I’m back in Sapporo on June 10th to go see the Yosakoi Soran Festival this year. It’s an annual festival, and one of the largest and popular in Sapporo, as I believe people from all over Japan will come to perform in it (the list of teams was kind of insane). One of the groups I saw came all the way from Wakayama. I had heard about it in a few June events newsletters, and also because one of my coworkers was actually performing in it with her team that she joined in her college days. Ideally, I wanted to see her team perform, and even looked up on the team’s website to see what time they’d be where the day I went.
We got on our usual bus, and arrived in Sapporo a bit after 10. Since our lunch spot of the day was in the Tanukikoji area, we passed by the festival booths set up in Odori park. First we browsed the food booths, and there were some good looking street food. In particular, I wanted to try getting some ikameshi (squid rice that’s famous from an area in Hokkaido), and I think my boyfriend wanted some long fries. We also took a look at the 8-Chome stage, where performances would be the whole day, and saw a whole bunch of dancers walking around. I think the parade was supposed to start at 10:30, but I think it actually started a little after. We got our first look at Yosakoi around then!
My boyfriend requested shabu, so earlier in the week I made a reservation at 12 at an all you can eat shabu place he ate at before, Shabu Yo. I hadn’t been to this one, since our go-to in the past was Shabu On Yasai, and he went to this one since he wanted to try a new place. Our reservation was at 11, and we arrived just in time right before they opened at 11. We went for the beef and pork course, and I also had a coupon for a discount at the drink bar.
What I liked about this place was that the vegetables were self serve, and you didn’t have to order or wait for those on the tablet. Actually, everything apart from the meat (and extra paid items and calling over an employee) was self serve, which was super handy. In addition to normal rice, they also had wakame rice, which was a nice change of pace and offering to have (but I will always not mind white rice!), and even a curry station that my boyfriend liked. The soft drink selection here was a lot more varied, and I think the all-you-can-drink price is cheaper here too. The dessert bar was also pretty extensive, with a waffle station, soft serve, and shaved ice. We did come for lunch, but I think where the price kind of matters most is the meat quality. I actually liked the pork here a bit more than On Yasai (both have two choices, pork belly and loin), but I’m more a beef girl at hot pot, and here there was only one beef, as opposed to On Yasai that has two choices, comparing both of the basic selection (both places have more fancy upgraded meat options). The beef here was fine, but my boyfriend wasn’t a huge fan. Overall, I think we both left happy, and very full.
All that we really had planned for the rest of the day was just to see more of the dances and parade, so we were chilling and had time to kill. My boyfriend is very keen on winning a certain character in one of the current Lawson kujis (lottery), so we kept finding Lawsons and attempting our luck (spoiler alert, he didn’t really get anything he wanted that day).
We then tried going to Book Off to sell off one of his freshly purchased kuji items. For whatever reason, there was more complications this time around than the first time I did it, but he ended up getting 70 yen back from the 700 yen purchase. Talk about insane buyback prices.
We just happened to be in the area for the Ichibangai location of the festival, where individual teams were performing one at a time (as opposed to contiually walking in the parade), and it looked like they were being watched by a panel of judges (one was a non-Japanese dude, which I found interesting). I think my coworker was here like 10 minutes before we got there…but there would be one more chance to see her later. They were all pretty cool, and all of the performances that we saw were unique in their own way. One group come all the way from Wakayama, another from Fukushima, another from a further town in Hokkaido. Some had tiny kids dancing, some had older folks. One group we saw even had hats and were super modern, and had narration during the dance. I remember part of their concept was to break the stereotype of Yosakoi.
Honestly, you really could have stuck around forever, and can’t watch everything that’s happening, because everything is so spread out, and there are so many people performing. For instance, the performances just at this venue was scheduled from 10:30-5:30. That’s dedication and props to the people that planned to sit and watch the whole day.
My coworker’s team was next scheduled to be in front of Sapporo station arond 3:50, so after watching for a bit, we decided to leave and make our way there. On the way, I wanted to stop by a new matcha shop that opened just a week ago, d:matcha Kyoto. They were supposed to sell matcha and your typical drinks, but what I was really interested in was their matcha tiramisu (when we got there, they also had other sweets on their menu too, like roll cakes and tarts). I got a regular matcha one, and my boyfriend opted for the berry matcha. The guy was also super nice and gave us extra ice packs when he heard we wouldn’t be home for a while.
I ate it the next morning for breakfast, and it was pretty good. There was a ton of matcha, and all the layers were super soft (I did refrigerate it when I got home) and melded together nicely. It was also super fluffy and airy, with layers of matcha powder, cream, matcha cream, and not to dense matcha soaked cake. It was very satisfying!
Anyway, since the performance was supposed to be at 3:50, we figured it’s be most efficient to take the bus at 4 home, and get boba right before the performance so we wouldn’t have to stick around much longer. I wanted to go to Gong Cha for a new drink, which you can read about here!
We made it to see my coworker’s team just in time, but unfortunately there was quite a bit of a crowd and not enough time to find an open spot, so all I could do is stand on my tip toes for the duration on the performance, and saw a bit of the right side of the group.
And then we bussed home right after!
Japan Excursions 
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