Sapporo

Sapporo is the largest city on Hokkaido, so naturally it has an enormous JR station with multiple attached shopping malls, one of which, in this case, was subdivided into “Towns” such as Fashion Town (what it sounds like), Pleasure Town (not what it sounds like), and World Mixing Town (you’re on your own). The train station also connected with a bus terminal, which was a little odd; Hokkaido is the only island of Japan which actually depends on the bus. We actually rode the bus to our next destination, but first we explored the city.

Downtown Sapporo stretches out south of the Station in a grid which tantalized me with the possibility of a rational understanding which I never quite attained. At first glance, it looks like the north-south and east-west streets are simply numbered, Manhattan-style, but when you try to navigate with these assumptions, things go subtly wrong, because in fact it’s the blocks that are numbered, so to make sense of a street sign you have to consider which corner of an intersection it’s standing on. And just in case you’ve gotten the hang of that, it’s not at all clear which of the coordinates is north-south and which is east-west, or which way you’re facing, since there’s no Street/Avenue distinction. Ryan and I spent much time wandering around within a block of various destinations, not quite sure in which direction we were off by a block.

Sights to see? Well, Sapporo’s great innovation seems to be a proliferation of underground malls which are not attached to train stations. Intriguing. And there’s a famous clock tower which is quietly surreal. Well, they call it a clock tower; really it’s a two-story colonial-style house, originally a government office, which happens to have a clock on top. The clock was manufactured in Boston. (Yay!) It’s considered a famous landmark, and yet it looks like a perfectly ordinary American colonial building. Of course, this building isn’t American or colonial. It’s a rift in time and space in the middle of a very modern Japanese downtown, and it just sits there quietly, looking completely ordinary on its own terms.

North of the Station you quickly run into the University of Hokkaido. Ryan wondered if they’d have a business school he’d be interested in. We’re not sure, but we are sure, thanks to a campus map, that they have something called the Frontier Research Center For Post-Genomic Science And Technology. Clearly a cover for giant-robot research.