The Narrative of Sapporo II: The Two Beers

After my adventure the Chocolate Factory, I returned via the subway to downtown Sapporo. Being the art-interested person that I am, I headed toward the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art.

The subway train

Turns out that they will accept an American college ID for the discounted student ticket. :D

I really liked the collection there, it was all by Japanese artists and refreshingly different from collections I’ve seen in art museums in the US. I really liked this one piece called Kaze (wind) by Sunazawa Bikki.
I was able to do some sketches of this piece and others at the museum since I was flying solo at that point.

Also, it was raining that day and they had a very convenient thing just outside of the museum entrance.

It’s an umbrella rack. You lock your umbrella into one of the slots and take the key with you. When you leave, you unlock your umbrella and leave the key in the slot for the next person. So convenient! They had the same system for your shoes in an izakaya (Japanese style pub) I went to with friends back in the beginning of June. You put them in the locker, take the key, and then grab your shoes and return your key to the locker on the way out.

After the museum I visited the old government building in downtown Sapporo. It had some really gorgeous ponds and gardens around it.


I did a bit of souvenir shopping (got a yukata for myself!) and then I met up with my friend Meagan again in the evening and we walked a very long way to the Sapporo Beer Museum… only to find it closed. :(
But there was this cool train engine there. (I had my picture taken with it because I figured it made an interesting parallel with last summer when I had my picture taken with one of the emergency diesel generators at the power plant I was interning at. Now my summers will not be complete without a picture of me and an absurdly large piece of machinery).


Luckily we also figured out that there was a subway stop just off the edge of our guide map and we were able to take that back to downtown Sapporo.

Sapporo is famous for the beer brand and also for its miso ramen, which consists of thin noodles in a miso (soybean paste) based soup. It is also much more delicious than I just made it sound. And the real ramen over here should not be confused with nor even compared with the 10 cents per block o’noodles stuff over here. So, for dinner, we tried to find Sapporo’s historic Ramen Alley.

Ok, I have to admit this was the only time I failed at navigation over here. But it was really crowded and crazy in this particular part of town and the Ramen Alley actually turned out to be really small and hard to notice.

Anyway, we eventually got there. (If you stand on a street corner with a map and look confused for long enough, inevitably a Japanese person will take pity on you and try to send you in the right direction). (Though in our case we were sent in the wrong direction, but figured in out in the end). We picked from one of the many ramen shops and ordered our miso ramen. Not unexpectedly, it was delicious.

Afterward we headed back to the area of the train station. Out in front of the station, they had a summer beer festival. This consists of lots of tables outside and some vendors with beer and bar-type food. Also, good music. Meagan and I decided that since we were in Sapporo, we may as well try Sapporo namabiiru (literally “raw beer”, actually just beer from the tap).
Ah, the sweet taste of a drinking age of 20. (The beer was good too).

Next time, the conclusion of my adventures in Sapporo! (Or maybe some other posts between that if I’m feeling too lazy to type another huge post. Scratch the maybe and insert a highly likely).