Sapporo Downtown

That night myself and Jeppe decided to explore the centre of the city.

The city was having a food festival, which meant choosing where to eat an easy decision to make and we could keep visiting the stalls until we'd had our fill. I think I had some random seafood and some lamb. The food was really good. I just felt sorry for the restaurants in the area whose trade must have been hit quite hard by this fortnight long event.

The festival was taking place in Odori park, a mile long, single-block wide strip of parks in the city. At the eastern end the city has a clone of the Tokyo Tower, this one featuring a restaurant along with the usual observation deck.

The city was quite lively at night, which made its exploration fun.

The Norbessa entertainment complex is home to some arcades, a bowling alley and on its roof a large big wheel. Jeppe spotted the wheel reflected in another building nearby so we headed towards it to check it out.

Inside the arcade. My favourite game was the cube looking one called Jubeat. It has a unique interface in a grid of 16 buttons that each contain a video screen.


The clip above shows how it works. You can play single player or online, which I tried and got my butt kicked at. As expected there were people playing who were very good at it.

Inside the nicely themed bowling alley. Funky!

A couple of movie posters for the cinema complex. I know which one I'd prefer to watch ;)

A shot of the tower blocks taken from the wheel.

A shot of the wheel from a tower block. Jeppe had spotted a car park across the road and we climbed out onto the roof to take this.

The entrance to Tanukikoji, an enclosed street that houses a number of restaurants, pachinko parlours and shops.

It's also the magnet for musicians testing their material. Some more successful than others.

Close by is the Sapporo clock tower, an American structure that is one of the more popular tourist attractions in the city. So popular in fact that we'd stumbled across it quite by accident. It wasn't on our must-do list at all! It was OK I suppose but looked out of place in amongst all the modern buildings, but then there aren't many buildings still around that were built in the early 20th century.