Hokkaido, here we come! Part 1: Arriving in Sapporo

Having spent my first winter in Japan, I really wanted to go somewhere snowy and fun. Hokkaido has always been on my list of places I wanted to visit in Japan, and going in December felt like the perfect time to do it! (Actually, February is probably THE perfect time since that’s when the snow festival is, but December was the closest I could get!)

Since we only had a few days here, we prioritized spending some time in Sapporo, then took a long train ride down to Hakodate before returning to our home base in Tokyo.

Flight to Hokkaido

This was my very first time flying domestically in Japan! We flew out of HND, so we made our way there pretty early, but to my surprise the security process and everything was super smooth! There’s not a whole lot you’re expected to do (and they didn’t even check our passports or anything?), but needless to say security was breeze and we were ready to head to Hokkaido!

Flying on ANA is fun because their safety video is Pokemon themed, and I actually paid attention to the whole thing! Another thing I think is really great about flying in Japan: they have bags for your under-seat items so they don’t get dirty! Ingenious!

One thing I didn’t expect though: Japanese flyers put ALL their items in the overhead bins - backpacks, purses, jackets, everything! So if you’re one of the later people to board, there might actually not be room for your bags. As an American, that was really surprising to me. By the time we boarded, the bins were so full, the flight attendants had to store our luggages with their items because they wouldn’t fit anywhere.

A note if you’re flying ANA: boarding groups are determined by your seat on the plane - window seats board first, then middle, then aisle. So if you want to make sure you have ample overhead bin space, try to get the window or middle seats.

Arriving in CTS Airport

New Chitose Airport (CTS) is the closest airport in Hokkaido to Sapporo, but it’s not actually in Sapporo. From the airport, you need to find transportation to Sapporo either through a taxi service or the Sapporo buses. The subway system in this area isn’t quite as built out as Tokyo’s.

The bus was actually really easy to find and use! We made our way to the ground transportation area and found the bus ticket kiosk. You purchase your ticket based on the zone you’re traveling to. If you’re confused at all, there’s a service desk right next to the kiosk that you can ask, but to get to Sapporo basically requires traveling to the farthest zone. The bus fare here was 1300 yen per person, which came out to about $8-$9, which isn’t bad at all for a 1-hour bus ride.

We lined up outside at the curb along with a bunch of other people. Right away you could feel the chill in the air, and we already saw snowflakes falling!!

This bus had pretty frequent service so even though there were quite a lot of people, we waited around 15-20 minutes before we could board. All of the works are efficient with getting everyone to line up, and the bus attendants confirm your destination before taking your baggage and having you board the bus.

After about an hour we were finally in Sapporo! I could definitely tell from the bus ride along that Hokkaido is a much more chill, perhaps rural?, area especially compared to Tokyo. However, once you’re in Sapporo, it’s very much city vibes from there on.

Our bus dropped us off about 2 blocks away from our hotel, so we walked the remaining distance. Already there was sooo much snow on the ground, and the snowflakes were falling even more heavily than when we arrived! The wind was soo cold, my exposed face could really feel the chill!

Fairfield by Marriott Sapporo

During our time in Sapporo, we stayed at the Fairfield by Marriott Sapporo. The location was pretty good; we had a good view of the Sapporo TV Tower and most things in the Sapporo city area were walkable (if you don’t mind walking in the freezing snow). And for further distances, we were about a block or two away from the nearest subway station so it wasn’t too difficult to hop on a train!

We were also a 5 minute walk from Nijo Market which was great for us during breakfast time!

The room was pretty spacious, at least more so than hotel rooms that I’m used to staying at while in Tokyo, so that was nice! We also fairly high up so we had a nice view of the city from our window!

Our room also had a refrigerator which we used to store extra treats and drinks that we brought home for the night. The hotel also had free wi-fi and a small but decent fitness center (that I had no time or energy to use 😂).

One of my favorite features though, was the free coffee! This wasn’t just free drip coffee, no. This was a coffee vending machine that actually made really yummy coffee drinks! My personal favorite was the iced matcha coffee which actually had a really nice balance of matcha and coffee flavor! I got soo many of those even though I was only in Sapporo for a few days. I had to take advantage of it while I could!

Our First Night

Since we didn’t get to Sapporo until the early evening, we decided to take it easy our first night.

After we checked into the hotel, we settled in and decided to out for a walk in the evening snow on our way to dinner. We also made soo many stops along the way at any convenience store we saw to look for any Hokkaido-regional treats! It also helped give us a nice heater break since it was SO COLD outside.

I wasn’t sure if it was because of the weather or if Sapporo just isn’t a super “happening” city, but as we walked the streets, it felt super empty and almost deserted. A few cars would drive by now and again, but for the most part we barely ran into people.

After being in the hustle and bustle of Tokyo for a week already, the quiet was actually a very welcome change!

Dinner: Hotei - Zangi chicken

For dinner, we decided on trying a Hokkaido specialty: Zangi chicken.

Hotei was a very unassuming, very casual restaurant. We were a bit early for dinner so we were able to be seated right away and the restaurant was mostly empty save for a few individuals having a meal.

They have both an English and Japanese menu, but I noticed that the English menu doesn’t have every meal set that’s offered on the Japanese menu. So instead we decided to take a look at the Japanese menu and Google Translate anything that we couldn’t decipher on our own.

I decided to get a meal set with Zangi chicken and shu mai, and Aldrin got a large Zangi chicken meal set. All of the meal sets come with soup, rice, a side salad, and a small bowl of mapo tofu.

Wow, I almost can’t express how delicious this meal was. Maybe it was because it was our first meal in Hokkaido, maybe it was because we were freezing and the food was just some warm and comforting, but whatever it was, this was probably my most memorable meal of the trip.

The rice was fluffy and cooked so well, the chicken was juicy and moist and had a nice tangy flavor to it from the lemon; the side salad was refreshing; but the mapo tofu was a true winner. This dish was so good, I’ve basically been craving mapo tofu ever since! I ate that bowl clean so fast along with all my rice (which is rare for me), and I didn’t leave a drop of sauce. I saw a guy there who just ordered one big bowl of mapo tofu and I can totally understand why.

If you’re looking for the ultimate comfort meal, I would say this is it.

Also note: this place is cash only.

Dessert: Corn ice cream

So I didn’t know that corn was also a Hokkaido specialty?? But once I was there I was seeing so many corn and milk desserts that we didn’t go a single day without trying at least one new one.

For dessert, we stopped by a gelato shop that was located in an underground shopping area that was called Dream Dolce that served Dream Hill gelato. Aldrin and I shared a double scoop - one Hokkaido milk and one corn flavored. The milk was good - it was really creamy and you could really taste the milk flavor. The corn was good too, but the corn flavor was so light, you kind of had to try to focus on it in order to taste it.

However! We also got a corn monaka ice cream at a local Family Mart that I ended up trying back in the hotel room, and let me tell you, it beat out the corn gelato by a long shot (and it was cheaper too).

The corn monaka already wins because of the awesome shape, like who wouldn’t want to eat a corn on the cob shaped corn flavored ice cream?? But not only that, the corn ice cream inside was actually so good! It tasted exactly how you imagine a really good sweet corn flavor to taste, and you don’t have to try hard at all to taste it.

As with all pre-packaged ice cream monaka, the monaka shell is a bit on the soggier side toward the inside which touches the ice cream, but that’s to be expected, and there’s still a nice light crunchiness on the outside if you don’t let it sit out for too long.

This ice cream was so good, I honestly wish I ate more of it while I was in Hokkaido (but it was surprisingly hard to find?).

First Impressions

Our first night in Sapporo was actually quite relaxing and fun! We had a great meal and some really yummy desserts, so I was having increasingly high hopes for all the other foods we were about to try!

The cold weather was really no joke. I’m so grateful I was able to borrow a fleece puffer jacket because I don’t know how I would have survived without it - my California clothes were no match for the Hokkaido winter. I will say I now have a lot of appreciation for earmuffs. I never knew how useful they could be until I used them on this trip. All this to say, I think if you’re dressed appropriately, you can have so much fun here. Half the battle is braving the cold, so if you’re warm you can really enjoy being outside and exploring the area!

Because our first night seemed so quiet, I had the impression that this was going to be a pretty easy breezy trip, but I had no idea the kinds of crowds we were about to experience! Somehow this first night ended up being a strange outlier, because every other day the streets were packed!

But I’ll dive more into that in next post on Day 2 of our Hokkaido adventures, so stay tuned!