Sapporo: Day Two...

Wednesday we  woke early so we could arrive at the temple on time.  Our hotel included a breakfast buffet, but by no means your usual hotel breakfast buffet...  This was amazing.  Such good sausages, Japanese bacon which is light years better than American, eggs, salad bar with my favorite sesame dressing, pastries, juices, white bread toast with chocolate sauce drizzled on it (that was the favorite of the three younger members of our party, not me) and pumpkin croquettes, which turned out to be mashed pumpkin stuff breaded and deep fried.  They tasted like really great hushpuppies.  There was tons of other stuff that looked very different and very Japanese.  I thought I would be brave and try a piece of fish.  And, yes, I still don't like fish.  At all.  And I got a bone stuck in my teeth for my trouble.  

On the way through the train station I saw this beautiful quilt.  I've done a bit of looking since, and this, I think, is an example of Ainu needlework.  I will write more about it when I cover Friday, since we found several more quilts in a different part of the station.  I took about a billion photos of them. But I really love these quilts!  

Getting a man hole cover photo proved difficult...   I actually like that Sapporo accepts that there is just going to be a ton of snow.  I remember when I worked shoveling snow around the skating venue at the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics.  We had to have every surface coated with icemelt if the temp went below forty degrees (F).  It was so ridiculous!  My German boss just couldn't understand American lack of personal responsibility.  He said in his country, if you slipped on ice it was your fault for not being careful enough, not the shop's fault you slipped in front of.  Anyway, most of the sidewalks and streets in Sapporo are packed snow.  In icy or sloped spots, gravel was usually sprinkled to give a bit of traction.  But we had to walk carefully, and I think that's mostly ok.

We took the bus to the temple, which was about a fifth the cost of the train.  It was cheap, easy, and we got to sit down, which is never a sure thing on a train, especially in the morning.

We arrived at the temple.  I was surprised by how big it is!  And beautiful.  And even though the grounds are covered in several feet of snow, I could see how beautiful the design and care of the gardens are.  I read an article that talks about how temples would someday dot the land of Japan.  It says:  "Yukonobu Sato, a clerical leader in the temple, said members in the temple district have strong faith and commitment.

The size of the temple district is small, especially compared with the size of the temple, he said. “I have thought about why. This is God’s investment. He knows the growth that is possible.”"

 If you are not familiar with our church's temples, here is a page with questions and answers about them.  We believe them to be the House of the Lord, a place where we make saving covenants with Heavenly Father, and the place where families can be sealed together for all eternity.

There are three temples in Japan.  One down south in Fukuoka, this one in Sapporo, and one an hour away from our house in Tokyo.  We were super excited when we got orders to Japan that we would finally live so close to a temple!  The closest temples to our previous home were in Washington DC and Raleigh NC, both about 3.5 hours from our house.  But we have this sort of temple curse... which kicked in, and both of those two closed.  Leaving us 5.5 hours from both Philadelphia PA and Columbia SC.  This temple curse we have has proved quite strong...  We stayed for two weeks this last summer across the street from the Salt Lake temple.  Which was, you guessed it, closed for cleaning.  B's ship even visited Hong Kong, which has a temple.  And yes, that temple was closed while he was in port.  It's getting rather insane...  So yes, the Tokyo temple has been closed the entire time we have been here, and will be until right before we are due to leave.  I am praying the remodeling goes smoothly and ahead of schedule!  But our day here at the temple in Sapporo was amazing.  This temple has housing buildings for visitors and a large kitchen/ dining area.  The girls waited there while B and I went inside.  There was an English ceremony at 11.  The temple workers were beyond nice and helpful.

I didn't take this photo, but wanted to remember how beautiful the temple is inside.  Here is an article with more photos of the inside of the temple.

 

After our session in the temple, we walked to a restaurant for lunch.

We found a true hole in the wall, mom and pop lunch restaurant very close to the temple.  We sat on the floor, which was slightly painful...

But the food was incredible!  And cheap.  Each plate was 500 yen, or less than five dollars.

On our walk back to the temple we let the girls finally be loose in some snow.

They had a fantastic time.  We ate some chocolate bars we had picked up at a "supa," or supermarket, along the way.  We teased the girls about foxes eating them. 

We walked to a nearby shrine, in my quest to collect goshuin stamps.  Sadly, the shrine was closed, so I didn't get one.  But the building was gorgeous!  I want it.  Really.  I like the style.  I like the layout.  I like the guardian dogs.

The front door/porch area.

This part back here would be the family/dining room...  Bedroom off to the right.

While this passageway would connect with the huge garage/shop/craft room over here to the right...  It's perfect!

 

We returned to the temple so B and Miss A could go for her first time to perform baptisms in behalf of those who died without the opportunity to be baptized.  We arrived early, so I enforced on pain of death a twenty minute period with no screens, toys, or books; only breathing and thinking, in hopes that Miss A might fall asleep and be fresh (and not cranky) for the evening.  She really does still benefit from a siesta, although she is 12.  As do I, if we're being honest.  It worked!  She fell right to sleep.  And she loved doing the baptisms.  She had four of her own ancestors' names to be baptized for.  And a Japanese lady with a gorgeous British accent gave them some more names.  She said her husband was given ALL the records of their village.  So he has thousands upon thousands of people going back hundreds of years.  Amazing.  I waited in the other building with the two small girls.  All day at the temple people kept giving us chocolates.  It was great!

We were curious about how you say "temple" in Japanese.  Buddhist temples are called "otera."  But we were told that our temple is called shin-den, which means sacred place, or temple.  When B asked one of his friends who grew up here, he said that he translated the shin kanji as "God," and the kanji for den as "castle."  I thought that was cool.
 

We found a random okonomayaki place on google maps fairly close to the temple.  We got fabulously lucky with restaurants this day, because  this turned out to be another tiny little amazing place to eat.  The food was so cheap that we ordered one for each of us.  But so huge that we couldn't eat it all.The husband cooked the food on a grill right next to us, while the wife sat talking and laughing with some of her friends.  It was fun.  And tasty.

 We had quite a long walk back to a subway station.  I took this picture to illustrate something I have noticed in our months here.  When we first arrived these girls complained, and plodded, and whined about walking...  They hated not having a car.  But after about the first two months, they sped up and shut up.  Now they can walk quickly and far.  Much more quickly than I could on the slippery roads, so I had to keep telling them to wait up for me.

We followed google's advice on the subway back to our hotel, which took us a stop too far.  We were pretty tired by this time, it was almost ten.  But near where we got off we ran into the hugest snow blower ever, and a never ending parade of snow trucks.  Where does Sapporo put all its snow?

We put the girls to bed in their room, then watched a hilarious show about, we think, a really intense realtor girl who learned how to bowl.  Watching Japanese tv and trying to make up what is going on is pretty entertaining.  And that was day two!

Sapporo: Day One...

We visited Sapporo!  From Wikipedia: "Sapporo is the fifth largest city of Japan by population, and the largest city on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.  Sapporo hosted the 1972 Winter Olympics (the first ever held in Asia).  Its annual Sapporo Snow Festival draws more than 2 million tourists from abroad."  And that is why we visited on the 19th, and not the first through 11th.  Because I'm a complete wimp about crowds...  Maybe next year?  Maybe?

We were late booking this trip, because we just couldn't settle down to a date.  But Sapporo has a temple!  Miss A had never been, although she has been old enough to attend for months.  So, realizing it was something we really should do, we finally just did it.  And then all sorts of events that we would miss during those four days started rolling in.  Including, but definitely not limited to: Miss R's big biography living museum presentation she'd been working on since the first of the year; Miss A's New Beginnings event at church; Miss A's catapult science project; an invitation for me to tour the World War II caves here on base...  The things kept coming in.  But the tickets were paid for, and we had to go.  And as the day arrived, my anxiety levels dropped, and I started feeling properly excited.

We managed to pack all our belongings in our backpacks.  Although they were quite heavy, we mostly managed on the walk to the train station.  You can see here Miss R got some Daddy help...

The train rides went smoothly, although they were crowded (of course, in the morning) and hot.  We were bundled up for Hokkaido, so it was a bit unpleasant to stand on the packed trains.  But on the plus side, Japanese airport security is an absolute dream.  No separating out liquids, no removing shoes, helpful smiling kind airport workers.  It was one more of those things that has B thinking we should rethink our plan to return to the US...

The plane boarding was also smooth.  They boarded escape rows and all window seats first, then middle seats, then isles, in order from front to back.  No surprise, everything was done smoothly, politely, and efficiently.  We did notice that the isle seats are all equipped with little foot ladder things, so the rather shortish flight attendants can step up to see into the overhead bins.  We didn't think they have those on US planes.  And another plus- they gave us kit kats instead of peanuts!

Snow!  I definitely want to visit Hokkaido again in the fall, when all those lovely gray trees down there are changing color.

Our friends had visited Sapporo a couple weeks previous, and let us know that the Sapporo airport is huge, fun, and full of good food.  We ate lunch at a food court when we arrived.  Miss M had ramen.  B got this amazing curry ramen from the same place. 

Miss A, Miss R, and I got tempura and udon.  So good.  And truly, nothing makes you feel warmer and cozier than warm noodles in your belly.

We rode the train from the airport to our hotel, which was very close to Sapporo Station.  The girls took every opportunity to climb on the dirty snowbanks. 

We checked into our hotel, which is lovely.  We had next door rooms, and the girls' room had three beds!  They were ecstatic that no one had to sleep on the floor.  And of course the hotel toilets were the whole nine yards.  Seat heaters, squirters, and driers!  The girls were in heaven.  They watched some Japanese tv, always entertaining.

We rested for a while, then walked to see the downtown sites.  I had done some pinterest scouting, and we checked off some of the must-sees.  This is the Akarenga, which means "red brick."  It was built in 1888 from local materials to be a government building. 

We then walked to Odori Park, famous for being the site of the Snow Festival sculptures.  It is a long narrow park running 1.5 km right through the middle of the city.  This was a pretty big disappointment.  I knew we were missing the festival, but I thought we might be able to see some of the sculptures remaining, although unmaintained and melted.  But they had overturned them all into huge mountains of snow all cordoned off with yellow tape.  So the girls couldn't even play in them.  Everything was muddy and dirty.  I know we weren't seeing the park at it's best, after millions of people had traipsed through.

We next walked to the Tanuki-koji shopping street.  (Tanuki= a Japanese sort of raccoon, koji= alley.)  I was a bit disappointed by this.  We didn't see any shops that interested us really, but found some of the strange/different things that make walking around Japan so fun. 

You don't often hear the word "ardent" used nowadays, which is a pity.

THE landmark of Sapporo is this clock tower.  It was built in 1878, and is the oldest building in the city.  It's very pretty!  Next time we come we will visit in the day so we can go inside.

And it is supposed to be haunted, so of course B wasted no time in telling the girls all about the girl-eating ghosts around.

As a side note, in my research for this trip, I came across some information about some of the mascots of Sapporo and Hokkaido.  One of them is Haunted Tokei Guy, which you can read about here.  He has the clock tower as a head.  As the article says:  "The mascot was first unleashed at events and festivals last summer. While children were traumatized, Haunted Tokei Guy also has been attracting fans who consider him “dreadful yet cute.” Tourists apparently often ask him to pose with them for photos these days."  I also read about two other mascots, but more on them later...

I took this picture to show some of the beautiful lattice/rope work used to support the plants here.  Everywhere the plants are tied like this.  It must take forever!  This, with the labyrinth of underground passages and shopping malls, is a sure sign that it snows a real heck of a lot in Hokkaido...  And of course the girls are still playing with/eating whatever snow they can find.

We waked around forever trying to find this certain restaurant that serves jingisukan, or Genghis Khan.  Basically Mongolian barbecue, but with really good lamb meat.  It is a Hokkaido specialty.  Here is the grill that was in our table.  Isn't it pretty?  We had a hard time finding the restaurant because, surprise! it was underground.  Of course.

 B and I had lamb, which we grilled with veggies and sauce.  It was good!  The meat was amazing, although I think I have qualms about eating baby animals...  And I am just not really a fan of bean sprouts.  The girls ordered udon and really yummy sausages that came on rib bones? 

To thank the girls for being such good sports about everything, we stopped on our way through the train station and got some Hokkaido soft serve ice cream.  (Hokkaido is famous for its dairy products.)  It tasted like very sweet very cold milk.  We also talked to the tourist info desk people about which ski resort we should try.  Those info offices are amazing.  I need to utilize them more! 

We returned to the hotel, very tired and late, and enjoyed our lovely hard beds, and perfect pillows.  It's hard to find a hotel that has great pillows, but this one does.  We slept well.  No earthquakes, this night...