Sapporo - Wandering

Without Tour Guides

After eight glorious hours we popped out of bed and hit the streets, just the two of us. Like Toronto, Minneapolis and many other winter cities, Sapporo can be criss-crossed on foot underground.  Our hotel was linked to the underground by a small staircase in the lobby.  We joined the throng, who were walking, shopping and pondering the many small art exhibits.  These strange dolls peered up at the ceiling as if expecting the arrival of a spaceship.  

 

We were on our way to a coffee shop that I'd read about on the internet.  It was described as "near the TV tower."  As I explained in other posts about Japan, finding places with or without an address is trying.  Addresses are not created in numerical order but in chronological order.  So, a building numbered 1 might be next to one numbered 304 and building number 2 might be three blocks away.  Without our tour guides, we circled and circled, stopped, re-traced our steps and almost gave up.  I was determined.  We stood near a Seven-Eleven, jumped on their free wi-fi and looked at the map again.  We eventually found our target - the Mingus Cafe.
It was a beautiful cafe with an impressive sound system.  The soundtrack was classic jazz.  The owner, once he finally understood my question, answered yes, the cafe was named after Charles Mingus.  There were thousands of jazz records stored in shelves that separated the bar from the sitting area.  We'd arrived early on a weekday so we had the place to ourselves.  We sat, read, sipped our coffee.  We were happy to be free styling, outside of the itinerary for a few hours.

We walked back towards our hotel and tried the Hokkaido style ramen.  The soup has a miso and chicken stock base.  Some of the ingredients that make it Hokkaido-dtyle are the corn on the left and the scallops on the right. And, yes, that is a chunk of butter resting on top.  I liked it but not as much as the Tonkatsu style from southern Japan, whose broth is flavored by pork bones.  We'd also tried a version in Noboribetsu which used milk as its base and though that probably doesn't sound appetizing, it was delicious.

Our "light" lunch included some gyoza, aka "dumplings".  Our tour guides warned us to eat light because our final dinner that night was going to be an over the top crab extravaganza.  I was not looking forward to it, I was permanently full.