Japan 2022 Day 7

Day 7: Sapporo

It’s great to get everyone’s comments ….means you are looking at the blog! Yeah!
So, let me respond…..

Sammy, you will have to wait till my return to see what the winning prize is, and in terms of Japanese inefficiencies, here are a couple of examples:

• at our current hotel, in order to get the password for wi-fi, you have to turn on the TV ( with a remote control entirely in Japanese) to find the network and the wi-fi password. I found this out by calling hotel reception ( because turning on the TV is not the first thing you would do, if you turn on your TV at all!) Imagine how many other guests do the same as me. Wouldnt it be more efficient to have a slip of paper in the room with those details ( p.s. the wifi password was REALLY complex (not)….the network was ”princehotel” ( which, you guessed it, is the name of the hotel) and the password was ….wait for it…..”welcomeph”.
• One of the banks which Satoko uses in Japan requires documents to be signed in black pen. Blue pen is not acceptable.
• I think i have made my case!

Sharon, you asked about weird food….yes, i am eating some very intriguing dishes e.g. a custard that tastes like chicken soup; stingray. Sally’s special edition will feature some of the weird eats.

Robyn, you wanted to see how others performed on the ski stimulator well here’s me (and, Angie, it is impossible to fall off!)

Today we started with breakfast on level 28 of our hotel. Stunning view.

We travelled to the port city of Otaru. It used to be one of the busiest ports in Japan and a channel was built in 1923 to accommodate the freight ships until it became obsolete because the freight ships docked directly to the pier. The govt wanted to reclaim the channel for roads but this would have meant the destruction of historic stone warehouses. So the issue was highly controversial for a decade and finally a compromise was reached in 1986 …..The govt reclaimed half of the channel for roads and beautified the other half . This led to the beginning of tourism in Otaru.

It was a beautiful sunny day and we could see the Russian coast across the Sea of Japan. And heres some of the funny sites we came across today

Some of our group visited the Sapporo brewery, one of the most famous beers in Japan. Below is a wort tun of Sapporo beer and some of the marketing posters used in the early days ( interestingly all these early posters feature women) and the modern times.

Sapporo hosted the winter olympics in 1972, the first winter olympic games to be held outside Europe or North America. They are trying to win the hosting for the 2030 winter games.

The Olympic symbols are part of a strip of land which runs from the famous telecom tower to the beautiful historic Supreme Court building, with fountains all along the way and a lovely English rose garden.

And heres les and sally smelling the roses!

Dinner at a local Sapporo restaurant. $25 for each of us ( including beers) …cheaper than breakfast at bronte.

They still smoke in some Japanese restaurants. Last night we mistakenly went to a restaurant where they smoked at their tables ( remember that?) . Tonight they at least had a designated smoking room. And every table has a perspex panel to separate diners from each other. Phil thought the panel was to separate him from his beer!