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Before we left Sapporo for Otaru, we dragged ourselves out of bed early to visit the Nijo Market (二条市場) to have a fresh seafood breakfast. It's similar to the Tsukiji Fish Market (築地市場) in Tokyo but much smaller. I ordered a rice topped with crab and sea urchin in どんぶり茶屋 and finished it within 15 min. 

After we finished breakfast, we walked around the market and saw that every shop sells crabs, salmon eggs, sea urchin and fresh fish, they all looked so beautiful and yummy ... I have never seen so many huge King crabs, Snow crabs and Horsehair crabs before. I wasn't sure if the prices were good because I never bought these crabs before, and it seemed too much of a hassle to carry a big box with us for the remaining of the trip so we left empty-handed.

To burn the calories we just consumed, we walked around Odori Park and visited the Sapporo TV Tower briefly. We enjoyed the walk (including the visit to Citibank for some extra cash) but we had to head back sooner so we could leave for Otaru on time.

After checking out, we went back to Sapporo JR station and bought the JR tickets to Otaru (小樽), a small harbor city 30 min from Sapporo by train. There was still some time left so we went up to the T38 Observation Deck on top of the JR Tower and had a breath-taking, 360-degree view of the Sapporo City. 

The train to Otaru was smooth and we arrived at 宏楽園, a Japanese-style onsen hotel just before 4 p.m. After changing to Yukata, we went to the private onsen and spent a full hour relaxing and appreciating the view outside. Dinner was served in our room and it was like "wow" after "wow" when the hostess put on each dish — every dish was like a piece of art and of course they all tasted awesome. 

The food coma caught me again so I just passed out after the big meal and didn't make a second trip to the onsen this evening. I love sleeping on the Tataimi, but felt a bit weird about eating and sleeping on the same surface, and having two hostesses make my "bed".

Sapporo Beer Museum is a must-visit. It's one of the Hokkaido Heritage sites and is an amazing architecture in itself. Unfortunately the guided tour is only available in Japanese, or we would have learned so much about the history of beer in Japan. Although we don't speak the language we still enjoyed the exhibits and the beer tasting a lot.

We had a light lunch at the Garden Grill restaurant in the connected Sapporo Beer Garden, but it didn't stop us from having a second one at the Genghis Khan Hall immediately afterwards — the mutton BBQ was simply irresistible! If we ever go there again, we'd try the all-you-can-eat dinner!

With a full stomach, we walked to the Sapporo Factory, which isn't really a factory but a large shopping and entertainment complex constructed on the former site of Japan's first beer brewery. Other than the huge pet shop, we didn't find any interesting shops (or we weren't in the mood for shopping) so we just chilled out in the atrium for a while.

On our way back, we passed by the Sapporo Station and breezed through the Paseo food court on the B1 level. The number of food stalls, the variety and the beauty of the food was mind-blowing. Too bad we were still full from the double-lunch and only managed to eat a Taiyaki. 

The food coma was kicking in so we returned to the hotel to take a nap before heading out for an authentic Sapporo miso ramen at the famous Ramen Yokocho, the ramen alley in Susukino. Each shop there was very small and we picked 味一番おぢぢ. The ramen was good but we honestly couldn't tell the difference from those we had in HK. To top it off, we stuffed a few donuts from the nearby Mister Donut and headed back happily.

After the extremely short trip to Tokyo back in June, we decided we had to visit Japan again very, very soon. Unfortunately we had to wait until mid-October to do this because the office renovation, the big move and a few client projects in between had kept us really busy in the last three months.

We found a Sapporo Package on CX Holidays website that fit the bill: neither of us has been to Hokkaido before, we can go to onsen in a nearby city like Otaru, and the flight schedule is flexible enough (departs every Wed/Thur/Sat/Sun). The only challenge would be the 9 am departing flight.

With a bit of luck, we made it on time and the 4.5-hour flight was very enjoyable. Compared to our experience on United Airlines for our SXSW trip earlier this year, flying on CX was like heaven.

Sapporo's New Chitose airport is as nice as HK airport — modern, efficient and has tons of shops and restaurants that could easily make you forget the time. The signs are every where and well thought out so we made it to the airport JR station effortlessly. 

It took around 40 min to get to Sapporo station from airport by JR, and another 10 min to our hotel located near Nakajimakoen (中島公園) station by subway. This Best Western hotel is awesome — designed in an understated chic style, free Internet access, 24-hour convenient store downstairs, huge room with full amenities and a view of the Sapporo TV Tower and the Norbessa Ferris Wheel.  

Understandably we were starving by the time we arrived so we went out to hunt some food immediately. It turned out our hotel was just two blocks away from Susukino, a red-light district with tons of restaurants. We picked one (魚活鮮とあぶり焼き 海へ) randomly and as expected, we were not disappointed (never been in Japan, really) and ate way more than we should!

After this very satisfying meal, we took a stroll on the famous shopping street Tanukikoji 狸小路 and got fascinated by the interesting stuff carried by many of those shops. Our last stop of the night was the huge entertainment complex Norbessa which houses the Ferris Wheel we could see from our hotel room. 

There aren't many tall buildings in Sapporo so the view from the Ferris Wheel is actually quite impressive and definitely worth the 600 yen if you haven't seen it before. On our way out, we saw this huge arcade on the 5/F and picked Silent Hill (a zombie shooter) just for fun. It's 100 yen and we ended up playing for 20+ minutes and killing hundreds of zombies and busting up our fingers on both hands! Good exercise but it made us wonder why the same game in HK would only last for 5 min given our "skills"?