For our last day in Sapporo, we spent as much of it outside as possible, starting with Nakajima Park. Since our hotel was near Susukino, this park was only a short walk away. It was immediately obvious as soon as we entered the park - paths were suddenly extremely wide and there were no cars anywhere! Also, it probably helped that we visited on a Tuesday so there weren't too many people around. As we wandered, we saw beautiful autumn colours everywhere - it was gorgeous, and almost a relief since it was one of the things we were looking forward to seeing. Within the large park, there were a number of points of interest, such as the Sapporo concert hall and observatory - maybe it's these facilities that help fund the maintenance of the park?
With one park yielding such wonderful views, we figured we'd also visit Maruyama Park. To get there, we took the subway, and grabbed some food along the way for a picnic in the park. Maruyama is at a higher elevation than Nakajima and we noticed that there were more people around - probably due to the popularity of the Hokkaido shrine and Maruyama Zoo, both of which are in the park. This park seemed fair less manicured than Nakajima Park, and as a result, less colorful, but still impressive in terms of hiking/walking paths.
At Hokkaido shrine, we saw that there was a performance of some kind (dance?) happening inside the shrine. No one was allowed in, but you could see some of the dancing from outside, through the windows. Tourists were all around, and it looked like vendors were setting up booths in time for lunch. To find a quiet spot for lunch, we walked away from the shrine and found an empty picnic table. All was fine, until some crows (ravens?) came as I was eating my onigiri and flew so close to my face that I yelped and dropped my food. At that point, the birds grabbed my delicious onigiri and flew off with it. I saw them doing the same to other people, and was hopping mad! I couldn't believe they were so aggressive!
Lesson learned: watch out for crows in Sapporo. Do not plan to have lunch outside unless you can guarantee you're in a crow-free area.
After that experience, we decided that was enough exploration of parks. As an alternative, we headed to Hokkaido University to see what the campus was like. From the subway, we walked amongst students heading for class, and got to see the inside of one of the buildings - narrow corridors lead to small, organized classrooms where students beep in as soon as they walk into the room. The campus grounds are pretty spacious - lots of green space in between buildings filled with trees showing autumn colors, and bicycles everywhere! It seemed cycling was the preferred method of transportation - with hundreds of bicycles parked beside campus buildings, and along the grassy areas between the road and the sidewalk.
Walking towards Sapporo station, we left the university grounds and made our way back downtown to check out 2 stores: Yodobashi Camera and Daiso.Yodobashi is like Best Buy, the Bay (without clothes and furniture), EB games, and Toys R Us rolled into one. Daiso is like a high end dollar store that still sells everything for a dollar.
My feet needed a break after all that walking, so we stopped for dinner at a soup curry restaurant - Garaku. It was my first time trying soup curry, and it was very satisfying! Warm, tasty soup with vegetables and meat, with a bit of spice to heat up your body for the cold weather. Oishi!
Tomorrow, we'll be heading to Asahidake onsen!
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