Sapporo
Sapporo is the largest city on the island of Hokkaido, and the fourth largest city in Japan. It was founded in 1868 and so is a fairly new city. Despite being a city of nearly 2 million people as well as hosting the 1972 Winter Olympics, there is very little to actually do in Sapporo as a tourist. We came to refer to our primary activity as "being in Japan". It was refreshing to be in a city and simply experience it for what it was, rather than be catered to as an outsider.
We pretty much killed all the actual touristy things to do in the first day. We saw the old clock tower, which is one of the least interesting historical buildings I've ever seen. It's a grey wooden colonial thing that looks it was stolen from somewhere in New England and dropped in the middle of downtown. There's a clock on it. Sorry no pictures.
We went to the Sapporo beer museum, which is pretty much the main attraction in the city.
The highlight of the museum was the delightfully deranged dioramas of the brewing process. I believe this one describes how beer is put into bottles. Way more fun than a brewery tour.
Being in Japan.
We had a drink at the Sky J bar in the JR Sapporo tower at sunset.
That's a Godfather (scotch and amaretto, pretty tasty).
This is the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art. It was entirely filled with simple, traditional pottery. The lobby was cool though.
So that was Sapporo. We spent a bunch of time wandering around. This became more fun when we discovered the massive system of underground walkways that connect the main parts of the city (remember, this was in February).
Tokyo
We almost didn't go to Tokyo because the train tickets are so damn expensive, but then we came to our senses. When you have the chance to visit to Tokyo, you take it, even if you only have eight hours.
After an early flight, we caught the Narita Express, one of many trains that takes you on an hour ride from the Narita Airport to Tokyo. The train/subway map that we were given with our tickets looked like a plate of spaghetti. Surprisingly, we started off outside of Tokyo's massive metropolitan area, traveling through fields and bamboo grooves, but soon it felt like a city, and eventually became insanely dense. Train announcements were in four languages (English, Japanese, some Chinese dialect - presumably Mandarin, and Korean).
We opted to visit the famous Shibuya Crossing, supposedly the world's busiest intersection. Here it is on a weekday morning.
Venturing into the side streets of the Shibuya district, trying to find lunch.
Amazingly, we found somewhere quiet in this city of 30 million people. After but a few hours, we took a return train, re-entered the terminal, and boarded the 12 hour flight back home.
