As a hotel, the Sapporo Route Inn sucks. The bed is a thin piece of foam on top of box springs, and nothing else. It was made survivable by folding the doona/comforter over three times and sleeping on that, with the extra blanket from the cupboard used for warmth.
A hotel near ours, closer to the station, and (I imagine) with more comfortable beds (that was either booked out or $400+ a night) had it's own set of sculptures out the front.
Including one around this photo of a Shimaenaga (they tits that are only found in Hokkaido). Emma is obsessed with seeing one, although from what I gather they only become more active when the snow starts to melt and they come out to feed on the sap from the damage done to the trees by the cold, so I don't like her chances.
I have no idea what a parallel Hakubutsukan is. It seemed to be a long series of random stuff off to the side of a tunnel connecting two subway stations.
Including a bunch of farm animal made from those little plastic circle things you stick together
and a side corridor lined with photos from Sapporo's history
from some really old stuff from the dawn of photography, through to a few color ones that appeared to be from the 80s
We went to the Sapporo seafood market. It's not as interesting as the Tokyo fishmarket, especially when you've only just had a sizeable breakfast.
For ~$250 you could give the valentines gift of Uni (Sea Urchin roe)
Unfortunately the glare in the previous shot makes it hard to see the two colors of Uni that have been used to make a heart shape. If you zoom in on this one, you get a better idea.
This was a frozen over canal near the market.
We went to a park in a different part of the city (this one is Makonamai park, the previous one was Maruyama)
There was a statue
And a frozen over lake
Do not dive in the lake. It is shallow and you'll do yourself an injury :|
A covered walkway
A delightful little park bench where you can relax
and take in the view of this building across the lake.
A concert hall
There were a lot of crows
do not have food, the crows will steal it
No food for you!
A shrine in the park
Even colder lion-dog
The Shrine
Crows playing in the river
which is only mostly frozen.
Steps up to another shrine
legend says that no one knows what the Shrine looks like, as all who have gone up the icy steps have fallen to their deaths. (or perhaps they just started to take heed of the no photography signs at that point)
We then walked through the outskirts of town
To the ropeway station
It was a 4 minute ride to the middle station
Where there were ropeway mascots and a gift shop
A further 2 minutes ride to the top
and you could see out across the city
at least when it stopped snowing
There was a lovers bell, where couples could go up and ring the bell and annoy everyone else in the vicinity. They could also lock padlocks to a nearby railing.
There was a shrine
and a snow version of the mascot
The restaurant at the top of the mountain was fully booked, so we got a coffee and sat in the coffee lounge
and waited for the sun to set
so we could see the city from the top of the mountain after dark
it looks very pretty all lit up
it spreads out for quite a distance
luckily the snow was rolling in in the distance still, so we had a chance to see it before it all got too obscured.
Couples continued to annoy everyone around them well into the evening...
Walking back to the hotel we cam across more illuminated trees
These head down from outside the station to near the main festival site.
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