What to Do in SAPPORO!! (Sapporo Beer Museum and Day Trip to Otaru)

After regrouping in our room after our visit to Noboribetsu, we set back out towards the train station at about 5:00pm to take the metro to Sapporo station then the rapid airport train to Otaru. Otaru is an old shipping port city on the water with iconic warehouses looking out over the canal. We took the rapid train which took 33 minutes. From the train you could see the sea and the rocky winter waves. We arrived at Otaru station at about 6:00 pm and got some Otaru stamps in our books. Next we walked into town. The town was so busy with tourists, it was difficult to walk. We made it to the iconic warehouse and Jives filmed a rap take along the water. We took a few photographs and made our way back to the station. We were too cold to stay out too long! The train back to Sapporo was packed!! We stood with no room ( a guy had his backpack in the aisle and I had to limbo over it backwards for 30 minutes). Also, on the train there were 4 unmasked westerners coughing non stop (this was when there still was VERY much a mask mandate in place and tourism had JUST reopened) I wanted to punch them in the face. So incredibly self centred and rude! We arrived at the Sapporo station at about 7:30pm and switched to the metro. We arrived back at our accommodation at about 8pm and had a beverage. The plan was to go out and get dinner and have a soak in the bath after, but we were so tired that we fell asleep at 9pm . At least this way we could set our alarms for 5am to have an early bath before the crowds. 

I woke up to my alarm at 5am and hopped out of bed. We headed down to the bath right away. When I arrived there were two women heading into the bath ahead of me. I chose a locker by the wall and changed. The wash station I chose had a faulty tap, so I had to move to another. After washing, I headed into the main bath and had it to myself. There was a lady in the bubble jet seats beside the main bath. I sat for about 15 minutes and then headed up to the rooftop onsen. There was a lady in one of the individual onsen barrel baths, so I went into the big bath and had it to myself. After about 15 minutes the lady left and I had the entire bath to myself. I headed back to the room at about 5:45 and Jives was already there. I went and grabbed us some coffees from the vending machine before we headed out for the day. (We spent the day at Noboribestu, but that is it’s own awesome post if you want to read it, I will link it here)

We headed out again at 4:30 to go to the Sapporo Beer Museum. We took the metro to JR Sapporo Station and then walked 25 minutes to the museum. The museum closed at 6pm, but the tasting area closed at 4pm, so we couldn’t try the beer there. The museum is free or you can pay and go on a little tour. Since it was close to closing time we opted to walk around on our own. We saw one of the big copper kettles used to brew the beers and a bunch of displays about the history of the museum and brewery. I liked the display of all the labels they had used throughout the years. They also had an old advertising display, with drawings of kimono-ed women drinking Sapporo beer. We bought a darker brew at the museum gift shop and sat down at a bench outside to have our own little tasting. I had a bottle opener in my purse! The beer was very different from the standard Sapporo, much richer. 

We then walked back to the metro and took it back to our station. Once we arrived in the neighbourhood of our hotel, we tried again to find a restaurant to eat at. We went back to the izakaya that we had eaten at on our first evening in Sapporo, but they told us that the whole restaurant was reserved. We wandered for hours trying to find a place to eat. Finally we went to a tonkatsu place and ordered some rice bowls and an Asahi. It wasn’t excellent, but we were so hungry that it didn’t matter. We then walked around the snow festival at night to see the snow sculptures illuminated at night. Afterwards we headed back to our hotel and I went for a bath in the onsen. I had the place almost completely to myself, except for one lady. It was so nice having hot springs in the hotels so that after a long cold day you can warm up so thoroughly. We then went to sleep early as we had an early morning the next day, heading to Aomori.
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So we’re back from naori betsu yeah it’s time to uh touch base and sort out our next leg of the adventure uh get a couple beverages yes sir and uh you’re thinking uh saporo beer Museum yeah I think so that sounds like a good time yeah all right camera I

Love this city a lot I think it’s a good City yes it’s very nice city I didn’t think i’ like it as much as I do I didn’t think there’d be as much to do here but there is quite a bit yeah I I agree with you my expectations are uh

Surpassed by actual experience yeah huzzah where we going girl the moon oh cool beautiful very Christmasy right yeah tree decoration all right any idea which way we’re going yeah lots of ideas cool if we fail we fail hard if we succeed we succeed harder go team you quote me on that put

A little quote in the bottom cool unless you forget to an elephant never forgets it wasn’t going to Yeah B where are we up beer Museum yeah we’ll see what we can see I don’t know we can see what’s closed but we’ll check it out yeah that window is cool he that’s you and me right and a friend it’s Gabby on the last three of us

So seeing as the tastings haul was closed uh we bought some different sapr beers they’re dark right I think so and I brought my co whole lour opener very nice and I’ve been carrying it in my purse for a while it’s a magnet so it keeps sticking to the top of the bottle

Oh no is it not any better than our other travel opener it’s definitely better I don’t know if it is want me do it we might have to take a commercial break Okay this is going so well inity later I guess we use this in um CL and pour until it completely fell apart I’ve almost got this one oh there’s only one more left to go there we go thank you thanks love it come by give it a try bud

It’s good Rich that’s smooth let’s see what you think it’s still like a pser but it’s slightly darker it does feel richer than I require required yes I require than I recall sear and the good part is if you feel like your beer is warming up too much in the hot summer sun

Yeah there you go would you like to drink a snowman I would like to drink a snowman what you doing over there cheers to you thing you calling these people things that’s rude shout out to beer lovers [Applause] this [Applause] much St to water two barrels over there you

Can and it’s open to the element pop so I’m going on a morning coffee run Coffee one great success okay let’s uh go to a aat a sounds like a plan think we figured out the right train to a we will see prob we won’t Whatever one or the other see the other uh trains forming pretty big lines good idea to get H the next stop is cotoni You made it I think all righty say chak no I just said cuz I was using a different camera and I thought it might make it easier for you if you had a [Applause] reference I can’t stop that feeling deep inside of me probably go to a doctor pretty cold

Huh call got a little boat T yeah people on there you ready yes do it whatever it is I don’t know what it is I guess it wasn’t right look at all the ice in the top E b call in we got a little boat tour yeah people on There Might take a picture even Oh not use fire know but I’m Cold is it is it really dark D yeah it’s reasonably D I wonder if it’s all Blackness probably gopr can’t really pick stuff up lit not that one this place is called Thriller karoke because the only song you can sing is Thriller I’m completely okay with that I don’t

Know uh this point I don’t even know what the last thing we filmed was but here’s a cute little bear guy before we eat some food he’s cute context we’re back from the sapo beer Museum uh came to sapo station we walked by to donkeyote through the donkeyote

Now we’re in a little Plaza thinking where can we eat and we’ll find something and we’ll eat it yeah we will cool I really like the crabs up there they’re cool yeah olly just got this thing we talked to the camera that wasn’t recording for 15

Minutes no we did she’s hoping for the Axel she got the rabbit she’s Bor you’re the rabbit I think that’s good luck yeah and we also we had a 15-year-old rabbit that just died a couple of years ago that’s sad which is like the world record of rabbits it’s not true 16 this

Year the record but so we were supposed to be eating but instead we’re going to look at comic books and toys and then eat yeah then we’re going to eat and also look at this little van that’s so cute I’m glad you got that

One so we went in Mand Drake so that you would buy stuff what happened I didn’t buy a single thing uh yeah that we think they were closing not 100% sure but there’s announcements being made that probably equate to uh we’re closing soon please get out or S imagination to us

And Holly found some ji art books that uh steal it’s crazy how cheap manga and art books are in Japan I I found an art book that I had already purchased by one of my favorite artists and when I bought it it was like over $100 here 15 bucks

And like it was mint yeah I think yeah yeah I was eyeballing a a loopin vyl cuz I’m a big fan of Yuji Ono a jazz composer in Japan but I decided I’ve got the mp3s and such maybe I shouldn’t bother just the idea of trying to like

Not break a over the next couple weeks we figure it out if you wanted to yeah that’s okay let’s go find food now actually yeah back to a real Quest hey hey admiring the Pretty Lights on the trees I don’t like whatever’s going on there what going on where See spee