odd mix of business people hurrying to work and haggard celebrants heading home. We trotted along in the midst of it all, gawking at the billboards and multi-story screens like the Canadian hicks we are.
Our goal was the train station a couple of kilometers away, but we got sidetracked by happening across a covered shopping arcade that demanded exploration. Called Tanukikoji, it runs for several blocks through downtown. Once out the other side we decided to circle back to our starting point and stumbled upon a quiet temple that also tempted us in. So despite the early start it was well after mid morning before we got to the train station and secured tickets to Wakkanai.
We got the tickets and also the news that the rail line was recently damaged in heavy rains and so we will be re-routed onto a bus for the final hour or so of the five-hour journey. From the train station we proceeded to the nearby Mont-Bell, a Japanese outdoor store, where we both resisted the urge to buy more merino shirts (truly, can you ever have enough merino?) but did get the items we’d come for. And then, after a little break in the shade in a leafy park (did I mention it was HOT?), we gathered our energy for a hike across town to the Sapporo Beer Museum, which Tom was keen to see.
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The museum was small, but free and reasonably interesting, with English translations of the exhibits available. At the end, everyone was funneled down into a tasting room where Tom and I lashed out on a sampler of three varieties of Sapporo (who knew there was more than one?). Hmmm. Maybe our palates are spoiled by west coast craft beer: all three varieties tasted identical.
That evening we headed out to sample a Hokkaido specialty we’d heard about — soup curry. We randomly picked a spot a few blocks away and found ourselves in a long line stretching down a flight of stairs to a below-ground restaurant, The Curry King. We joked while we waited that the curry king must be a Japanese relative of Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi — the walls of the stairwell were plastered with various warning signs and injunctions. But patience and good behavior were rewarded — soup curry was delicious (again, we were too greedy to pause and take pictures). We headed back to bed early, but full and happy and looking forward to our train trip north the next morning.
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