Day 7 - Sapporo: the Great Feats and Feast

Photos Here!

Where to begin?

There was a lot going on at the Winter Festival.
Snow sculptures. Ice sculptures. High jump ski and snowboard competitions. Cheerleaders for the Nippon Fighters Baseball team.
Yeah, the pro baseball teams have cheerleaders.
Do American baseball teams have cheerleaders? I honestly can't remember. I haven't been to a pro baseball game since I went to the Atlanta Braves game with my brother and sister-in-law. That was... almost 10 years ago. I don't remember.

Anyway, moving on...
Art in snow and ice, food. Food. and more food stalls. Including grills scallops, grilled in the shell, which I haven't seen before.

An automaton singer. Her voice is not prerecorded: it is actually entirely computer generated, and her sold-out performance is animated. She's called Snow-Miku. We didn't get to see it's show, as it was sold out. As was nearly all of the merchandise. Extremely popular.
There was a live radio performance of musicians, happening somewhere else was a hot air balloon festival, humanitarian groups, a  petition booth for the return of Japan's fishing waters from Russia (which was a deal struck at the end of WWII, which gave a lot of Northern waters to Russia, which the Japanese people have been trying to get back for many decades).

We ate Ramen twice. Once for breakfast in Ramen Alley in the red-light/party district, once more for "lunch" on the other side of town by the old government building. I actually didn't eat ramen at the second place. I just had Gyoza which are the "pot stickers". The Chinese steam them, and the Japanese usually steam, then pan fry them so they are crispier.
Anyway, I just had Gyoza. They have a vinegar you put with some chili oil. Mm. So good. I just wasn't hungry enough yet to eat another bowl of ramen. Ramen is super filling.

After that ramen, Masaki imposed a strict rule (only broken by a chocolate banana) of no food until the Sapporo Beer Factory buffet we were going to that night.

Although, it was incredibly hard to follow the rule, we generally did. Walking through a festival which had several large food markets attached took a lot of discipline.
I wanted to try everything, but I was assured that the food that night would make up for it. So I waited.

And we walked and walked and walked and walked.

We walked at least 7 miles that day, all over Sapporo in the cold.

It was a ton of fun.

I took many pictures of Sapporo.

So, our dinner reservations were for 7:45PM at the Sapporo beer factory. We walked another 2 miles or so. It's on the outskirts of the city, over slush, snow and ice, so it took us a while to get there.
It is a beautiful place.

They have an All you can eat (and drink) buffet for about 7,000 yen each (70 bucks or so).
The main thing I ate was pumpkin and crab. Snow crab and King crab. Huge pieces, all you can eat. It was heaven.
The chicken was also super good.
It was a little different than the Korean BBQ we had. It was on an iron grill instead, although it was very similar method, just no charcoal and open flame.

This buffet was the  bomb-diggity. It included all drinks and even dessert. And you could get as much crab as you wanted.
And sushi. And whatever you wanted. Veggies, beef, lamb, pork, chicken, shrimp, etc.

Oh, which reminds me: you can eat the tails of shrimp. They're actually really tasty. You just have to crush it up pretty good so they don't scratch your esophagus.
But many Japanese people actually like the tail of the shrimp the best since it has the most flavor.

I remember I used to eat the tail when I was a kid, and then I stopped for some reason. But, I like I don't have to waste the tail any more, so down it will now go.

We ate like kings.

It was literally the biggest feast I have ever eaten.

It was a lot of fun. I mean. I can try to describe how good it was. But, I can't.
It's something to experience for oneself.

Masaki talked about it endlessly since we first said we were coming to Japan.
He talked about how good it is over and over.

Still didn't prepare us for the deliciousness.
Wayne ate 6 desserts. Just trying to satiate his desire.
The tongue definitely overrules the stomach there.

I actually got teary eyed it was so good.

I didn't realize food could even taste that wonderful.

It's a whole new world.
No joke.