Muroran and Sapporo September 26, 2006

What a break! After a day of bad weather at sea, we woke up to a fairly clear morning and, checking the forecast, looked ahead to a beautiful day for our first "real" experience in Japan. (We had landed at Tokyo's international airport a few years ago in transit to Bangkok, but "airports don 't count" according to Joan's "Country List."

Our plan for the day was quite simple--- 1) have breakfast in our cabin; 2) look at our Ports of Call page to review earlier "research" on the area; 3) make our way to the rear of the ship (aft) where Princess tour participants were gathering in Club Fusion; 4) get herded down to the bowels of the ship to where the gangway was located; and then 5) find the correct bus among the several dozen waiting on the pier to carry Sapphire passengers off for the day's adventure ashore. After getting on the bus, our decision-making for the day would be practically over because all our activities were planned, well-defined and, as we soon discovered, scheduled almost to the minute. All we would have to do is listen, keep up with the group, and be on time for reboarding the bus after each stop on the venue.

Passing through ship's security, we walked down the gangway and were greeted by a young woman in a kimono and three fierce looking men attired in Samurai battle gear. Unlike the "native costume" photo opportunities on the piers at other ports of call we've visited in the past, this quartet asked nothing for posing with passengers. In fact, they seemed happy to have the chance to share this small part of their cultural heritage. It was our first of many kind expressions of welcome we were to encounter at during our three port of call in Japan.

We were assigned to bus B-3 for our excursion, "B - Sapporo City and Brewery Tour," which meant, simply, that there were three bus loads of passengers signed up for that option, a total of maybe a hundred people in all. The folks on many, many other buses were off to a variety of other tour destinations in the Muroran/Sapporo area, the major metro centers on the island of Hokaiddo. When everyone had found a seat (ours in our favorite "back of the bus" section), our guide greeted us and told us his name was Homma. He added that his formal appellation would be "Homa-san," with the "san" meaning Mister. Formality is a big thing in Japan, he explained, particularly among those in "middle-age and older" segment of the population. (We were also accompanied by a Princess escort for the day, Emily Walter, who we remembered as one of the featured singers in the ship's various evening production shows.)

Our trip from Muroran's port area to Sapporo took us along a modern, four-lane expressway that was clearly the equal to any such highway in the USA. (Speed limit of 60 mph in the summer, 50 mph in the winter.) As we started the drive, Homma-san told us we would be passing several ranches that are Japan's top breeders. He said that the area was a major industrial center, with wood processing and oil storage among the employers. He also gave us the usual run down on the area--- urban population, major industries, climatic conditions, etc. ( The most common trees are spruce, fir, birch, oak, and mountain ash and local fishermen specialize in herring and salmon.

Wild animals--- including foxes, bears, deer, and squirrels--- are plentiful but, according to Homma-san, hunting is not really big in Hokkaido. People can have shotguns for sport but they must be registered annually with the police. A hunting license costs $250 a year and while not hard to get in terms of availability, the "red tape" involved the maintaining the license makes it a real pain. Homma-san said he found the process too bothersome and finally gave up his shotgun and quit hunting altogether.(Handguns are prohibited--- only the police and security personnel are to carry them.)

Homma-san told some stories about the area's past--- for instance, he pointed out an airport that was used to train pilots during the war, including most of the very young flyers who made the Kamikaze suicide attacks on American warships late in the war. He also told the story of an American aviator whose plane crashed into a mountain nearby Muroran just before the end of World War II. The only survivor among the plane's crew, Airman Rassmussen, hid out in the hills for two months, eating wild berries, roots, and food stolen from farms. He was spotted one day by the daughter of a farmer who smiled, waved him over, and managed to explain that the war was over. He was an immediate hit among the local people, who went as far as arranging a banquet in his honor.

About halfway through the 90-minute trip, we stopped at a roadside area that featured a small store for snacks, an outdoor market offering fruits and vegetables, and, maybe most important for some, large and very clean restrooms. (Joan found, with great relief, that the Ladies facility offered "sit down" facilities as well as those designed in the traditional Japanese "squat down" style. However, the "sit down" version was equipped with a kind of control panel that required some figuring out!)

Once we reached Sapporo, our first stop was at the "Beer Museum," a large building that was the original production facility for Sapporo's famous beer of the same name. The first thing we noticed when getting off the bus was a unique telephone booth (photo at page top) just outside the front door. We were warmly greeted by several attractive young women in Sapporo Beer uniforms who pointed the way to the elevator and the large room where the tour started. We saw a lot of photos, award banners, advertising posters featuring Japanese models extolling Sapporo beer, and other artifacts going back to the brewery's earliest days. Unfortunately, almost all oof the captions and explanations were in Japanese, leaving it pretty much up to our imaginations as to just what we were looking at and why it might be significant.

One curious exhibition was a set of miniature scenes, each very much reminiscent of a Christmas display, demonstrating the various phases of beer making. Again, the explanations were in Japanese and it was all but impossible to gather the significance of each exhibit. At the end of the 30-minute tour, we stopped in a combination gift shop/snack bar where many of the group members bought Sapporo beer-related souvenirs, cold drinks, and, in our case, ice cream cones. As shown in the photo below, the list of available flavors was quite extensive (and strange). Ralph settled on his usual vanilla, while Joan went for the pumpkin. Oddly enough, the price was the same for both single and double scoops of ice cream.

The scenes outside our bus window as were drove around Sapporo were fascinating. There didn't seem to be any really old, old buildings, mostly modern structures. Condominiums and office buildings with lots of glass and other shine surfaces seemed to dominate although there were some of what appeared to be single family homes. There was street construction and new buildings going up all over the place--- Sapporo is clearly a city on the move .

The tour included lunch at the Renaissance, an international conference hotel in the central part of town. We were seated in a massive, characterless ballroom and served a chicken dish (that many of the group members didn't eat) along with a very tired looking salad. Ralph managed about half of his chicken and commented that it wasn't really so bad tasting but the way the bird had been "sectioned" gave it a curious texture and also caused it to be tougher than Americans prefer.

From past experience running conferences in hotels and arranging luncheons for participants, we knew that the "per plate" cost of this lunch was high, wayyyy higher than an "on your own" meal at a sidewalk "noodle and ramen" stand (or even McDonald's) would have been. Another passenger, a guy from Poland, was pretty upset about this, not only because of the obviously high "hotel food" price but because he had expected something more typically Japanese as part of the day's experience. (Joan took some pictures of her food so we could always remember lunch in Sapporo!)

While the signage on stores and business was, of course, overwhelmingly in Japanese, there were occasions glimpses of the familiar---- 7/11, Starbucks, Shell and Mobile, McDonald's, FedEx, and Coca Cola, for example. (Other brands well-known to Americans that we saw included SONY, Toyota, Toshiba, Honda, and Bridgestone--- wonder why?.)

Our tour included a stop at the town center where streets with upscale shops, hotels, and restaurants radiant outward from a giant TV tower, Sapporo's most prominent landmark. We had an hour so we wandered around, visiting the well-known Sapporo fish market, "people watching" in a mall-like covered street, and admiring the overall cleanliness of the entire scene-- - spotless shops, uncluttered streets, and even "no smoking/no littering" warnings embedded in the sidewalks. (As we were sitting in the mall corridor observing the passersby, we couldn't help but notice the groups of schoolgirls walking by and observing that those who attended the "dark socks school" had much shorter skirts than those from the "white socks school.")

We had a couple of glimpses of some other of Sapporo's landmarks before turning to return to the ship. For example, we saw Sapporo's beautiful city center park right in the city center, the commemorative Peace statue, and the muncipal symbol, the clock and tower at the first university in the town (an agricultural institution established with the help of American scholars).