Today I was treated to a special trip with my host family. It started out with them asking if I wanted to go eat some ramen and ended up in an excursion of Sapporo‘s, “hard to get to” treasures.

In earlier posts I talked about the Matsuri. There are tons of different kinds of Matsuri and different ways it’s done. My host family took me to the 2006 Ramen Matsuri in Sapporo. As you could expect, tons of dealers were broadcasting their ramen as “Oishii (good)”. With my ticket, I went to the most vacant stand and ordered a bowl of ramen. I can’t tell you which ramen it was other then the fact that it was good ramen. The climate today (and especially in there) was really dry and the pressure was high too, because I got a small bloody nose while in there which I had to promptly take care of. It is a good thing that Japanese stores bombard you with little tissue packs everywhere you go!

After cleaning up and finishing a fine bowl of Ramen, my host parents asked if I wanted to go to the “jumpu.” “The jumpu?” I asked, “hai, sukii jumpu.” They were referencing the famous Sapporo Winter Sports Museum (札幌ウィンタースポーシミュージアム)　which is in Miyano-mori, Chuo-ku. To get there from Shiroshi (where we were) took about 15-20 min by car through Sapporo‘s tricky and clustered roads. Up the hill we went until we saw the giant ski jump. Chances are that, if you didn’t have a car, you could take a taxi from Odori there but I don’t know how reasonable it would be.

Now, for those who experienced 1972…

If you can remember 1972 and the 1972 winter Olympics in Sapporo, I salute you! For those who did not, here is a brief recap of the ’72 Winter Olympics…

• The 1972 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XI Olympic Winter Games, were held in 1972 in Sapporo, Japan, the first Winter Olympics to be held in Asia.
• 35 Nations competed including: The USSR, United States, Yugoslavia, West Germany, East Germany, Great Britain, and the North Korea, oh and Andorra(?).
• The USSR took the most medals with 16 totals (8 gold/5 silver/3 bronze). East Germany took 2nd with 14 (4g/3s/7b), and Switzerland took third with 10 total (4g/3s/3b). The U.S. placed 5th overall with 8 total (3g/2s/3b)/
• The Banner looked like this. (right)
• The opening ceremony was opened my Emperor Hiro Hito
• It was Avery Brundage’s (84) last year as president of the International Olympic Committee; as the 1972 Winter Games approached; he decided to make an example of Alpine skiing, which had become highly commercialized in Europe.
• Karl Schranz (AUT) was disqualified.
• Yukio Kasaya, Akitsugu Konno and Seiji Aochi gave the Japanese public a triple in ski jumping, on the 70m jump. It was the first Japanese Olympic title in the Winter Games.

Remember now? If do not remember, that’s ok… What matters is the last event, “3 Japanese won the 70m jump“.

To commemorate this victory, forever, the Sapporo Winter Sports Museum holds the actual ski jump used in that Olympic game! There’s a chairlift that takes you to the top, but for some reason it wasn’t running today. Despite the chairs not working, I had a pretty good view of Sapporo from up there and more importantly a shot of the actual jump used in the 1972 Olympics!

We parked down below in a small parking lot and rode a long escalator up to the jump. The actual museum wasn’t exactly “wow” material, because most of it you could find via the internet. However, looking at ski jump was awesome! It’s huge; for things this size it’s hard to grasp the size of this thing until you stand in front of it… Hopefully my picture will help. If you get a chance to come to Hokkaido, Sapporo tries to take a trip to this place!

The second place we went to was the Hokkaido Jingu (北海道神宮）. The Lonely Planet guide describes this place:

Hokkaido Jingu is nestled in a forest (Maruyama-koen) so dense it’s easy to forget that the shrine is just beyond the city. The place is carefully labeled so that you don’t have to ask what that plant is. There’s a shop that serves green tea for free.

That’s about it for this temple. Well I think Lonely Planet could have written a bit more so here’s my review.

First, this place was a shrine (not a temple) meaning that it was Shinto. While we were there, the 七五三 or Shichi-go-san (7-5-3) event was taking place. Shichi-Go-San is an event in which parents celebrate their children’s growth. Typically in the fall months of October and November, 3 and 5-year-old boys, and 3 and 7-year-old girls
are taken to Shinto shrines, where their parents pray for their future. Boys often wear haori, or half-coat, and hakama, or divided skirt, and girls wear a kimono. The practice is supposed to date back to the years in which young kids often didn’t survive long and so these ages were landmarks for children. The tradition stuck and now (most) Japanese families who are somewhat religious take their children at these ages to get prayed for. It is a sight to see! The kids were running around in their kimonos and hakama, and parents and grand parents running around taking their pictures. It’s really no different then dressing up young American kids and taking them to baptism or something. It was all very cute.

Now as you enter the Shrine grounds you have to pass through the front gate called a Torii (left). This particular torii was huge and worth noting as you pass through. As you walk down the path towards the main entrance there’s stone lanterns the line the path on either side. As you approach the shrine, there is a basin with running water for purifying yourself. The water is very pure and I saw people drinking from it. After the water basin is a large gate that you pass under (gate 2). In the back of the site is the shrine where the kids were getting prayed for. In front of it is the worship area where you pray. There is not a secret to praying (no secret handshake or set prayer) for commoners and there isn’t some bouncer (usher) that asks for a Shinto membership card. Anyone can pray and pray for anything. After praying my host mom (Na-chan) took me over to the oracle box. For 100 yen you could grab a fortune and then read it and then put it on a communal prayer stand to pray for it to come true. So I tossed my 100 yen and grabbed a fortune from the “foreigner’s box” and read my fortune “Luck fortune.” I can’t recall what all it said, because I tied it to the prayer stand after I read it. I’m chalking it up as experience that I will ask for forgiveness for… later.

The Shrine’s grounds are very pretty to walk around in. We spent a good amount of time walking around the park there where I took a couple of shots of the scenery. I find that Shrines and Temples usually have the best spots for scenery shots. Walking in and around them isn’t a problem either. The routine is pretty much like walking into a big catholic cathedral… Taking pictures and stuff is allowed and most of the time there’s a little gift shop nearby. I tried my hand at photography again and came up with some “ok” shots.

When we were finished with the Shrine we went to a Kisaten or Coffee shop. The place we went to was called Lloyd’s Coffee or something and it was pretty small and quiet. I liked it a lot while we were there. I noticed that in many coffee shops the general music is classical. It really is all about the atmosphere in places like these, because the coffee is the same everywhere and usually costs 400 yen a cup. In spite of the price, I come to relax at these places. It was a good ending to a great tour. I really appreciated seeing Sapporo beyond the Subway and Bus restricted areas.

Ok so if y’all have a chance… put the temple and the museum on your “check this out” list, Ok?

~J out

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