After a nine-hour flight, we finally reached our destination - Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan.
It was autumn. As autumn goes, the weather wasn't very welcoming. It was raining in the freezing cold 13 to 19 degrees autumn season. Nevertheless, it was still way cooler than the humid climate and tropical weather in Malaysia.
Directly from New Chitose Airport, a charter van took us to our hotel - Unwind Hotel & Bar Sapporo - in the heart of Sapporo. It was almost a one hour ride to the hotel. We dropped off our luggage at the hotel and continued our own tour to Pole Town.
1. Pole Town and Tonkatsu Wako
It was a short 14 minutes walk. Pole town is an underground mall in the heart of Sapporo city. Here, you can find boutiques, restaurants, and cafes: such as Minette by Wacoal, HABA, DOSCH, and Kinotoya Bake.
In addition to being an underground mall, Pole Town is also an underground walkway to Odori Station to the Namboku Line, Toho Line, and Tozai Line; and Susukino Station to the Namboku Line and Sapporo Shiden
Hungry, we stopped for lunch at Tonkatsu Wako in the mall. It brought back memories of Ma Maison Ebisu at J's Gate Dining in Lot 10, Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur.
After lunch, we continued on our self-planned itinerary to Odori Park. It was roughly a 350 meters or short 5 minutes walk from Tonkatsu Wako in Pole Town to the park.
2. Aurora Town and Odori Park
The plan was to enjoy the long greenery in the midst of the towering city skylines, wander around Odori Park, and take selfies and wefies with the beautiful flowers. However, it was still drizzling; hence, we headed down to Aurora Town.
Aurora Town is another underground shopping street. At 312 meters in length, it starts at Odori Station and extends to the east. From Odori Station, the 400 meters long Pole Town extends to the south towards Susukino Station.
We took a short tea break at Kafe Yoshimi. After the much-needed tea break, we made our way back to the hotel from Sapporo Station to Nakajimakoen Station on the Namboku Line. Then from Nakajimakoen Station to Unwind Hotel & Bar Sapporo was a short 5 minutes walk.
3. Soup Curry Garaku
Not to be missed is the Soup Curry Garaku in Sapporo. This is different from the Japanese curry we're used to in Malaysia. It is also in its own league against Chinese, Indian, and Malay curries.
We went there early to avoid the long queues. By the time we reached there at 7:00 PM, it was somewhat filled already. Soup Curry Garaku is an underground restaurant in Sapporo.
You can customize your meal from the portion size to the level of spiciness, to the addition of "toppings" with your curry. Meals cost between ¥1000 to ¥1300.
We had their No 1 recommended Softly Braised Pork Belly and Chicken Leg & Vegetable soup curry. The pork belly was really soft, juicy, and tender. It's also non-pork friendly as it also has Chicken Leg & Vegetables soup curry.
4. Sapporo TV Tower
After dinner, we walked to Sapporo TV Tower. The original plan was to visit the tower at 2:00 PM earlier in the day. But due to the unfavourable weather, we shifted to night viewing.
Inasmuch as the day time view was supposed to be beautiful, the overarching and overlooking night time view was spectacular too. See how Odori Park and Sapporo city light up at night!
Sapporo TV Tower stands exactly in the heart of Sapporo. I hope to go back to Sapporo TV Tower and the observation deck during the day and enjoy the city skyline view in a clear, blue sky.
About the Creator
Ian Fan
Going by the handles @foodyfans and @ipropfans, Ian shares about real estate, investing, finance, travel, food, and personal growth.
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Six Feet Under
Buried alive. What a horrible way to go. Yazz lay there, in her own thoughts. What else could she do? She was hungry, thirsty, tired, mentally, and physically exhausted, and more than anything, she was bored. She hoped she would die of boredom before anything else, anything else would've been more painful. Like many people had, she and her friends had talked about what they reckon the worst ways to die were, it was a morbid subject, but it came up every now and again. Yazz had always been one to argue her point on drowning, others had mentioned burning alive, slowly and painfully bleeding to death, hung drawn and quartered, and being starved to death. It was strange that none of them had considered being buried alive, it had never come up. But now, she was thinking back to those conversations her and her friends had had, how could they have not thought about it? It took a lot longer than the others, you were completely confined, you couldn't move or do anything, you just had to wait, until your body was physically unable to support a life system anymore, which could take up to four days. Four! By far the longest out of all of them. She recounted some of these conversations just to try and pass the time, anything to pass the time. It was difficult to know how much time had passed since she had been underground, it was difficult to know anything. There were many things that Yazz didn't know, she didn't know where she was, she didn't know how she'd got into the coffin, she'd just woken up there. Yazz also didn't know what time it was, or even what day it was, she guessed at Tuesday, it was Sunday evening when she'd been buried alive, intentionally, and although it had felt like weeks had passed, she was still alive, which means she hadn't died from dehydration, and therefore it couldn't have been more than four days.
By Liam Storm3 days ago in Fiction
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