Moerenuma Park
A forty-minute subway and bus ride northwest of the city centre, Moerenuma Park (モエレ沼公園) is part playground, part sculpture garden, displaying the works of internationally renowned artist Isamu Noguchi. In the giant glass pyramid, with observation decks and a library/lounge, you can peruse English-language books about the artist, who died shortly after completing the masterplan for the park in 1988. With massed plantings of cherry trees, wide lawns, the spectacular Sea Fountain water sculpture and a shallow pebbled bathing beach, the park is popular with local families, and a convivial spot for a picnic.
Ōdōri-kōen
Five blocks south of Sapporo Station, opposite the Sapporo International Communication Plaza, is the Tokeidai (時計台), Kita 1, Nishi 2, a wooden clock tower that’s one of the city’s key landmarks. You’d be right in thinking that this wood-clad building would look more at home somewhere like Boston, because that’s where it was made in 1878; inside is an uninspiring exhibition on the building’s history. One block south lies Ōdōri-kōen and the contrasting 147m red steel Sapporo TV Tower at Ōdōri Nishi 1. During the snow festival, the viewing platform provides a lovely vista down the park, particularly at night.
The neon-illuminated excess of Susukino (すすきの), the largest area of bars, restaurants and nightclubs north of Tokyo, begins on the southern side of Ōdōri-kōen, and is best explored at night. If you’re here during the day, you could follow the covered shopping arcade Tanuki-kōji to its eastern end where you’ll find the lively Nijō Fish Market (二条市場), Minami 3, Higashi 1-2, ideal for lunch or a fresh sushi breakfast.
Four blocks west of the end of Ōdōri-kōen, the large, white Hokkaidō Museum of Modern Art (北海道立近代美術館), Kita 1, Nishi 17, holds a modest but absorbing collection of paintings and sculptures, some by Japanese artists. The nearest subway station is Nishi Juhatchōme, on the Tozai line.
If you’ve not yet had your fill of parks, Nakajima-kōen (中島公園), Minami 9, Nishi 4, is the third of central Sapporo’s large-scale green spots and is worth visiting to see the Hasso-an, an early Edo-period teahouse.
Sapporo addresses
Finding your way around central Sapporo is easy compared to many other Japanese cities because every address has a precise location within the city’s grid plan. The city blocks are named and numbered according to the compass points, the apex being the TV Tower in Ōdōri-kōen. Sapporo Station, for example, is six blocks north of the TV Tower and three blocks west, so its address is Kita 6 (North Six), Nishi 3 (West Three), while Nijō Fish Market is Minami 3 (South Three), Higashi 1-2 (West One-Two).
Sapporo Bier Garten and Beer Museum
The hugely popular Sapporo Bier Garten and Beer Museum (サッポロビール博物館) stands just east of the city centre. It was an American adviser to Hokkaidō who noted the hops growing locally and realized that with its abundant winter ice Sapporo was the ideal location for a commercial brewery. When the first brewery opened in 1876, locals didn’t touch beer, so for years Sapporo exported to the foreign community in Tokyo, which is where the company’s headquarters are now.
Built in 1891, this grand red-brick complex was originally the factory of the Sapporo Sugar Company; it’s now Sapporo’s smallest brewery since much of the building has been turned over to an exhibition on the brewing process and the history of the company, not to mention several restaurants, pubs and souvenir shops. At the end of the exhibition, while sipping beer samples (one for ¥200, three for ¥400), you can admire a wall coated with a century’s worth of colourful ad posters.
Bus #88 runs every 30 minutes directly to the complex (¥200) from behind Tōkyū department store, near Sapporo Station. The bus goes via the Sapporo Factory, Kita 2, Higashi 4, the first of Sapporo’s breweries in the city, converted in 1993 into a shopping and entertainment complex.