Friday, 10 February 2023

Sapporo Day Four

It was quite the sunny morning the next day

We snuck into the University grounds through this gate

and headed across campus

to find the Hakkaido Univesity Hakubutsukan

A model of the University grounds. The museum is building 16

They have a nobel prize for attempted chemistry

The medal. They seem quite impressed by themselves.

A series of murals depicting the events of some early University field trips.
My Japanese isn't great, but it's probably better than yours, so let me translate.
Clark and Penhallow take 14 students on an expedition up mount Teine in search of lichen. They have rations, but one of the students, Oshima, has also brought some rice crackers. Clark gets a student to stand on him (with his shoes on) to collect specimens of a new type of lichen not before discovered.
They head back. The snow is quite deep so using straw mats they brought with them, they slide down the mountain. Unfortunately Oshima falls in a hole and students behind him push aside snow as they slide past and bury him in the hole. They realize he is missing when they get to the bottom and so send some students back to look for him. Oshima manages to force his way up through the snow and escape and is found. Once they return to the rest of the group, Tragedy strikes! Oshima has lost his rice crackers. Not knowing if he will fully recover they make their way back to the University where the full extend of the tragedy of the trip is revealed. The lichen was already discovered on a previous field trip. 


Wheeler took a group to explore the Toyahira river. Tragedy struck when wheeler fell into the river and did not re-imerge. The native guide dived in to find him calmly sitting on the bottom removing his shoes. The group camped in a heavily bear infested area, and the guide told them stories about all the bears he'd fought. Then there were no bears and they all went home. 

Penhallow takes a group up the Ishikari river in specially designed boat. Tragedy strikes when rain causes them to be delayed two days. They arrive at Mt Shibetsu and begin to climb. They bed down in a bear infested area. Tragedy strikes when a bear arrives in the middle of the night and leaves them alone, not waking them up. They continue and the next night Tragedy strikes when a bear hits their tent rope and then leaves. Because they are overloaded they leave some of their extra salt and rice behind in a cache for them to retrieve on the way out. They are rained on and bitten by insects but continue on. They continue on and spot some eagles fishing trout out of a river, so they catch some trout themselves and are BBQing it when Tragedy strikes! Because they left their salt behind in the cache the BBQ trout is relatively bland. They are climbing a narrow ledge when Tragedy strikes and a bear turns up and then leaves. They find meter wide ammonite fossils and accidentally break them trying to dig them out. They find some fern fossils. Then they go home.

I'm really not sure why they dedicated so much space to nothing happening.

A polar bear.

Awww look, He wants to smell the camera.

Some Ainu clothing and an elk

Awww look, He wants to smell the camera.

Hunting





Ainu artefacts

An Ainu metal band

There was also a bunch of stuff about things the Japanese have invented

Teeth!

Cute robots

blindness

They had some sea birds

An impressive butterfly collection

A deer

Awww look, He wants to smell the camera.

Ainu traditional dress

Ainu wallet

A seal

Awww look, He wants to smell the camera.

Deer skeleton

Awww look, He wants to smell the camera.

Contemporary Ainu art

Is that the deer from earlier?

A mammoth

Awww look, He wants to smell the camera.

A globe of what the continents looked like millions of years ago

A bear and a squirrel

Awww look, He wants to smell the camera.

Awww look, He wants to smell the camera.

Some one broke all their pots

Probably this bear that was hiding behind the shelves

Awww look, He wants to smell the camera.

There was an extensive mineral collection, including these pieces of the mantle that lave had brought up to the surface.

old computers

including one with an inbuilt printer

8 inch floppies

After that we went to the Sapporo Beer museum

Beer!


A selection of Sapporo labels through the ages.

Sapporo and Asahi were once the same company.



The Sapporo black label originally wasn't called that (it was "premium" or something) but the label was black. So many people referred to it as black label that they officially changed the name.



Old beer ads

There was a giant plastic beer you could have your photo taken in

and then queue for half an hour to sample some beer.

We swung past the main festival site that evening

and around to the second site (the 3rd site was cancelled due to covid this year)

Ice boat

the ice sculpting area was sponsored by Stihl 

Many sculptures, same deal as the last lot





 

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