In which Layla and Roz ride the Lavender Express and hide from the rain in Sapporo

by Layla

We arrived in Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, just before lunch and hustled to our AirBnB home, a slightly dingy but central and generally acceptable apartment that was all ours for our stay in the city. We dumped our bags and dashed out in search of food. And in doing so, discovered Odori Park, the central artery of Sapporo and all summer long, home to a massive beer garden that apparently has seats for 13,000 people! But we needed better sustenance so followed our iPhone apps to Lohas Café, a hip, vegetarian extravaganza of salads and grains and suspiciously vegan cheesecake. An excellent start to our Sapporo vacation! Afterwards we decided that a bit of mountain greenery was in order, so we hopped on a tram and before long we were on a cable car, soaring up Mount Moiwa to an observation deck that looked down over the whole city – which looked huge, in contrast to the rather intimate feel that it has on the ground. The sun was shining and we decided to walk part of the way down, along a lovely little path, accompanied by a random Japanese family. By the time we got back into town, we decided we’re earned a beer, so we popped into the Sapporo Beer part of the giant beer garden and indulged in a pre-prandial sip or two…

We walked home via one of the city’s ‘top’ sights, the governor’s house. It was an attractive red brick building, but more attractive was its lovely grounds dappled with grass and ponds… and more interesting was that just a few days after the Pokemon Go game launched in Japan, the grounds were absolutely full of Japanese people of all ages using their phones to catch virtual Pokemon (which apparently hang out in real-life grassy and watery places). This was especially striking as until now, we’ve rarely seen Japanese people using their phones much in public (as opposed to Washington or London where most people seem to walk along the street writing emails). On our walk back to the apartment, our game became spotting who was playing Pokemon Go – which obviously made us look a tad odd as we tried to surreptitiously peer at everyone’s screens.

That night we’d planned to try the local salty ramen, or corn and butter ramen, but everywhere we tried on ‘ramen alley’ seemed overtly unkeen on vegetarians, so we ended up in Jyoti, a really excellent little Indian restaurant on a street that was all covered over and very cheery. And after dinner, a new adventure awaited… karaoke! Ever since we moved to Japan we’ve thought about trying karaoke but due to our insanely bad singing skills, we had avoided it… But tonight was the night! We rented a little booth, inputted songs (thinking of songs was much the hardest bit), drank the beverages that we summoned on a little phone in the room, and sang. It was not tuneful, but it was very fun to have this little private room to belt out off-key versions of Good Morning Baltimore and Space Oddity, to name but two of our eclectic playlist… Hilarious.

When we’d planned out trip to Sapporo we’d been intending stay in Furano, a pretty little town famed for its lavender and attractive mountain scenery. Because in Japan, places are all famed for certain flowers and when they bloom, Japanese people descend on the place in fits of delighted hysteria. By chance, the lavender was blooming this week, and this week alone. This made it impossible for us to get a hotel room in Furano. So instead we boarded a special train called the Lavender Express and in a couple of hours (Roz reading, me editing a research paper about mental health in Mongolia), we arrived in town. After much confusion about what to do, we boarded a little wooden charming train decorated with bunches of lavender and took it to a tiny railway station that only exists for a couple of weeks per year. It was opposite Tomino Farm, the epicentre of lavender excitement in the Furano region.

Not knowing what to expect, we were more delighted than I’d expected. Tomino Farm was clearly also famous for melons. So we revelled in delicious slices (followed by melon ice cream) before venturing up to the fields. Sure enough, they were big and they were impressive. Huge rectangles of purple spreading up along the hillside, and special paths to enable viewing. Other flowers that had been planted in strips to create a fantastic giant stripe pattern. It was incredibly scenic with the mountains as a backdrop. We climbed up to the top where a classy little wooden bar had been built. We read our books and drank beer and watched the Japanese people being extra-delighted until it was time to catch the various trains and do more work all the way back to Sapporo.

That night I did yet more work and sent off the Mongolian paper – then we headed out to an obscure, fancy and delicious Italian restaurant called Saf. Down a back alley, it was charming and romantic and lovely and we had a delightful evening – even if Roz was bitter I’d worked so late that dinner was almost at bedtime!

We had planned another daytrip for some hiking the next day, so we were confused when we opened the curtains and found it was raining in a very British fashion. This coincided with me being sent a giant amount of health financing work and with the desire for some vacation financing, we decided to head to a cool coffeeshop for Roz to read her book and me to work. And both of us to angst over having planned the wrong things for our final vacation week and entirely changing our locations and hotels.

With the rain continuing even after several cups of tea and a cheese toastie, we decided that the cinema was calling. We went to a lovely independent cinema called Kine and watched Brooklyn, which was thankfully in English. Afterwards we settled down in Starbucks so, you guessed it, I could do more work. And hooray: finished it and sent it off.

That night we sheepishly but covetously decided to return to the delicious Indian restaurant, after which we went bowling. We were amusingly placed on what seemed to be the ladies’ floor. And I don’t like to boast but I beat Roz very resolutely indeed. She got her revenge when we started playing air hockey though, thrashing me 10-1… Much fun.

This morning we checked out early, stowed our luggage in lockers at the station (very much the done thing in this country), and walked over to the Botanical Gardens. A much better botanical garden than we expected, we spent quite a while strolling along paths that almost felt they were in a forest. Then we walked further still and got to the Hokkaido Modern Art Museum where we really enjoyed a little exhibition of contemporary art focused on Hokkaido scenery. And polished it all off with a rather exciting vegan Japanese meal at Itadakizen, the sister restaurant of a place by the same name next to SOAS in London where my classmates and I would indulge in a bowl of ramen after a tough morning of Japanesing.

And then it was back to the station in the pouring rain, onto a train, a plane to Tokyo and now we are about to board yet another plane. This time across the Pacific. Next stop: Vancouver!