Sapporo: Hitting the bars and clubs, night 2

Ready? 3,2,1 drink!

Tonight we decide on a different strategy considering we got so lost and had no idea where to go last night. Before hitting the wonderful steakhouse we did our homework courtsey of Maylee's iPhone and headed to the Electric Sheep Bar (although we'd been trying to find the Electric Ship Bar for ages until realising it was a typo!)

Ahhh bliss, this place was a LOT more civilised cocktail bar/eatery full of the trendy local crowd (not Russians off a navy ship) plus it was on the 9th floor so good views over the Sapporo streets which meant we could smugly watch the poor buggers walking through the blizzards.

They also had a "nomihodai" offer on which roughly translates as "drink as much as you can". Think one of those all you can eat buffet but for drink, the only difference being that with the nomihodai there's a time limit, 90 minutes to be precise. So we set Maylees countdown timer on her iPhone and got stuck in. The poor bar guy, we were definately out to get our 90 minutes worth. No sooner has he bought us 2 drinks we were ready for the next round to the point that we even tried to order multiple drinks at a time (to save his feet right?) but he politely told us this wasn't allowed.

Ah so that's why its called "electric"- the drinks are lit up in funky electric colours. Not sure where the sheep bit comes from.

Don't worry we were in too bad a state when we left, they simply must have watered the drinks down. Great bar though for atmosphere and views, we had gone up in the world compared to the previous night thats for sure ; )

Sapporo Snow Festival: Eating wagyu beef, kind of..

All this cold and we fancied a big piece of steak. Well Hokkaido is famous for the fact it has cows, horses and actually just animals unlike some places in Japan.

Maylee found a Steakhbouse serving wagyu, you know that famous Japanese beef? Its almost a delicacy here, renowned for its flavour but more so by breeding techniques such as massaging the cattle and adding sake to their feed.

Reservation made, a quick download of the address onto her trusty iPhone (all in kanji, you see its not as simple in Japan trying to find places when you can’t read the kanji!) and we were on our way to Steakhouse Ushitei in town.

For those thinking about going to Ushitei a reservation isn’t needed, only if you’re in a big party. It was quite a casual place but really friendly staff and an English menu. Unfortunately for us poor earners (ok me not Maylee) the wagyu steaks way too expensive at Y 6,500 for 250g which is about £45. Oh to earn proper money again!!

Anyway, we ordered the 350g hamburger steaks instead forgetting that in Japan hamburgers don’t usually come with the bread bun, the salad, onion and gerkin! Yes in Japan they come as they are, a hambuger steak with sauce. It didn’t matter as we ordered some rice as accompaniment and I can honestly say it was soooo gorgeous.

We then asked her if the burger steak was wagyu and she said no. only the steaks. Shit! We’d gone out of way to find a wagyu steakhouse and didn’t even eat the real macoy..

Ah well we made ourselves feel better by remarking on how much money we had now saved for hitting the bars in Sapporo for a second night running.

Sapporo Snow Festival: Best snow sculptures

Some of the giant snow sculptures truly defied belief; towering more than 10 metres in height and made entirely of packed snow. The larger statues apparently take about 2000 cubic metres of snow.

There was a true to size replica of the Baekje Royal Palace in Korea (both pictures above above) , a mini Tokyo disney resort scene with a stage in front for performances, a German church and a castle! Yep all made out of snow.





One of our favourites was an animal scene apparently representing the two notable zoos of Hokkaido. There were twin polar bears playing with their mother, an incredibly detailed snow leopard as well as penguins, orangutans and an Eagle.

This photo isn't mine. My camera and I had a big row so couldn't get one of the entire animal scene

So how the heck do they make these enormous snow sculptures? Well, apparently they start with putting up a huge wooden frame which they then pack down with snow. once the packed snow is hardened the frame panels are removed and they start carving. Most of the carving happens at night due to warmer daytime temperatures making the sculptures fragile.

Japanese girly pop band dancing in shorts in front of ice sculpture!

Sapporo Snow Festival: Snow sculptures in a blizzard

Woke up with a good old cracking hangover, nothing a bit of traditional Japanese breakfast of fish, rice, pickles and miso can’t sort out”! Weather, sub zero but actually sunny. Wow, it all looks so welcoming! Decided to head out to the Tsudome site (snow tubing and mazes) and then come back and see the snow sculptures at Odori Park after. My idea and in hindsight it was a crap idea.

We spent the most part of the morning trying to find the bus stop then we managed to get on the wrong bus, each of us relying on the other that we knew where we were going, it was hilarious. By the time we got off the wrong bus and had boarded the right bus heading in the right direction a huge snow blizzard had started to the point that I didn’t really want to get off the cosy bus!

We stayed about an hour there, the snow tubing was brilliant fun and there was this place where a snowmobile dragged inflatable tenders around a track, now that's a great alternative to sledging, I’ll have to tell Ben!

Got back for the snow sculptures but our timing was not great as the blizzard had decided to hit the city. I’ve never seen anything like it, I couldn’t even lift my head up! Could but only because her glasses were blocking out the snow!

Check out these scenes....

Watching the Sapporo snowboarding competition in a blizzard

Bloody hell, this snow blizzards giving me a right headache

Yep Maylee is under there somewhere...

Japanese girl in mini skirt in snow blizzard

Oh and of course we’re in Japan so you’re still going to see a handful of people with their mini skirts on and no tights (and some kind of weird tail thing going on)

Near the bottom of the Odori Park we came across the international snow sculpting competition which including competitors from the US, Holland, Sweden, Finland, Singapore, Hong Kong, China etc. Each team (it looked like) got given a block of packed snow a few feet high/wide and a set time to create something amazing.

Well...the Dutch decided to do nothing with theirs (is there enough snow in Holland for them to even have professional ice carvers?!) and so instead handed out snow gifts, basically a snow brick hacked off and wrapped up with some ribbon, with an underlying message about the icecaps melting. Personally I wondered if they just knew they wouldn’t win so went for the easy option instead of slaving away on the ice? Ok that’s me being totally cynical.

Over to the Finnish sculpture and a very cute family in the sauna scene, the Singapore team and a wonderful flower display, China working on an amazing Buddha image and then to the US....

Well we all know the US usually excel in all competitive events but I was sneakily chuffed to see that the US sculpture was absolutely dire, a guy from Portland trying to sculpt some grapes which didn’t really look like grapes. To rub salt into the poor guys’ wounds his neighbour, the super talented Hong Kong team, had carved what could only be described as a Chinese looking dragon masterpiece. Well see the pics and maybe you’ll see what I mean.

Sour grapes.....

Walking on a bit we stumbled on what my friends know as a personal favourite of mine; an international outdoor food hall. Brilliant. Since the Japanese don't do anything but chipolata sized Frankfurter plastic tasting sausages I just couldn't resist a fat meaty Brazilian sausage on a stick....

He looks friendly but I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of this guy.. check out knife

Sapporo Snow Festival: Hitting the bars...

Tweedle dum....making me cringe

Being the prepared person that I am (and Maylee more so) I’d quickly printed off a “guide to Sapporo nightlife” at work hoping no-one would notice. Unfortunately in my haste I failed to realise I’d printed out some juvenile English teacher part time cassanova who only talked about bars and clubs in Sapporo that were good for a lay or a "hook up" (if you don't believe me read it)

But crap, we were two civilised and older Western girls looking for a civilised nice time! By this time it was too late, I had crammed the print out in my bag and we found ourselves in the first bar called Rad Brothers in the Susukino area of town. What a dive! Some wannabe Japanese hip hop dudes, a group of Russians straight off the Navy ship, some butch Americans with attitude and drunken clingers on wandering about.

One double vodka and red bull later we were out of there remarking on how “awful” and “crass” the place was and how the club/bar just down the road called Booty looked the same. We cockily moved onto our next bar called “VIVO” but after getting a million contradicting directions from bouncers and doing a few circuits of downtown Sapporo in sub zero temperatures we were forced to admit defeat. By now it was midnight already, we were freezing and needed a drink.

With our tail between our legs we agreed that to save ourselves from freezing outside we’d have to hit Booty (the place that we turned our noses up earlier) and was as bad as expected. Well ok if you’re into R&B or you’ve had an obliterating amount of alcohol I'm sure it'd be bearable. We sat upstairs in the lounge area (thankfully huge with big comfy sofas) and finally sat down to have a drink which was disturbed within minutes by Japanese tweedle dum and tweedle dee, two far too young drunken idiots trying to chat us up. The one I got stuck with had limited English vocab, in fact he had only learnt 2 expressions in English (which maybe worked for him in the past?) which were “I love you” and “what are ya talking about”. I did find it mildly amusing and had to film him actually saying it, see below.

We later saw them getting ticked off by about 5 cops (Japanese coppers must get soo bored, hardly any crime happens here)

We then try to sort out another bar/club to go to and with our limited knowedge of the area coupled with the fact that it was far too cold to stand about on the streets gulped back our pride and went back into Rad brothers which had slightly improved (but maybe that was the number of drinks we’d now had?)

Oh god, another dumb enlisted.

Some enlisted military guys from the US Navy then came over and started talking to us. Not too much offence intended but this is the second time I have talked to US military folk and I’ve never met such stupid unintelligent men! So I was making small talk saying how I didn’t find Japanese men very manly as a whole and were a bit whimpy. The American guy turns round and says “Well you know why that is though don’t you?” He then tells me that in fact they were manly, heroic and courageous etc before the Americans dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Oh wow. What a bloody insolent statement especially for a guy who is stood in a bar in the middle of Japan, I just couldn’t believe my ears!
We stayed until about 4.30am chatting to a group of “normal” (considering who we’d met earlier) Ozzie lad and girls who were in town from Niseko where they worked and were also clueless about nightlife in Sapporo.

We headed back to the ryokan around 4.30am drunk and suddenly not feeling the cold at all despite me taking a pic of the electronic weather dial!

Sapporo Snow Festival: Ramen experience no 2

Both numb with the cold we decided to save the larger snow sculptures until the next day and head to the ramen shop that the head lady at the ryokan recommended. Ramen Alley? She said forget it. This ramen shop (sorry dont know the name!) was her personal favourite.

The ramen shop was......well a typical ramen shop; tiny, packed with people (mostly men) slurping on their ramen and beers and Japanese cooks with those towels on their heads running about.

Struggled a bit with the all Japanese menu but Maylee (who has no fear) asked the guy “ichi ban oishiee” and “ichi ban Hokkaido no yumei” which probably isn’t the best Japanese to ask for the best most famous ramen in Hokkaido but he understood (or probably just sent along with it as we were clueless tourists speaking broken Japanese) and recommended “Ichigo” and “shinshue”.

I opted for the spicier one served with a Sapporo beer (when in Sapporo and all that....)

To be honest I’m still not convinced why people rave on about ramen so much; glorified super noodles with a piece of fatty pork floating on the top and a pinch of spring onion springs to mind (god have I just committed total ramen sacrilege here!)

Maylee assured me that it wasn’t that great and she’d eaten better Hokkaido ramen in Kanazawa. “What?” I said “You mean you think that you can get better Hokkaido ramen in Kanazawa than the one at this ramen shop recommended to us by a local?” (She later told me she got it confused with ramen from a completely different area in Japan, DOH!!)

Maylee totally has the slurping thing down to a tee. I, however, seem to nearly choke every time I try and slurp. I still can’t quite get over that cultural hurdle though.

Maylee with bowl bigger than head slurping away with the rest of the locals in the ramen shop.

Before anyone starts commenting and in my defence can I just say that I read in "Eat, Sleep, Sit" that Zen Buddhist monks in training were also forbidden to make noises when they eat!

Anyway, ippai with ramen we headed back to the ryokan to get ready for our big night out in Sapporo!

Sapporo Snow Festival: Ice sculptures, hotto wain and kiddy slides

Sapporo snow storm...

Why is it when you finally meet someone who wants to travel about Japan and DO things its time to go?! Damn!

Anyway, the latest of the Jess and Maylee “discover Japan” adventures was a trip up to Sapporo to see the much acclaimed snow festival (yuki matsuri) This trip warrants a few separate posts since we crammed so much into our 3 night trip it felt like we’d been there ages.

Took the bang on time, totally efficient bus to Komatsu airport to get on the bang on time, totally efficient 90 min flight to Sapporo where the model looking air hostesses with painted on smiles gave us a totally efficient complimentary drinks service (no free booze though...there just HAD to be a flaw!)

I thought Kanazawa's weather was brutal but walking through the double doors out into Sapporo's -11 fresh air hits you like a hard slap around the face, ouch I say! We found our ryokan (Nakamuraya Ryokan) just before full on frostbite set in thanks to Maylee’s wicked iPhone google mapping device. Little did I know at the time that the phone would feature a LOT in our little break..back to that later.

Were greeted by the friendly staff at the ryokan and taken to a simple but nice tatami mat room by a young Japanese lady who served us the obligatory green macha (tea) and sweet (mochi) She then fussed a lot and did lots of bows and backed out of the room bowing, coming back in with our yukatas and backing out of the room again only to re-appear again to tell us safety instructions, breakfast hours etc. Coming from England and its distinct lack of service-orientated culture I couldn't help but feeling a tad too fussed over (if thats possible?!)

After a quick cuppa we headed out into the sub zero temperatures to make it to the snow festival opening ceremony....which we then MISSED! Hahaha, well actually we’re not sure. We found a load of poor suited and booted Japanese sat in the freezing cold outside (bear in mind it’s -11) listening to what looked like some kind of ceremony. We were looking out for the “ice queens” but didn’t see any.

Church ice sculpture

This is actually a BAR made totally of ice, note drink bottles on bar. Very cool!

Light tunnel, not sure why...but it was nice

Yep real crabs and fish set in ice block sculptures, poor little blighters

Instead we walked around the ice sculptures which were truly amazing. Have a look at the pics. I bought my tripod out but didn’t get any nice pics this time. My excuse? It was -11 (ok I now I’ve mentioned that three times now) and the tripod was a cheapy. The legs of the stupid thing were like bambi, buckling every time I’d try and take a pic.

Maylee standing outside the igloo eatery made of ice blocks, it even had a gas heater inside

Hallelujah, just when I lost the feeling in my fingers we stumbled upon this cool igloo type eatery selling “Hotto Aka Wain” (hot red wine) Felt pretty chuffed that I even managed to read the katakana, its only taken 10 months! For some reason I was expecting some kind of yummy vin chaud delight with brown sugar, spices and fruit but no. This was quite literally "hot wine".

Refusing to feel defeated we ordered some “oden” – a kind of snack that’s sold in most convenience stores, this one a kind of chewy processed fish cake and fried tofu on a stick. I've eaten better, thats all I'm saying on the matter (I know Maylee LOVES it!).

Maylee with the oden she loves

Time to move on...

At the bottom of the street there was this wicked little mini slide made purely of packed snow. Well why should kids have all the fun on it? So we both had a go. It was only after I realise that sliding down snow on your bum when you're only wearing jeans isn't such a great idea.

Wicked little slide made purely of ice

I never thought I'd say this b/c I never thought I still had feelings in my bum but it went totally numb, ouch!