I normally go to Sapporo on day trips on a weekend day so I don’t have to worry about staying too late and overnight, but this weekend was an exception, because my boyfriend is coming to visit me! The plan was to meet up with him in Sapporo Friday evening since he would land earlier in the day, and then stay until Sunday morning before heading home together.
November 11: I officially get off work at 4pm, so as soon as my work day was over, I immediately left school for the bus stop and got on the soonest bus for Sapporo. I packed my bag beforehand so I wouln’t have to go home.
I ended up arriving around 7:30pm, and because it’s about my dinner time and I was hungry, we got food. We were considering some optionsm but I eventually chose an okonomiyaki place that’s close to where I got off and I had been wanting to try for a while. We ended up having to wait a bit, but finally got in after about 20 minutes. The menu has okonomiyaki, yakisoba, monjayaki, and Hiroshima style okonomiyaki, other hot plate items, and sets, but we ordered two a la carte okonomiyakis: pork and squid, and Hokkaido scallop. I mixed and attempted to make the pork and squid one, while my boyfriend did the scallop one and filmed it for his TikTok. Mine was pretty much a fail, while his turned out better, probably learning from my mistake. This was my first time making okonomiyaki though, and it all tasted good in the end, which is what should matter, right?
There were a few drink goals this Sapporo trip, and since I was out of town (or in town?), I wanted to take adavantage of it and get whatever drinks or boba I could. My first choice for the night was trying out the new Starbucks Velvet Brownie frappucino, but the location I went to was sold out for some reason. Then I tried going to The Alley, but they ran out of boba for the day. Honestly I chalked both of these up to going right before closing time, since we finished dinner around 8:30 and these places were going to close around 9. My last choice for the night before I gave up was the boba from 108 Matcha Saro, a matcha booth in Esta’s basement that had some interesting looking boba options. I ended up getting a Matcha Tea with boba
November 12: After just chilling overnight in the Airbnb, we both ended up waking up early for some reason. My boyfriend only really had a request to eat ramen for lunch and do some window shopping for merchandise, so my plan for the day was to do a mini tour and show him around what I knew of Sapporo (and we did basically end up going everywhere that I was familiar with). Since it was early and he wanted the Japanese convenience store experience, I took him to a local Seicomart, a mostly Hokkaido chain convenience store, and we got a Hot Chef (Seicomart’s in-house fresh food brand) Salmon onigiri to share as breakfast. It was a slightly larger than normal onigiri, was the rice was nice and warm, and there was a decent amount of filling.
By then it was around 9am-ish, and my original plan was to get the Starbucks frapp to serve as my main breakfast of the day. I went on a Starbucks hunt throughout our Sapporo tour, but every single location I went to that day was sold out of the frapp for some reason, so I guess it wasn’t a location issue, but a larger Starbucks inventory issue, maybe? I was quite sad, but nothing I could really do about it, except keep walking around.
Most places start to open up around 10 or 11am, and the first ramen area I wanted to go to was supposed to open up at 11 according to Google Maps, so it was really exploring the area and wandering until then. We did a quick look at the (sad) Clock Tower, and the Sapporo TV Tower, and then went into Parco when they opened up at 10 to get free water, since I had basically no water left in my bottle, and I discovered the Muji in Parco has a free water refill station! We did a quick look around the Ghibli store, and after I pointed out the matcha cafe I already went to, my boyfriend wanted to get a latte to start off the day.
My boyfriend got a hot soy milk matcha latte with small mochi balls, and I got an iced hojicha latte (right) . It was really good, nice and lightly creamy, and a deep hojicha flavor. Better than the hojicha compared to the milk tea I got from Gong Cha before, but when at a matcha cafe it better be better, right? I did get an iced medium, but I wish there was a little less ice and a little more drink…They are doing a new app campaign that you get a free topping if you show them the app until January, so maybe I should go back and get that sometime, ha!
We did some nerd window shopping around Tanukikoji, and since my boyfriend requested ramen, I took him to this tiny ramen alleyway called Ganso Ramen Yokocho that I had heard was famous for having a bunch of tiny ramen stalls, and I figured would all be relatively authentic since they were tiny. I told him to pick one since he wanted ramen, but he wasn’t feeling any of those choices or the tiny ramen shack vibe, and expressed interest in the Ramen Republic on Esta’s 10th floor, which I showed him the night prior. Since that one also had a collection of ramen shops, that sounded good too, and we headed back in the direction of Sapporo main station, this time taking the underground path. After looking around the Ramen Republic, my boyfriend chose to eat at Shirakaba Sansou. I actually haven’t had proper ramen since coming to Japan besides the ramen in school lunches, so here’s my first real ramen!
I ordered their gyoza since they said it was handmade, and I was craving good gyoza. Yes, I did forget to take a picture until there was one left, so not very aesthetic, but the gyoza was pretty good, and definitely different than a standard gyoza at a typical ramen place around here. The skin was thin and chewy, and the inside tasted a bit more unique than others, with a little emphasis on chive flavor. It was a little excessively oily for my liking though.
For my main ramen, I went with the specialty chashu miso ramen, because Sapporo/Hokkaido is supposed to be famous for miso ramen, and I wanted the extra chashu (the picture also looked really appetizing). Similar to the gyoza, it was a bit excessively oily, but I do kind of expect that from ramen, which is why I don’t exactly crave it or have it be my go-to. Nevertheless, the actual broth flavor was really good with a deep miso flavor, there was a good mix of fatty and meaty chashu, and there were a variety of toppings included. This place actually just gives you free boiled eggs on the side, but I never eat the yolk and my bowl already was really filling, so I didn’t take any. The noodles were ok, bouncy, and definitely fresh, but were more on the “yellow-noodle” side, which I’m not the hugest fan of. Overall, it was still well worth it, since the bowl it came in was so unexpectedly large too.
After lunch, we were both full, and my boyfriend wanted to go back and rest for a bit. We explored the rest of Esta going down, including making a purchase at Uniqlo. On our way back we passed a strawberry daifuku shop I had been wanting to try, and I got a basic ichigo daifuku and my boyfriend wanted to try their strawberry milk since he likes strawberry milk.
We had the milk after getting back from the Airbnb, and the daifuku for dessert later that night. We shook up the milk to incorporate the strawberry puree on the bottom, and it turned out to be a good, well, strawberry milk. It didn’t taste articficial at all, and the milk itself wasn’t that rich, though milk is milk to me. I personally liked the milk soaked leftover strawberry puree left at the bottom the best, which my boyfriend also let me have the rest of.
The daifuku was really good! Although we left it until the end of the day, the mochi still stayed soft and chewy. The inside was smooth red bean paste, and was sweetened perfectly, not too sweet. I haven’t had any strawberries in Japan yet, because fruit is expensive and strawberries aren’t in season right now anyway (where does this place ge their strawberries?), but the smal strawberry on top of the daifuku was good as well, crunchy, not that sweet, but somehow not sour. I’m usually pretty picky about my strawberries, liking them super sweet, but I didn’t mind this one as well. I would definitely go back to try their other items sometime if in the area.
My boyfriend was feeling tired, from walking and jet lag, and we were both still full from lunch, so we just chilled in the Airbnb for a few hours. The initial plan was to go for local yakitori, because you can just get a few skewers and eat what you pay for, and then for more boba, but by the time 5:30 rolled around, we were still not that hungry, so we just went to get boba at The Alley (who had boba that day!) at Daimaru, the closest option. I also bought a bento from Daimaru’s food basement in the case we would be hungry later on but didn’t want to go out for food. You can read about my drink, here!
November 13: This was the day we were going back to my place, and also needed to get out of the Airbnb. The check-out time was 10am, so we woke up at 8am to be safe and get ready before packing up and heading out. We ended up eating the bento I bought the night before for breakfast.
The plan for the day was to get lunch at a revolving sushi place I wanted to try, go get boba from Gong Cha, and then hop on the soonest bus. We checked out of our Airbnb right before 10am, and since we didn’t want to drag my boyfriend’s suitcase around the whole time, we left it in a coin locker. Since the sushi place opens at 11, we decided to check out the Pokemon Center at Daimaru, the department store next door which opened at 10. After we were done, we wandered over into Sapporo Stellar Place, and got on the waiting list. The store wasn’t open yet, but the waiting list was already pretty long! We ended up getting seated around 12pm. Here’s my boyfriend’s TikTok video. The meal at Revolving Sushi Nemuro Hanamaru ended up being 3971 yen, including a 500 yen highball my boyfriend ordered.
By the time we finished, we decided we could make the 1:05 bus, and we quickly made our way down to retrieve the suitcase from the coin locker, and then to Gong Cha so I could get the new drink. Read about my boba here! We did pass a Starbucks, and the new frappucino was in stock…but I’ll take boba over anything else any day, but still, was feeling a little frustrated…And then we hopped on a bus to go home.
Japan Excursions 
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