[Hokkaido] Day 3 - Part 1 : Sapporo City Center & Lunch at Nijo Market

Back to Sapporo again!! After a day trip to Otaru, we'd spent our 3rd day of this Hokkaido trip by strolling around Sapporo city center, seafood lunch at Nijo Market, and visiting the popular Shiroi Koibito Park. Since it’s gonna be a long day, so I divided into 2 parts. Let’s start from the first one, Sapporo city center and Nijo Market.

Sapporo Clock Tower 

After had a good breakfast at the hotel, we went to Sapporo Clock Tower by taking a train to Odori Station. Sapporo Clock Tower is a landmark of Sapporo, which can’t be missed when you’re in Sapporo. It’s located at Odori Park, where you can found a beautiful Christmas Market on December.

The real "Christmas Tree" at Odori Park

We visited this tower at 10AM in the morning, and as you can see on the photos, it’s still quiet. I didn’t know whether it’s too early or Sapporo is not as crowded as Tokyo. But i realized when we’re strolling at the street of Sapporo and Otaru, we didn’t meet a lot of people. Unless when we’re at indoor places such as Daimaru and other shopping mall at Sapporo Station. Maybe it's because of the weather which really cold (around -1 degrees) at winter season. So people chose to stay at indoor place which warmer instead at outside.

empty pedestrian street in Sapporo

Family picture in front of Sapporo Clock Tower in winter

As we visited Sapporo to enjoy the snowy weather, we used this chance to play with snow around Sapporo Clock Tower. We let Aurelia and Winston sat down, and play with those fluffy snow. They were so happy could see and touch the snow. It's a great experience for us to explore this snowy city.

Enough with the play time, we're walking through Odori Park to reach our next destination, Tanukikoji Shopping Arcade. Expecting a Christmas Market along Odori Park, all I saw just empty snowy land, with some used decorations. I just realized that we've missed the Christmas Market. I didn't know that it's gonna be ended at 25 December. But this snowy season, still gave use the Christmas vibes and it's so wonderful.

Pink theme tram in Sapporo

Tanukikoji Shopping Arcade is just like Shinsaibashi Suji in Osaka. It's a long road with rows of store, restaurant, and game arcade. I thought it's gonna be crowded like at Shinsaibashi Suji, but it's not. We could walk freely without jostling and it's a good thing. However, this empty space made us felt more chilly until our hand numb. Luckily, I found a takoyaki shop at the end of the street. A delicious hot octopus ball was really help to warm up our tummy.

Tanukikoji Shopping Arcade

Takoyaki at Tanukikoji Shopping Arcade

After had a shopping time (mostly winter gear because the weather was unpredictable really cold), we went to Nijo Market for having a lunch time. Sapporo known for its fresh seafood and a visit to Sapporo won't be complete without having a seafood dishes. There are several seafood restaurants, but I prefer to going local by eat the fresh seafood at Nijo Market. I haven't do some research about which food stall serves the best dish. So I just walked randomly and find a place with indoor table seating because we started to freezing.

Nijo Market entrance from Soseikawa Park

During at Nijo Market, we saw every stores sell fresh seafood, starts from oyster, scallop, and many kind of crab. Snow crab, king crab, and hair crab, you can choose whatever you like and you also can bargain while pay. That's also an advantage to eat seafood at the market. Because as we know, crab dish is very expensive. Besides seafood, I also saw many Yubari melon and dried mackerel hanging outside the store, which I just know it's called saba. It's also a tasty dish. I knew it because the hotel where I stayed (Ibis Styles Sapporo), served it everyday on breakfast.

Hokkaido food map. But now you can find all of these food at Nijo Market

I kept walking while looking for a good place to having lunch. Finally we arrive at the end of Nijo Market, and I saw there's a sign that they have (indoor) restaurant for dine in just accross the street. I checked them out and they have empty seats. So we went to that place directly because we're really starving. Unfortunately this place only has Japanese name. But if you want to go to this place, you might try to find Nijokani Market on Google Maps. They have the same owner and this restaurant located right across Nijokani Market.

King Crab at Nijokani Market

A set of crab soup with rice

While at Nijokani Market, I saw people eat grilled crab and also crab soup. But when I looked at the menu at the restaurant, they serve crab tempura as main dishes which looks more appetizing than boiled or grilled. Beside as an ala carte, they also serve crab tempura as a topping of donburi. There are 2 kind of donburi, with snow crab or king crab (which has bigger size). I ordered 2 of them and they both delicious. The crispy crab tempura was served over the rice, and topped with a sweet sauce which make it taste better. It was the first time for me to eat crab in this way and I love it. Must try when you're in Hokkaido.

Crab tempura menu at Nijokani Market

King Crab Temple Donburi ¥2700 (at the bottom) & Temple Donburi ¥2000 (on top)

Huge king crab tempura

After lunch time, we're not leaving this market directly. Instead we still walked around to find other tasty food. We were walking at the north side of Nijo Market, and found a food stall selling oyster and grilled scallop. I tempted by its oyster because it's really huge, probably the biggest oyster I ever seen. I bought some oyster and put a lemon juice on it. OMG!! It's really fresh, no fishy at all. Nijo Market is totally a paradise for fresh seafood lover.

Fresh scallop

Fresh Oyster and Sea Urchin (uni) at Nijo Market

Even the oyster size is bigger than my hand

That oyster ended our culinary trip in Nijo Market. From Nijo Market, we're heading to our next destination, Shiroi Koibito Park. Actually, you can take a train from Odori Station to go to Shiroi Koibito Park. However, at that time we were at the east of Nijo Market, and if I looked at the map, it's written that Bus Center Mae station was closer from my spot. So we were walking to Bus Center Mae station and take Tozai Line train to reach Miyanosawa Station, which is the nearest train station with Shiroi Koibito Park.

During our "walking trip" to Bus Center Mae station, we found that Sapporo was really a quite city. It looks like nobody lives at this town. As you can see on the pictures below, it was really empty - totally different with the crowd of Tokyo. We've visited 3 cities in Japan such as Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and they're all different with cities in Hokkaido. However, even though it's really quite, but the ambience of winter in this city was really wonderful and also memorable for us.

Combination between traditional shrine and white snow is really amazing

The entrance if Bus Center Mae station