Sapporo Day 1

 I didn't say, we were hungry last night and we went to the Lawson next to our hotel and got the onigiri (rice balls) i was craving, plus some hot potatoes.  This was around midnight on monday night Japan time, and then we went to a long lovely sleep.  

We woke up somewhat refreshed and went off to Nijo Market for some Kaisendon.  This is Hokkaido's breakfast of champions.  Fish on rice bowls.  We managed to find a line, put my name, in japanese  and english not the list, laughed with a group sitting near us and had a lovely breakfast.  It wasn't glorious, but it was good. I thought the tuna was excellent but didn't love the salmon.  The salmon roe was quite lovely. I forgot to snap a picture and this was the first real meal of the trip.  

Let me tell you how much we walked today. 21,586 steps...totalling 8.42 miles.  Yeah, i'm tired.  

We had a low key day, we walked over to the Mega Donqi.  We then made our way to Odori Park, saw the Tokyo TV tower.  We made our way to the Summer Beer Festival in Odori park.  Lunch of Champions.  

After this great lunch, i was exhausted so we came back to the hotel to go to the Onsen. Our hotel has a public bath that is fed by hot springs.  I went off to the female side and kenny to the male side.  We agreed to come out in 45 minutes and meet.  We went off.  Got naked, showered, enjoyed the hot baths.  This was everything.  Sorry, no pics at all.  Didn't even take our phone down.  Came out and enjoyed a lovely ice cream bar.  (this is where I pretend I'm not lactose sensitive and keep the blog moving).

Refreshed,  we decide that we are starving and we'd like to go shopping.  We make our way to the shopping center.  Window shop a lot, but so hungry.  We go to Ramen alley but there was literally no veggie ramens and instead, all the ramens have pork in them.  So, we left.  

I found a soup curry place.  We have been dying to try soup curry as it is a Sapporo/Hokkaido specialty.  AND it did not disappoint.  Just to mention, the restaurants in Japan, as in most of Asia, are all over.  First floor, 4th floor, 10th floor, basement.  Etc.  So we are walking to this place and I see on google maps that its in the center of the block but there are no stores and there is a staircase leading to the basement. I look at the restaurants but it's all in Japanese. I say to Kenny, Remember this name....Okushiba.  So we keep walking but I stop, I am thinking, we must have missed it.  The second I stop, this beautiful Japanese man walks up to me and says Okushiba....I'm like Hai!!! So he takes us to the staircase.  He says, Okushiba and we follow him.  Kenny is all Arigato Gozaimasu, and he's cracking up.  We get down the steps and he points to a line and says, Okushiba.  Thank you Thank you.....and then....the kicker.  He goes back upstairs to go on his ways to wherever he was headed to before he decided to help us.  WE LOVE JAPAN.  for this reason alone.   Ahhhh. 

It took us a while to find a place with no meat in the broth but look at those veggies.  My god, it was so good. 

We are ready for sleep at 8pm.  Hello Jetlag, welcome in!