Sapporo 札幌市: Transport, Stay and Orientation

This would've been stolen long ago if it was in Malaysia :P

Sapporo is the fourth largest city in Japan by population, and largest in Hokkaido. It is the capita of Hokkaido Prefecture, located in Ishikari Subprefecture. Sapporo is said to be originated from Ainu language sat poro pet, translated as "dry, great river." If you are to visit Sapporo during winter, I'll say don't miss the Sapporo Snow Festival, which is usually held in February. I can imagine it would be super cold though :/

We travelled to Sapporo from Toyako Onsen. So, it was bus-train this round. Bus from Toyako Onsen to JR Toya, followed with (of course!) train from JR Toya to Sapporo.

Super Hokuto

As the hotels in Lake Toya are mostly hugging the lake itself, it could be a decent distance to walk to the terminal station. As mentioned previously, we stayed in Toyako Manseikaku, and the nearest bus stop was Moto Machi, located just 5 minutes (or less) walk away, and it is still within the same zone, so remained at 320 yen to JR Toya Station. Same price as from Toyako Onsen Bus Terminal.

This is also as of September 2012

As we didn't have JR pass this round, given that we travelled on buses a fair bit and they are not covered under JR pass, the cost of buying individual tickets were cheaper. So, it's all free seating trains all the way.

We were rather lucky as when we board the train in JR Toya, there were still some empty seats, maybe cos we were still at the beginning of the journey. After the train made a few more stops, there were a fair few who stood all the way to Sapporo. That would suck :( cos the the trip was rather long.
There were not a lot of photos along the ride cos I dozed off, like all good train passengers. :P

If you don't have a JR pass, it might be worth to check out the Sapporo-Otaru Welcome Pass.

This pass cost 1,500 yen and it includes a JR Ticket and subway ticket. These tickets are only valid for 1 day. So regardless of what time you activate your ticket, it ends at 12am the same day. You could however use the 2 tickets on separate day, so long you have not activate it. JR free-ride sections are between Sapporo City and Otaru Station (surely you are going to Otaru right?). We used the JR ticket on the day we travelled to Otaru and the subway ticket on the day we wandered around Sapporo. The conditions of use are listed the back of the nice leaflet above. Oh, and one of it is you have to be a foreign tourist visiting Japan from abroad.

We didn't stay near Sapporo station despite that was our initial intention. Anyway, long story short, we stayed in Hotel Vista Sapporo which was nearer to Nakajimakoen subway station, 3 stations away from Sapporo station on Subway Namboku Line (the green line).



Map from here

So.. Odori Park is of course near Odori station, it is a walking distance to Sapporo TV Tower and Clock Tower. Actually, you could also walk from Sapporo station. Stating the obvious, get off at Susukino station to get to Susukino *crows flying pass...*

The room, of course is not as spacious as the ones in Toyako Onsen and Noboribetsu Onsen as those are onsen hotels. However, it was fully equipped and actually I'm pretty happy with the room though mom complained that it was small and a few other things which were unfounded.


Side note: I could do with an onsen now