Day 2 on the Northern Sea Circuit - Ski jumping, Hokkaido Shrine and Mt. Moiwa

 

Sapporo sparkling on a cold winter night

Sunday the 16th of February was our first full day in Sapporo 札幌, the capital and largest city of Japan's second-biggest island, Hokkaidō 北海道. This is the less-than-spectacular view from our 10th-floor room in the Cross Hotel Sapporo. Despite this, the room was comfortable; the breakfast buffet was good; and best of all there were public baths on the 16th floor for the guests, including an outdoor one. Bathing in hot water (especially under the stars or in the snow) is one of the many pleasures of traveling in Japan, though my wife would beg to differ. Coming from Taiwan, where people wear bathing suits in hot springs, being nude among strangers is one Japanese custom she has never gotten accustomed to, and as a result Shu-E only showered in the bathrooms in the rooms where we stayed (though in Noboribetsu Onsen 登別温泉 she would have no choice but to use the public facility as our room wasn't en suite): 

Having been to Sapporo a couple of times in the past (albeit with my most recent visit taking place nearly 30 years ago!) I left our itinerary to Shu-E. Her first choice of places to go after breakfast was Miyoshi Shrine 札幌三吉神社, a small jinja that looked very picturesque in the snow: 

Satisfied with the photos taken at the shrine, my wife heads off to our next adventure:

Actually, she left the choice of where to go next up to yours truly. One place I hadn't gone to on my previous two visits was the Sapporo Olympic Museum 札幌オリンピックミュージアム, located adjacent to the Ōkura-yama Ski Jump Stadium 大倉山ジャンプ競技場, the venue where the ski jumping competition was held during the 1972 Winter Olympics (during which Japanese jumpers swept all three medals in the normal hill event, sparking popularity of the sport in Japan). According to my guidebooks, it was possible to take a chair lift to the stop of the ski jump, and have the same view as the athletes before they plunged down the ramp toward the agony of defeat:

From Miyoshi-jinja we took the subway to Maruyama-Kōen Station 円山公園駅, from which we were directed to hop onto a crowded bus going to the ski jump stadium site, which should've been the first clue. The second hint came at the end of the ride, when the driver told me the trip was free (it should've been ¥250). It wasn't until we got off the bus that it became apparent this was no ordinary Sunday. Instead we had stumbled onto a FIS Ski Jumping World Cup event. Faced with the prospect of turning around and returning to the subway station, we instead went ahead and purchased tickets for the competition:

On TV it looks like ski jumpers are soaring dangerously high in the air, but in reality they appeared to be no more than ten feet/three meters or so off the ground:

That said, it's a risky sport and I lack the stupidity courage of an Eddie the Eagle:

Some foreign attendees being interviewed by local television, and being encouraged to say "Ganbatte" 頑張って ("Do your best!") for the camera:

The view of Sapporo from the ski jumping site. We only stayed to the end of the first round - the eventual winner was Japan's own Ryōyū Kobayashi 小林陵侑. As for the museum, it turned out entrance wasn't included in the ski jumping event ticket, and not feeling interested enough in shelling out for the separate fees, we got on the bus (still free, and still crowded) and returned to Maruyama-Koen Station:

Off in search of lunch and passing by a car that hadn't been driven since the last significant snowfall:

We had to wait for a table at Fuwatto Maruyama Kitchen フワットまるやまキッチン, but the beef stew rice omelet and beer made for a nice lunch break:

Shu-E took charge of things again following our meal. From the restaurant it was around a twenty-minute walk in the snow to the vast Maruyama Park 円山公園. Our intended destination there was Hokkaido Shrine 北海道神宮, the island's most famous, dating from 1871:

My wife couldn't pass up the opportunity to make a snow angel:

The shimenawa rope 注連縄 marking the entrance to the main shrine compound:

Hokkaido-Jingū is an example of  what was originally a State Shintō 国家神道 site of worship. State Shinto was a nationalist usurpation of the historical native Japanese religion, intended to promote and reinforce the concept of the emperor as the head of the new state that emerged after the Meiji Restoration 明治維新. Though there are many justifiably famous former State Shinto shrines that are worth visiting (Meiji-jingū 明治神宮 in Tōkyō 東京 being one notable example), I'm much more interested in Shintō 神道 as it was practiced before 1868, especially the ways it was syncretized with Buddhism 神仏習合, a convergence that was forcibly separated by the new ruling authorities in the early years of the Meiji period 明治時代: 

Ema 絵馬 are small wooden plaques used to write wishes to the kami:

Several of the plaques had been left by Taiwanese visitors, including this one asking the 神 to help Zhang get into the psychology graduate school program of National Taiwan University 國立臺灣大學, the most prestigious institute of higher learning in the country. Hokkaido seems to hold a special attraction to Taiwanese, probably due to the snowy landscapes (snow only falls above the 3000 meter/10,000 feet altitude level in Taiwan, and only in small quantities). Everywhere we went during our trip Mandarin could be heard being spoken, and Shu-E identified much of that as being of the Taiwanese variety (as well as people speaking the Taiwanese dialect, a separate language from Mandarin; 台語 is also the language my wife speaks with her family):

The following day the shrine would be holding its annual festival, which I'm sure was a busy affair, but we would do other things that Monday (stay tuned kids for the next exciting blog post!):

There's something almost magical about seeing shrines and temples covered in snow. I remember my going outside to the local Buddhist temple to take some photos at night the first time snow fell when I was living in Tokyo:

My wife also couldn't resist snapping a few pics:

From the park we walked to a bus stop to catch a ride to our next spouse-designated destination. En route we passed by the small U.S. consulate, which I had no idea was hidden away on a quiet side street next to Maruyama Park, and not situated closer to central Sapporo, as I had assumed. 

The bus dropped us off at the foot of Mount Moiwa 藻岩山, where we took the ropeway to the top, timing our arrival so that we would only have a short wait until sunset. I had been there way back in the summer of 1991:

Sunset transformed the view from the outdoor observation deck from this...:

...to this. Japan is no stranger to stunning night views (like Hakodate-yama 函館山 and Inasa-yama 稲佐山 in Nagasaki 長崎, both of which I saw in a different century), and the vista unfolding below Moiwa-yama was certainly impressive:

 

Having taken in the view, the two of us would descend from the mountain, and then take a bus and underground train back to central Sapporo. We would have dinner at a tonkatsu 豚カツ restaurant located on an upper floor of the Daimaru Department Store 大丸札幌店 in the Sapporo Station 札幌駅 complex: 

On our way back to the hotel from the station in one of Sapporo's many underground passageways (a result of the sometimes harsh winter conditions) we passed by this large advert asking Japanese visitors to return the favor by going to Taiwan:

The opening to ABC's Wide World of Sports, a gateway to memories of Saturday afternoons long ago, and my initial introduction to the sport of competitive ski jumping:

To be continued...