Hokkaido- Day 2- Sapporo

I'm going to start you off immediately with lunch today. Since we didn't get Genghis Khan (the dish, not the person) yesterday, we looked up another place in our guide book this morning. It seems that when it comes to Genghis Khan, which is a specialty of Sapporo, most places like to make sure that you have had more than your fill by having it be all you can eat. However, this time we found a place that had it as a lunch set.

This special hot plate shape is used so that you can cook the meat on top and the fat will drip down to the vegetable and cook/flavor them. It's delicious. We didn't know how we were supposed to eat it, though so we asked one of the guys working there and he pretty much did it for us. It was very nice of him. He also recommended a place with a bunch of ramen for us to try for dinner. 

Ishiya Factory:

There's a cookie called Shiroikoibito in Japan that is a well known souvenir/gift from Hokkaido. The concept is simple: 2 cookies sandwiching white chocolate, but this cookie is definitely more than a sum of its parts. The company is called Ishiya and their factory is located in Sapporo. It was a must see. I mean, they have snacks there. How can you possibly go wrong? You can't.

Little did we know that there was a whole complex that included a museum filled with things that the owner had collected over the years. Apparently he is really into collecting things: from figurines to gramophones.

Part of the Star Wars collection and my snack: a piece of mango cake!

We then went to the sake museum next, where I had some sake ice cream. I found out after I had already started snacking on my ice cream that they also had soft serve. Darn! Next time.

It was a very small exhibit, but kind of cute. I wish there were more details about the exhibited items, though.

This is the water that they use to make their sake. It was the smoothest water I'd ever had in my life. It's naturally like this. I wish I'd taken my water bottle... I couldn't get enough from the little dixie cups they'd provided.

Sapporo Clock Tower (en):

It's one of the few surviving western buildings in the city. (click on the link above for more info)

 We then went to the place that the guy from the restaurant we went to for lunch recommended to us. It was an entire floor of ramen restaurants! They even had their own shrine! woo!

We actually didn't go to the specific place that he had recommended (though it looked really good) Sapporo is known for their Soysauce ramen so we went to a place that looked to be known for that. Check out this beauty. They even had directions on how to eat it so you could appreciate it completely. I would go back to Sapporo JUST to try every restaurant on this floor.

 And of course we stopped for dessert: mango soft serve on top of flan. 

Transportation here has been nice because for 800yen, we could get an all you can ride on the metro system. It's 200 yen per ride so it's totally worth it if you're going to be riding around.