Hello, everybody. How's it going? My name's Andrew, your English study buddy and host for this episode.
This is bonus episode number 155. 155 of the Q-Lips English podcast.
And what I do here in our bonus episodes is I tell you some stories from my everyday life.
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Okay, so in this episode, guys, I'm gonna tell you about part two of my Japan trip.
I spent some time in Sapporo after Osaka, And I'm gonna tell you some of the details.
I mean, I got up to a lot of stuff. It was a really fun trip.
And in this episode, I'm going to tell you as much as I can before I run out of steam I can't talk any longer.
So it might be a little bit of a longer episode.
If you need to break it into two or three parts and spread it out over a couple of days, feel free to do that.
I do that with my own podcast listening all the time.
So yeah, no shame in that if you need to do that.
But I'm going to tell you the story of my time in Sapporo.
So here we go. Enjoy. So let me tell you about my trip to Sapporo.
I had a wonderful time. It was an awesome little getaway and I was there for how How many nights?
I was there Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night.
Five nights actually. Pretty long time.
It flew by and it went by really quickly.
But yeah, I guess I was there for five nights.
Arrived late at night on Wednesday. By the time I got checked into my hotel, it was after 10.30 at night, and my buddy Luke, who I was traveling with, he didn't arrive until around midnight.
Didn't do anything on Wednesday. Just sort of arrived at the hotel and went to sleep.
And then we left on Monday, early Monday morning.
So we were there for, I guess, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, those four days and five nights.
So the theme of our trip was go with the flow.
Often when I travel with Luke and we've done lots of trips together, that's what we do.
We just go with the flow. We're not really big into planning. or checking out certain attractions.
We were talking about going to a baseball game.
That was one thing that we wanted to do. but we couldn't buy tickets to the game.
The one that we wanted to see actually turned out to be sold out.
We didn't do that, but that was like the only thing that we were kind of chatting about doing and it didn't work out in the end anyways.
But for the rest of the trip, we were just going to explore and see what was up and...
Of course, do some Googling and search on Google Maps and this kind of thing.
Of course, of course. But we didn't have like a set itinerary.
When we woke up in the morning, we weren't sure what we were going to do that day.
We just sort of improvised and made it up as we went along, go with the flow.
So let me tell you about some of the highlights.
I made a bunch of notes here and I'm going to go through them.
First, I should say that Sapporo was a really beautiful city, very clean, beautiful climate.
Coming from Seoul, going to northern Japan was just a so refreshing because it's been a hot summer here in Seoul.
So to go to a place where the temperature was just slightly lower.
I mean, in the daytime, it still got pretty hot in Sapporo and it was just beautiful weather the whole time we were there, really sunny and nice. around 30 degrees though, so it was manageable.
But in the evening, once the sun went down, Then it was so, so nice.
It was like 23, 24 degrees. Nice breeze blowing every evening and just awesome. awesome in the evening.
So that was really, really appreciated. The climate was great.
Like I said, city was clean and quiet and just kind of what you would expect in a Japanese city.
I think there is that stereotype about Japan that is very clean and quiet, and that was the case.
Even though we ended up staying in this pretty interesting area called Susukino, And Susukino, I think, is maybe one of the main entertainment areas in Sapporo.
And there are a lot of hotels and a lot of tourists there.
So I also assume that it's one of the main areas where tourist stay but this neighborhood guys was yeah quite intriguing it seemed to be divided into like two parts there was one part where there were a lot of restaurants and shopping and that kind of thing.
There was a a subway that went through there and a streetcar that went through there and kind of just like your regular downtown district.
And then there was the area on the other side of the street, from the main intersection, the main road that sort of divided this neighborhood into two halves, at least in my mental map of the place.
And I'll talk about maps more in a second because I have kind of a funny story to talk about regarding maps.
But on the other side of the main intersection that divided this neighborhood into two, was more of like an adult entertainment district, perhaps.
There were lots of nightclubs. There were lots of host bars and hostess bars.
And there were even... Bars, like, right at street level beside the main street where there would be girls, like... in the window, kind of trying to attract customers.
And so that was a little bit of culture shock walking in that kind of neighborhood.
But that's where our hotel was. We had to go through that.
And just, yeah, lots of that kind of adult entertainment stuff. which is not really my scene, but it was kind of interesting just to do a little bit of walking around in that neighborhood and seeing what was up in terms of Yeah, a different kind of culture that I'm used to.
Usukino was our home base. It was an interesting neighborhood.
It was sort of in the central downtown area of Sapporo.
Sapporo is a city of around 2 million people, but it's surrounded by nature and just by doing a little bit of Googling, I saw that there were some amazing hikes and some really beautiful looking lakes and just amazing fantastic nature around Sapporo.
But when I was trying to figure out how to actually get to some of the trailheads to do some of these hikes and to visit some of the lakes, it seemed pretty difficult and there wasn't a lot of great transportation options to get to some of these places so unfortunately Although we had talked about it beforehand, we were like, oh, we should definitely do a hike when we get to Hokkaido, a hike in Hokkaido. just because it looked so amazing from what we could see online.
But once we were actually on the ground, it seemed like it may have been a little bit too difficult for us to actually get to some of these places.
Also Although we both enjoy hiking, we had no equipment.
And if you want to hear the story about why I packed so light for this trip, you can listen to last week's bonus episode where I talk a little bit about that.
But I packed super, super light for the trip.
I didn't have any hiking boots or hiking clothes or hiking poles or a water bottle or any of the equipment that you need to do a hike.
And of course, I think we would have been safe.
But in that off chance that something bad were to happen, some accident or we got lost or something.
You don't want to be stuck in the mountains in a foreign country without that kind of vital safety equipment, right?
We decided against going hiking. It was also really hot, like I said, in the daytime, still around 30 degrees. not like overwhelmingly hot, but still not the kind of weather where you're comfortable climbing a mountain.
So, Unfortunately, we didn't do any hiking, but we did visit the sea and we went to this seaside town.
Maybe I'll tell you that story quickly here first. called Otaru.
And it was only about an hour train ride away from Sapporo.
We went there, I think, on the third or fourth day towards the end of the trip.
Because as I also mentioned in last week's bonus episode, there was... a tsunami alert for the Sapporo area and region up there in Hokkaido.
And so because of that, we didn't want to go to the sea too early, just in case there was an aftershock or Something, you know, I don't know.
I'm not an expert about this, but we thought let's give it a few days to make sure that things settle down before we go to the sea.
So we spent our first few days in just Sapporo City.
And then after that, we went to Otaru and we visited...
It's a very nice little coastal seaside town.
Beautiful, in fact. The weather was fantastic.
The train ride to get out there was a little bit uncomfortable because a lot of people were going out there.
There's a lot of tourists that visit both international and domestic, I think.
And so the train was sold out and we had to stand the whole way, but luckily it was only an hour.
So we arrived there after an hour. But Otaru was a beautiful little place.
The population is around 100,000 or so people, I think. actually similar size to my hometown of Kelowna, but much more beautiful.
The architecture was amazing. These really well-preserved heritage buildings. made of stone and brick and I think sandstone.
And so it was really cool to walk around the city and just see the architecture.
It was really kind of unexpected for Japan.
I wasn't expecting to see those kinds of buildings there.
It was almost like I was in europe or something and there were street lights that were victorian style and there was a canal that was really cool to walk along and And yeah, just really touristy though.
That was one of the main problems that we had was that it almost felt like we were just cattle being...
I don't know, rounded up by a sheepdog or something and just herded into a certain area because you walk down the main street and there were so many tourists. and it was yeah hot it's summer right so that was a little uncomfortable so we decided to just really do our own thing.
And we went down some of the streets that weren't as popular, but still got a good view of the architecture and We stopped for a seafood lunch.
We heard seafood was famous there, so we had some fresh seafood that was delicious.
And also in Hokkaido, melon, like cantaloupe melon is quite famous.
So I ate some melon ice cream after. I actually wanted to buy a slice of melon, but it was outrageously expensive.
It was like, I think around, how much was it?
I believe one piece of melon was almost $15.
When we did the conversion, if I am recalling that correctly, I think it was about that much.
Luke and I both wanted to eat melon but we were like, we can't justify paying this outrageous price for the melon.
How much better can it be than a melon back home?
So we skipped the melon. I did have the melon ice cream though.
And I bought some melon cookies, biscuits as a souvenir as well.
And I found out later after I got back to Sapporo that Otaru was the filming location of a Korean movie that I really love called and I was a little bit sad that while I was there, I didn't realize that because once I got back and it sort of clicked, that that movie that I really like was filmed there.
Maybe I could have searched out some of the filming locations and I really like doing that when I get a chance to see where a movie I enjoy was filmed.
So that was unfortunate, but I would recommend that film, Uniege. where I believe the English title is Moonlit Winter.
So if you ever get a chance to check out that movie.
I'd recommend it. Of course, that movie, maybe you can tell by the English title, Moonlit Winter. was filmed in the winter and so it's got a totally different vibe than the summer i think in that area of japan there's a lot of snow that falls in the winter And so it's very beautiful to see all this snow in that movie.
And I want to visit again in the winter too, to check that out.
But that was our day trip to Otaru. Super good in the end, even though it was pretty touristy and overwhelmingly touristy.
I would still recommend going there if you ever get the chance just for the fantastic architecture.
Really, really cool to see. Other than that, what are some of the things that we got up to in Sapporo?
Well... I was pretty stoked and happy to see that there was a massive, and when I say massive, I mean massive, beer garden and beer festival happening in Sapporo while we were visiting.
This stretched... There's a park that... stretches for several city blocks and i actually measured how long this park is on google maps And it's a 1.5 kilometer long park in the middle of the city and just stretches through the kind of downtown core.
And this whole park was filled up with a beer festival while we were visiting. and it spans several city blocks.
In fact, I think it was almost like five beer festivals put together.
So there were different sections. Each city block was a different section.
So there was The famous Japanese beer brands were well represented.
Of course, Sapporo beer, which... It gets its namesake from the city, right?
And then there was Kirin and Asahi. And then, so they each had one block. and then there was an extra block for German beer, and then there was one block for craft beer.
So when Luke and I checked this out, it was maybe around 7.30 in the evening or so.
And I believe it was a Friday night. which is probably the worst time that you could choose to go to an event like this because it was so packed.
There were so many people. If I had to estimate how many people, it feels like there were thousands of people in each section.
So probably like 10,000 people or more were there.
Like it was a lot, a lot of people. It was so busy.
And we started at the start. So we were like, okay, let's just keep walking until we can find a table.
There were tables set up all over the place. and it was very well organized.
You had to buy like a ticket and then you could exchange your ticket for some food or get a beer.
But just hundreds and hundreds of tables set up under these tents.
And it was pretty lively. Like you could imagine thousands of people hanging out, drinking beer, talking. talking on a beautiful summer evening under these tents.
And yeah, like. tons of tables, but they're all filled.
So we're just looking, okay, like where's an empty table, we need to find a way to get in here so that we can join in on the fun.
So we started at the first block. We couldn't find any empty tables, amazingly.
And then we went to the next block and we're looking, no empty tables.
And we went to the next block. No empty tables.
We're like, are we even going to be able to join in on the fun here at the beer festival?
Because it's so, so busy. But then finally in the fifth block, the craft. beer block we were able to find a table and we enjoyed some local Sapporo craft beer, which is actually probably what I would have preferred in the end.
And it was kind of fun. walking like we walk the whole 1.5 kilometer length of this park to get to that final fifth block and find a table in the craft beer section.
But the craft beer section by then, it had sort of died down.
It wasn't as rowdy. which matched my tempo.
It was quieter, so you could actually have a conversation.
And there were some seats, which was nice.
However, it was more expensive. The craft beer was more expensive and it was pretty prohibitive. expensive.
I think the beer that we ended up ordering was almost How would I, it was probably like around $14 Canadian.
So pretty expensive for one, one beer. So we only had one, but we hung out there. and chatted and in fact the beer garden closes quite early.
I think it closed at 9 or 9.30 in the evening.
And yeah, it's just like Luke and I were both very much in awe of how Chaotic it was because there's thousands of people there and it's loud and it's rowdy, but at the same time, not in a way like it would be in Canada.
I think if we were to have this kind of event in Canada, there would be people who are drinking too much and causing problems, maybe fighting and yelling at each other.
And... especially trying to close it down.
Like when closing time hit, they just played some classical music and everybody just sort of calmed down and went, home or left.
I don't know if they went home exactly, but left and it was just very orderly and well organized and run.
So we were both in awe at how this beer garden, which could be a dangerous event to run, was just so smooth and fun. well-behaved and it was fun to participate and do some sightseeing and people watching and chatting and hanging out.
So that was really cool, that massive, massive beer garden that was happening there.
And then also there was a smaller little festival. that was near a smaller stream that also runs through the city called the Riverside Sake Festival.
And so on another day, actually it was an afternoon, we were walking and it was like, Four in the afternoon, kind of like walking all day, checking out different stuff.
And then we came across this Riverside Sake Festival.
So we decided to enjoy some sake together and we sat by the stream And that was really nice as well, much more affordable.
And that was a much smaller scale, but again, really quiet, nice scenery, just a good way to enjoy the weather. hanging out by the stream, drinking some Japanese sake and there was some food there as well, so it was really nice.
However, One kind of crazy thing that happened while we were sitting there by the stream enjoying our sake is suddenly we heard this...
Boom! Sound. And then we turned our heads, and there was a car accident right by where we were sitting.
This car got t-boned, and actually flipped over upside down.
So the car rolled and flipped upside down right by us.
And I think Luke and I were both in shock when it happened.
We were like, oh my gosh, what just happened?
And then we... kind of saw that there was this car upside down.
And then in that moment, I was trying to think about what to do.
Like, Are we going to be the first responders?
Do we have to go over there? It's going to be so shocking to try and rescue someone.
I don't know, what do you do when you're in a foreign country and you witness something like that?
So those thoughts were racing through my mind at that exact second.
But of course, you got to go help, right?
You're not just going to not help if there's that kind of situation.
So Luke and I were just like, oh, what do we do?
And then as we were sort of getting up to go over and check it out, there were other, thankfully there was a lot of people. also around there.
But in that moment, everything sort of, we say it goes tunnel vision.
You only focus on on that scene and everything around you is kind of blurry, right?
So at least in my head, as I was Thinking about that situation, it didn't even occur to me that there would be other people to help.
I was kind of like, okay, we got to go and figure out what's happening here and how we can help in this accident.
Luckily, it wasn't like on a highway or anything.
It was a downtown area and i didn't actually see how the accident occurred so i'm not particularly sure what happened and of course the roads in Japan. operate opposite of what I'm used to.
The driver, for me, from my perspective, is on the wrong side of the road. in japan so i i don't know exactly how the accident happened but yeah there was like some kind of t-bone and the car flipped over And yeah, as we were thinking about like, what should we do?
Then there were some guys who ran over and they were, first to respond.
And I don't think anybody was injured, although the ambulance did come and the fire trucks to come and the police did come.
There's a lot of people that responded. To the accident, it didn't seem like anybody was seriously injured.
So that was good, but it did cause... A bit of disruption, but yeah, just good that everybody is okay in the end and nobody seemed to be seriously hurt. what else do we do we went for a couple of runs you know my hobby is running and i even got luke to go running with me he's not a big runner but He went out and did a little jog as well because there's this river right by Sapporo called the Toyohira.
River. I believe I'm pronouncing that correctly.
Toyohira River. So we went to the river and...
Yeah, I went for two runs alongside of it, and it was just really nice.
Like... Once you get, you have to go down to the river.
The city's kind of up higher. And so you go down.
We had to... take some steps down to get to the river, and then there was a path, and it was pretty undeveloped.
I'm used to the riverside paths here in Seoul, that are really well developed and just have great infrastructure this was a lot more natural And I think I don't know how far I ran, maybe 12 kilometers.
So I ran probably about six kilometers out and then six kilometers back.
I like to run those out and backs. And so the first couple of kilometers, there were people here and there, not a lot of people exercising down there, but there were some cyclists and some runners.
But then after probably I passed the three kilometer mark, Then there was nobody.
I was totally alone. And there were some houses.
I really like that, actually. I kind of felt a little bit like Snoop, but the path... was right beside where a bunch of houses backyards were.
So as I was running on the path, you know, just turn your head and look over and see people's backyards and their windows are open so you can see into their homes and stuff like this.
And it's not like I stopped. and took a really close look or anything.
But you can feel the vibe a little bit about like what it would be like to have a house in Sapporo and... you know, what they look like, the architecture and how people design their yards.
And there were some people out in their yards here and there.
So that was cool. And then as I kept going, that sort of disappeared and there was a road with some cars.
So I wasn't like completely out in the middle of nowhere. but there were no people and nobody exercising.
So that was cool. And as I mentioned, I packed really light.
So I brought my running shoes and I brought my exercise clothes, my running clothes, a pair of those. which is all pretty light.
That's the good thing about running shoes is they're super light.
But I didn't bring my headphones or my other running accessories, anything like that, just so I could keep it light.
But I was out there in the middle. It felt like the middle of nowhere.
I'm like out here running by this river.
I'm the only one around. So I did what...
I hate when other runners do, but I guess if you're by yourself, it's not so bad.
But when you're running with other people, Don't do this.
I don't recommend it because it is a little bit annoying, but I just use my phone and I played music on my phone and I just listened to it on the speaker.
And it was so great. I felt like, I don't know, it's just a really unique experience when you're in a new place. different country, you're out for a run, enjoying your hobby, and you get some great music on at the same time.
So it was really cool. And there was a song that was like, to me, this is the theme song of the trip.
I discovered it on YouTube just before I left.
You guys know. Also, if you're a loyal listener of Q-Lips, you'll know that I love music and I love finding new music. doing digital digging where I go on YouTube and I search and try and find interesting new music to listen to.
And so just a few days before I departed on the trip, I found a song by this Japanese singer.
I think this song came out in the, maybe the late 70s or early 80s, maybe early 80s.
The singer's name, I have to read it here because I forget.
It is Yosui Inoue. Hopefully I'm pronouncing that right.
Anyways, that is the artist's name and the song is called Sneaker Dancer.
Check it out if you're into music like I am because I think you'll love it.
It's kind of like Talking Heads, that band Talking Heads combined with Japanese city pop.
And just like my theme song for the trip, I listened to it probably 10 or 15 times during the trip.
And I put it on repeat while I was running out there by the river.
So I had this groovy fun song that I was listening to and sneaker dancer.
I have no idea what the lyrics are about.
He says that line sneaker dancer once. in English but the rest is in Japanese so I have absolutely no idea what the lyrics are about but I was kind of thinking maybe it's about a runner because, you know, like sneaker dancer, you got to wear running sneakers when you run.
So I don't know. It was cool. I had a great time out there on the river by myself, so much so that I went back again for another run before I returned to Seoul.
So that was great. And my gosh, man, there's so many things I could tell you about.
The food was great. We went to awesome restaurants.
And I want to give a shout out to Yuto, a listener of Q-Lips who sent me a very thoughtful email with some great recommendations. for Sapporo that I checked out as many of them as I could and some of the restaurant recommendations We're just really on point.
So thank you, Yuto, for those suggestions.
We had a great meal because of you. So thank you so much.
We ate, I don't know, seafood. Yakiniku, like Japanese-style barbecue.
We had curry and, of course, ramen and some other treats.
Like I said, the melon ice cream and... Yeah, some good stuff.
So we ate well, we drank well with the beer festival and sake festival and And yeah, what else?
Oh, I should tell you. I hinted about this at the beginning of the episode.
So this is the last thing. I'll tell you guys and then I'll wrap it up.
Even though I could talk about this trip for hours because I'm barely scratching the surface of what we got up to.
But... I mentioned earlier about the maps, right?
I said I had a fun story to tell you about the maps.
So to make this trip A little more challenging and a little more interesting than usual, Luke and I decided to. use no Google Maps while we are trying to find our way to a place.
We would use Google Maps before we left the hotel.
If we were researching a place to find like where it is, we would use google maps you know before we left the hotel but we wouldn't use it for navigating so For example, we'd wake up in the morning and we'd be like, okay, let's go to this cafe to get a cup of coffee.
And we'd kind of see, okay, it's like to the northeast, we got to go north and east, like a kilometer to get there, for example.
But then we would turn off the Google Maps and we wouldn't look until we got there. just because we had no real plans.
So it's like, if we get lost, it doesn't really matter.
I mean, if we got really, really lost, we probably would have broken that rule and just... used Google maps to find our way back, but it was super fun.
Like, uh, we, we saw like. A lot of interesting stuff, just, you know, you come across just really random things that you're not expecting, interesting things, people that you come across, All of these things that you never would experience if you were just looking at your phone, just following the little arrow. on your device to go right there.
So we took the long way around. It was fun, and sometimes We could argue a little bit like, no, I think it's this way.
No, I think it's this way. Okay, we're gonna have to like rock, paper, scissors or flip a coin to see who gets to choose.
And... Yeah, we argued a lot about who has the best inherent sense of direction, which I always thought I had a pretty bad sense of direction.
And I always thought that Luke had a really good sense of direction.
But there were a few times where I was questioning his sense of direction on this trip.
But it doesn't matter. We found our way every time.
So that was really fun. And if you also find yourself ever in this kind of situation where you have... no rush, you want to go somewhere, but there's no rush and you're just enjoying yourself, then hey,
Try it out, turn off the Google Maps, don't use the navigation and just go for it and see what you can find and what you come across because I think it really did make things fun and interesting and more enjoyable in the end. so guys i could ramble on and on and on like i said but i'm gonna wrap things up here Sapporo in the end, amazing time, 10 out of 10.
I'd love to go back. Next time I'll go in the winter. so I can see those wonderful winter scenes and do some snowboarding and hit up the onsen as well.
Luke and I were talking about how that would be a triple threat in the winter.
Wake up, go snowboarding. After snowboarding, go to the onsen, hot spring, spa. hot baths, and then finally go to an izakaya in the evening.
It's going to be amazing. So I think next time I'll go in the winter and try and do that triple threat of the ski, the onsen in the izakaya.
Yeah. Anyways, I'm going to wrap things up here.
So if you made it all the way to the end, thank you so much for listening.
I hope this episode improved your English fluency and that you learned some new expressions and enjoyed hanging out with me here today.
Of course, I always enjoy hanging out with you.
Have a great week of English studying up ahead, and I'll catch you in the next Q-Lips episode.
Until then, bye-bye.
