I went to Sapporo on April 15th because my boyfriend was coming back from Tokyo, and we stayed the night so he doesn’t have to rush back to my place. Plus, it gave us some time to relax and spend some time in Sapporo.
April 15th: I got on my usual 7:40 bus to Sapporo, and got off before last stop, or the Sapporo station one. Speaking of which, sometime in September that stop and the Esta building itself is going to be demolished / go under construction because they’re going to be extending the Hokkaido shinkansen from Hakodate to Sapporo. I read that they’re going to put up some other temporary stops in the meantime, but I guess better get the best of Esta before then.
Anyway, since my planned lunch spot wouldn’t open until 11:30, I made a few stops to kill some time in the area. Though I did buy a matcha terrine from Family Mart before getting on the bus and proceeded to eat it on the bus, I was hungry when I got off. I stopped by Donguri, a local bakery chain that’s pretty famous in Sapporo and one I’ve been meaning to try for a while. Oh my goodness everything looked so good and fresh, and I was so tempted to buy multiple items. I did want to get an onigiri from next door to eat right away though, so I just settled on buying one pastry from the bakery area, and ended up buying a sweet potato apple steamed bread (cake?) because the combination sounded interesting. This Donguri branch also has a freshly handmade and packaged onigiri section next door which has a ton of flavors, standard and unique. I went pretty basic though, and got a salmon one, my favorite.
The onigiri was very good, and right off the bat very handmade looking. It also tasted pretty fresh, being just slightly warm, and the rice a nice texture. There was a decent amount of filling; would I have liked more? Yes, but overall the ratio was not bad. I also ended up saving the steamed bread for later and ate it when I got home the next day. I put it in the microwave to heat it up, and since apparently it was steamed, I thought it’d be better than baking it. It came out hot, soft, and fluffy, and the cake itself had a slightly light caramel-y, sweet, toasty flavor to it. The apple on top was super soft, and just a bit tart-sweet, which surprisingly went pretty well with small chunks of sweet potato inside.
My other to-do of the morning was to go sell a pin at Book Off. A while ago I did some gacha for my boyfriend for a show he liked, and I got one of a character he wanted, and one he didn’t really care about. I’ve been meaning to try to sell it, and I decided today would be the day. I’m pretty sure I spent 300 per round of gacha, and I ended up getting 12 yen for the pin. A bit of a loss, but at least I got some money? Since I was in the area and I had time, I tried to go to the Animate, but they weren’t open yet, yet there were people just waiting outside for them to open.
I stil had a bit of time to kill, so I went to check the GAP selection at the one that opened a few months ago. I remembered that a few years ago we visited a GAP in Japan, and the selection was pretty different from the American one, with some good finds. I did see a few pieces I liked, but it’s not exactly in my budget at the moment…I also stopped by this tiny cafe, Sobo, I had bookmarked on Google Maps a while ago. It’s basically a boutique that also sells tea drinks and desserts. The clothes were pretty up there, and there wasn’t really an open menu around the counter area, so I quickly took a look and left. I’d like to go back though, because the pictures on Google looked aesthetic and supposedly they have boba! Wego nearby surprisingly was already open, so I did a bit of window shopping and also checked out the vintage/used section on the 2nd floor that kind of recently reopened. When I first came, the second floor was blocked off so I’ve never been.
A little before 11:30 rolled around, so I headed to Udon Ikkyu. Honestly, I was going to wait until it hit 11:30, so I was looking at the menu to look busy even though I already knew what I wanted, when a lady poked her head out and said I could come in. To my surprise, there were already a few people eating inside. I quickly bought my order ticket, and sat down, and within a few minutes of handing the ticket over, my order came.
A bunch of pictures make it look a little small, but in person the bowl is huge, albeit shallow. I got the fried chikuwa and zangi bukkake combo. For the bukkake items you can request a hot, a cold/hot, and a cold version, and that basically means the soup + noodles are hot or cold, or one or the other is. I’ve seen somewhere do a hiya/atsu and a atsu/hiya combination, but I wasn’t exactly sure what this place’s was since they only had one and not the other. If it was cold noodles and hot broth I might have considered because cold udon has an amazing texture, but since I was pretty hot from walking around in a sweater and jacket, I actually went with the just cold version. It was so good, and the fried items were perfect; the zangi was fresh, hot, and crispy, and the chikuwa was tender, and just light crispy. I especially appreciated the slightly smaller zangi pieces because you get so much crisp, and even though it was freshly fried it doesn’t hurt your mouth much. The udon was nicely chewy, bouncy and little soft all at the same time, and the broth was a bit oily and fishy, but still light, pairing well with the noodles. I forgot to ask for no green onion and ginger, but I managed to put it all on the spoon to separate them, ha!
I was going to go pick up my boyfriend at the airport, and by the time I finished eating, I still had plenty of time before he would land at 3:30. I went underground, browed Natural Kitchen a bit before deciding not to get anything, and ended up at GU. Okay so, I really only wanted to see and try out the new pull-on pants collection (which felt so nice I got two colors), but I got hooked on some other things and ended up buying a few items including the pjs below…oops.
Along the way back to the station I also checked out the 22% Market since I’ve passed by a bunch of times but never actually took a look. It was only the other day that I searched up Ishiya branches that apparently there is bakery and a small cafe attached to this market selling goods and featuring specialty dairy products (as expected of Hokkaido). The cafe in particular had a very cute and interesting looking parfait selection, so I might consider that another potential dessert spot…There were also quite a few small businesses and vendors with stalls up along the underground passage, and one that particularly grabbed my eye was a vendor called Kenon, selling very delicious looking and sounding donuts and bagels. Apparently their actual location is a bit North Sapporo, and I was tempted, but I already bought a pastry that I haven’t eaten that day, and technically I could always go to their storefront.
I did stop at the miredo Starbucks though, to try out the new, or rather improved, Melon of Melon Frappucino that’s the current seasonal frapp.
It was very refreshing, and also very generically melon tasting. That’s not necessaarily a bad thing (just a statement since they use both honeydew and canteloupe), and chunks of canteloupe on the bottom. It made a nice textural contrast with the occasional crunch and chew. I figured it’d make a good to-the-airport drink for the ride there.
Before getting on the train to the airport, I quickly scoped out the somewhat new Sandria vending machine. Sandria is a popular 24-hour sandwich shop in Sapporo, just a bit south of Susukino, and they recently set up a vending machine in the station. I heard on the first day there was a massive line, which I guess speaks to the popularity and hype, since if there’s a line, you know its gotta to be good right? The selection looks pretty good, and there was actually a bit of a line when I went. I didn’t really need to buy anything though, so I just got on a train to the airport around 1:30.
I didn’t entirely mind getting there that early, since I wanted to explore the 2nd Floor Departure Lobby Marketplace (and get a snack there while I was at it, ha!). I’ve only ever gotten glimpses of the front few shops whenever I’ve been to the airport, but I know according to the map there’s a ton of souvenir shops on that floor. My god, the marketplace is huge, and I felt like it was kind of a maze. There are so many shops and cafes, and even places that sell fresh produce (how do you take that home?). There are so many souvenir sweets shops that sell airport limited edition items that you can only get there, including some that only release items at certain time slots and then they get sold out right away. I noticed a shop in the seafood section that sells exclusively salmon products which was wild. The amount of places that sell ice cream at the airport is also insane, along with lines at some places.
Anyway, for a while I’ve had a few bucket list exclusive food items I wanted to try at New Chitose Airport, and I decided to try the sweet potato ice cream from Wakasimo, a sweet potato sweets brand.
It was amazing, with a light, but clear sweet potato flavor. It was creamy, yet not too heavy, and even included some red bean in the middle!
Eventually as it neared 3:30, I made my way to the Arrival lobby downstairs, met up with my boyfriend pretty soon after, and then we headed back to Sapporo to check into our hotel. I’m a little salty that the Hokkaido travel coupon I applied for mysteriously deleted the data and I couldn’t reapply. Maybe I didn’t do it right, or they found out that my boyfriend isn’t elligible? We just chilled for a bit in the room until dinner, which was gonig to be at our go-to All You Can Eat shabu place. I made a reservation for 5:45, since I had a coupon that gave us all you can drink soft drinks for free, and alcohol for 500 yen (I don’t drink, but my boyfriend does) if you entered by 6.
After dinner, we didn’t do much for the rest of the night and just relaxed at the hotel.
April 16th: We slept in, which was nice, but also meant that we basically missed the free breakfast service the hotel offers (It was from 6:30-9). Oh well. I’m sure it wasn’t the fanciest of breakfasts ever, given we stayed at a pretty average hotel, but hey, free food is free food and I was kind of curious as to what they served. Morning coffee does last until 10, but neither of us drinks coffee so…
This day was also super rainy, which was a pretty stark contrast from the day before which had pretty good weather. Since my boyfriend would have to lug around his suitcase and we didn’t really want to spend too much time outdoors, we decided to just take whatever earliest bus we could to go home sooner. Our check out time was at 10, and my boyfriend finally wanted to get Mos Burger, which opens in the station at 10. I think it’s supposedly rated the best burger chain in Japan. That was going to be our breakfast. He’s been talking about trying it for a while, and now we’re going to get around to doing it.
He got the onion rings and a fish burger, and I got a small fries and the rice burger with yakiniku filling. I’m not a beef patty burger person myself, and I feel like I only ever had a packaged Mos Burger. Mos is also known for their rice buns, and as a rice addict, that was definitely up my alley. It came out super hot (fresh?), but the buns actually stayed together pretty well, had a little bit of a grill to them, and went very well with the filling. I’d say the flavor was a little less yakiniku-esque and more sukiyaki, as the beef was very thing and mostly sweet. It was still pretty good though. The fries were nice, with seasoning that ever so slightly reminded me of Arby’s for some reason, but could have used some ketchup. They were a little too thick for my taste though, but I just like more crispy and less potato filling in my fries.
I wanted boba for the ride home (if you know me, you know), and I went for The Alley that day. It’s also convenient because it’s next to an escalator, and so we didn’t have to drag a suitcase up and down stairs. They were doing a campaign that if you fill out a survey you get 10% off.
And then we got on the 11 bus home! Pretty early, and probably the earliest bus home I’ve taken I think.
Japan Excursions 
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