Day 2 - Sapporo

My brother and I woke up at around 4:30 today so we could catch the shuttle bus to the airport for our 6:30 AM flight to Hokkaido. Upon arrival at Chitose, we rode a train to the capital of the island. (I hope I'm not getting any of this wrong... Social studies/Japanese majors?) It was my first time on a JR train since elementary school. The system here (and the subway) strongly reminded me of the metro in Paris. 

After arriving in Sapporo, we dropped off our luggage at our hotel and travelled around the city. We ventured to the old government building, to the famous clock tower, an enormous long park, the Sapporo tower, and a department shop. 

The department shop, I would say, is every girls dream. Levels upon levels of clothes! I was more interested in the basement since that's where we found discounted food! We even found the famous souvenir snack: butter sandwiches. These sandwiches are essentially butter/cream filling mixed with raisins and sandwiched between two cookies. They were mighty tasty, yet had a short shelf life. (I wanted to buy some for my relatives and family at home, but since the due date was near, I couldn't. =( )

What I noticed about the department store was how polite the staff were, and how helpful when we were looking for locations. Most of them had enough English vocabulary to help us out (which makes me sad that I didn't learn Japanese). 

After shopping, we checked into our hotel. We stayed there for a while since it was difficult getting laundry done. There was only one washer and dryer for the entire hotel! PI took a pretty long nap in the meanwhile while I was waiting for the laundry to finish. After it was done, it was pretty late, so we went to the nearest 7-11 to grab snacks and ate a bit at a bar (expensive!). 

And that pretty much sums up my first day in Hokkaido! The climate here is very Calgary like, just a tad more humid. 

And now for the picture of the day:

Maruyama Zoo!