Walking to Susukino: A Foot Traveler's Sapporo Lodging Tale
Travel · Published 7/3/2024 ·
The beer at the beer museum tasted great… and with the rain drizzling down… we decided to head to our lodging.
Since this was a trip where I’d resolved to get around on foot whenever possible, 3 or 4 kilometers was nothing — I just walked it. It’s not like I had anything pressing waiting for me if I got there faster, anyway. As I walked, I tried to catch glimpses of everyday life in Japan, and in Sapporo, Hokkaido. I spotted what looked like parking for bicycles and two-wheelers. There were motorcycles parked there too. Under the building’s pilotis, in a spot sheltered from the rain, they’d set aside space — with working CCTV — for a bicycle parking area. Some bikes were locked up, while others had just been left there while their owners went off to run errands. Back home, our bicycle parking is designed mainly to physically deter theft, but here in Japan it struck me as unusual that the bikes sat in a rain-sheltered space so they wouldn’t rust. It really was a parking lot made for the bicycles.
Most of them are locked up. And the CCTV is watching, eyes wide open!
The “땅콩주택” — those duplex-style homes that were a trend back home for a while… and here I am seeing the original in Japan. There’s a wide parking area out front, and they’d built it with what looked like an identical layout. They don’t share a wall, though. It seems free of the floor-to-floor and wall-to-wall noise issues, and being right by Sapporo Station, it probably costs a fortune even though it looks small. The lot’s wide enough to fit two cars.
The streets are generally pretty clean. A Japanese back road, where they drive on the left…
In Japan, the traffic rules let drivers make a right turn at their own discretion even when there are people in the crosswalk. We used to have something similar back home — you could turn right even while people were crossing, as long as you didn’t cause an accident. These days, of course, I understand that’s changed. What amazed me was that here the pedestrian always comes first, no exceptions. As cars pulled in and out of a parking lot, I’d be walking some distance away and the cars would oddly seem to stop — I checked again and again, and sure enough, they’d only pull out once they were completely sure they weren’t in anyone’s way. That felt different from the mindset back home, and as someone traveling on foot, it gave me a real sense of ease.
The Sapporo Clock Tower… an old clock building… the famous clock building… I didn’t actually go inside.
It’s past 5 p.m. now. I’m still walking, heading toward Susukino. Looking for my Airbnb…
Susukino, Sapporo’s busiest district…
An exotic-looking poster…
A shopping street… I’d end up walking this street back and forth several times later. To buy groceries for dinner… to head out in the morning… to catch the bus…
Smoking is allowed… indoors… This is one of the differences from back home. There were lots of restaurants where people would just light up indoors, right after eating. And the staff didn’t really stop them, either. Smoking was banned in the buildings attached to the Sapporo Daimaru Department Store, but in the restaurants in the basements of the other smaller buildings, most people smoked.
The first place I went to, following the Airbnb address… turned out to be just a bus stop, and in the end… this wasn’t it.
The building next to the address… just a commercial building with a bar in it… Anyway, this wasn’t the place, but the Airbnb host kept sending me the same address.
No matter how I dug into the address, it kept landing me smack in the middle of Susukino…
Then, on a hunch, I edited the address a little, and it pulled up a completely different spot. When I asked again, the host said yes, this was the right place… I wasn’t thrilled about it, but I wasn’t about to let something this trivial ruin the trip, so I just let it go. I’d wasted about an hour, but it was fine.
The inspection sheet was even provided in Korean…
The first floor had a lobby, and I was assigned to the 9th floor, I think. It was a double room, but no one else was ever added in with me. The mattress was on the firm side… shared shower… shared bathroom. I’d paid cheap — about 38,000 won a night for two nights — so for me it was great value. With family along you’d have to put a lot more thought into the lodging, but since I was traveling with a friend, I saved a lot on accommodation.
This is the layout.
It was clean and pleasant, with no smell issues. The whole building was non-smoking, and you could smoke outside.
The address directions were a bit of a mess, but I found the place fine, dropped my bags, and headed out to grab some food. Since there’s a lot to cover, in the next post I’ll write about shopping at the supermarkets the locals in Sapporo, Hokkaido actually use.
Thank you.
#Sapporo #Hokkaido #Susukino #Airbnb #airbnb #SapporoWalkingTrip #SapporoSummerTrip
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