Greetings once again from Sapporo! This post has been a long time coming. It is exactly one month since I arrived. The days have passed in a flurry of activity, full of colour, adventures and experiences. I feel like a coffee machine that has collected too many beans, but hasn’t poured out any coffee! Today seems like a good day to do so: it’s grey and cloudy outside, perfect for staying in and filtering all that has happened so far.

Sitting in my apartment and chewing on a tea-flavoured biscuit, I’m thinking of ships. Even as they sail off to lands where strange sights await, there is the bustling homeliness of everyday ship life, that is, the daily escapade of simply getting that ship across the water. Similarly, for every exciting Sapporo adventure (trips to factories, museums, mountains, forests and hotsprings), there have been intimate encounters in small bars, cafes, karaoke pubs and restaurants, not to mention fumbling attempts at conversation, dancing to electro music in a tiny room filled with people and balloons, biking around, and just sitting quietly in my studio and apartment.

So I hope these brief impressions of Sapporo in and out give you some idea of my experience here.

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IN : Y-FLAT #103, SOUTH-14 WEST-6, 6-8, CHUOH KU, SAPPORO

Let’s start with my apart-to (apartment). It is a cute, compact space about 20mins walk from downtown.

I do more biking than walking. This is my bike (or as fellow resident artist Janet Lilo says, my horse) parked outside Y-Flat. It’s a faithful, squeaky old thing that gets me anywhere I need to go.  The apartment faces a cute alley where I have recently seen two cats (one black, the other grey-orange and lame) flirting with each other everyday. Well, it IS spring.

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Wherever I am, I’m most comfortable working at the dining table. Behold the artful chaos above. The color pencils were the first thing I bought when I arrived.  Manufactured by Tombow (something like our LUNA), the entire series is called ‘IROJITEN’, or color dictionary. You buy them in ‘volumes’ (9 in total), and each volume contains a specific set of colors like ‘Pale Tone’, ‘Dull Tone’ and ‘Vivid Tone’. Probably one of the most amazing things I’ve ever owned.

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A mini-bath, the best invention in the world! It is half the length of a full bath, so you use less water. You can also buy bath salts that simulate the health-giving effects of soaking in an onsen (hotspring), but of course nothing beats the real thing. When I curl up in the bath I feel like I’m slipping into a little womb where nothing can reach me. Worries and aches float away…

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Amazing local produce means that even a lousy cook (such as myself) can’t go too wrong. Top left: bastard attempt at Tom Yam soup. Top right: rather umm, burned toasted cheese. Real Hokkaido cheese! Bottom left: perfect strawberries. Bottom right: a different Sapporo beer every night, so I can collect the cans. It’s all about the aesthetics of the cans, I swear.

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OUT: LAND OF MILK, BEER & SALMON

1. MEGMILK MUSEUM

About 10mins ride from the city is the Megmilk Museum, attached to the milk factory. I wish I could show you the displays, but no cameras were allowed past the greeting hall. Inside were intricate, exact miniature replicas of machines used to process milk into cheese, icecream, butter, etc. Some of them looked like sculptures, further confirming my suspicions that no fanciful artist creation can beat the wacky contraptions invented for modern industry.

Mooo moos. No real cows were seen.

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After our tour, we walked out to the reception hall to find that goodies had been laid out for each of us.

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Me and Janet basking in the glow of green hills and cows. Can you say: Brokeback Mountain?

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2. SAPPORO BEER MUSEUM

That funnel is like a church spire calling me home. The historical Sapporo beer factory is now converted into a museum and several beer gardens. I don’t know why SAPPORO beer uses the same logo as the communists, but I like it.

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When I saw this, I went ‘ooooooooooo’. A huge, and I mean HUGE brass vat used for brewing or storing beer. I wanted to climb up to the hatch and fall inside. Unfortunately this is for display only, and instead of being cradled in a sea of beer (oh joy), I would be hitting hard metal at the bottom (ouch).

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Old display signs. Love how the looks changed over the years.

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There was a wall of beer posters showing the evolution of the Sapporo Beer Girl/Guy from turn of the century till today. This one shows famous actor Toshiro Mifune (Rashomon, Seven Samurai, etc) drinking his SAPPORO like he means it. I can almost hear the grunt of satisfaction.

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3. SALMON MUSEUM

Salmon are a big deal in Sapporo, and not just for sushi. Whether salmon return to the river each year is a test of ecological health. Apparently they are born in the river, find their way to the sea, take a tour around the world and then swim back up the river to lay their eggs and then die. What a wonderful, circuitous life.

Baby salmon. They all seemed to be crowding into a corner and then looking at me. Probably itching to start off that amazing life instead of being cooped up in a tank.

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Proper grown up salmon. Yummy I mean, pretty. (I’m a sad vegetarian)

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BIG ASS salmon. Like as long and thick as your thigh. You wouldn’t want to mess with it.

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Wanted to include these critters because they reminded me of myself – trying so hard to blend in to their surroundings. The little newts in the bottom picture came and peeked at me in the most endearing way. Can you count three?

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Here ends Part I. More posts to come soon.

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