A relaxing start today. After a shower Kaoru and i went for breakfast. Unfortunately we had trouble finding an appropriate cafe. After about 40 minutes of walking we ended up back at the Starbucks outside the hotel. While eating we saw Michael who had come to get their morning coffees.
After breakfast i got some work done and we all met outside the rooms at 9.15. We walked to the station and caught a 940 train to the Sapporo Beer factory. It took about 40 minutes and i booked my flight to Sydney for next Sunday (Charmhaven installation) en route. It was about a 10 minute walk from the station to the gates and we checked in for our 11.00 tour.
A shuttle bus took us to the starting point of the tour and once our group were ready we were taken around the factory. It didn’t seem very operational so we couldn’t see machines in action – just a few short videos in various rooms. But it was interesting nonetheless. At the end of the tour we were taken to the tasting room where we were allowed to try 2 different beers. Kaoru nearly had a whole one so was a bit tipsy. We helped her finish them off. The tasting room had a great view over the fields where people were playing a game which was a cross between mini golf and croquet. The guide also demonstrated how to pour a beer properly, but for mine it took too long and had too much head.
We checked the time of the next train and realized we needed to move fast, so rushed to the station. On the way Kaoru had us change trains to save us 4 minutes, but we lost 3.5 minutes with delays. Once back at sapporo station we rushed to the bus terminal and just made the next bus to the sapporo museum. The 3.00 tour was not full but they weren’t taking bookings on the day over the phone. So we got the about 1.00 and they said we could fit in.
For lunch we went to one of the halls and paid about $32 a head for a 2 hour “all you can eat”. We had to cook (similar to Korean bbq). The meat was called gengis kahn – basically lamb. It was delicious! We cooked, ate and drank for the next 90 minutes, then paid the bill and went to the tour start point.
We had paid the ¥500 each for the premium tour. This had a guide who took us through the museum (stopping at a few places of interest) and also had a video (with English subtitles). But the real clincher was that we got a couple of drinks at the end, one of which was the original recipe for sapporo. After finishing these we bought a beer which was a special for the museum, and after enjoying that we caught the next bus home.
On the way back to the hotel we made a detour at dimarou food court where we sampled some food and Kaoru bought some cake. We all went to our room to sample it and Leila bought a sake in to go with it. Once that was finished we had some chill time for 30 minutes in which i just worked.
We met outside the room at 7 and walked to the food festival where we sampled a few more things for dinner, including a beer to wash it down (Leila had a wine). We then went to 7-11 for a supply of snacks and sake. We planned to meet for breakfast tomorrow and i had another sake-bath to finish the night.