It seems that my blogging is hitting a glitch I cannot fix. I’m using Pages on the iphone, then upload the text to BlogTouch to insert pictures and to upload to Blogger (under drafts) and then have to log-in to Blogger to actually publish it. But I cannot see the full blog text on Blogger (Google/Apple issues) so I cant influence what’s finally uploaded. Seems that there is some duplication towards the end so, apologies. Can’t do anything about it right now.
Sapporo day 1: After what can only be described as the best sleep ever, in an extremely ordinary bed, but after 400Km of intense cycling and “no bed” and tent experience, I woke up refreshed at 6.30. A bit early to hit the streets of Sapporo so I decided to plan for the day. I needed to urgently upgrade my front wheel. The “cheap” tyre I bought wasn’t going to last another 100km, the head stem was too low as my wrists continue to hurt despite changing grip and I still want a better bike pump, knowing I could get stranded in the middle of nowhere and not being able to pump up my tyre properly and doing low-performance cycling. That wasn’t gonna happen. Thankfully the two guys I met yesterday just knew the place for me to go. A cycle superstore over two floors. I also needed to buy a new air mattress as the old one finally got ditched 2 days ago. I also had to do laundry as I’ve finally ran out of clothes to wear and the cycle shorts/ trouser could do with a wash too. Thankfully the hotel had a coin laundry and I still had hand wash soap...from 2009.
Sapporo is laid out in a grid system, a bit like US cities with main streets going horizontally and smaller ones going vertically. That makes finding and describing things really easy. But first things first: breakfast and coffee. I walked from the hotel into town in search for a Starbucks, knowing they do reliably good coffee. On the way I picked up a sweet treat from an artisan bakery shop. A small spiced apple tart (kind of). That was so tasty and I should have had two :)
Starbucks coffee isn’t cheap but it’s a treat (¥475/£3.30) for a tall mocha with/ without cream. After coffee I strolled around, soaking in the atmosphere of a waking up Sapporo. It was Saturday and the city has one main indoor shopping/ pedestrian parade that stretches for many blocks. It’s got another pedestrian parade that runs parallel, but is outdoors and called Odori Park. It’s pretty easy to navigate as you just have to find your way back to the parade and then know where to turn off it to find things. I walked around for a bit, feeling all coffees up. There were of course many tourists but it seems there still are very very few Westerners (gaikokujin) compared to Asian tourists. I think since yesterday evening I only saw less than 10 Westerners. We avidly avoid looking at each other wanting to claim the Western Tourist domain for ourselves, it seems. I also only saw like 4-6 westerners who seemed locals here in the morning.
After my initial exploration and breakfast I went back to the hotel to do laundry, check directions again for the bike shop, take extra money with me and then set off by bike. Gosh it feels strange riding the bike again with no weights. It’s fast, nimble and the tyres are so hard that there little comfort over bumps. My bum still hurts and both my back and thighs immediately made themselves known. My lower back is in serious disarray and despite doing stretching in the morning and a bit of yoga, it’s much worse than expected. I mean, why did I expect? Lugging myself, bike and stuff all in all weighing 120kg around the place for 400km...without any prior special preparation/ training. My thought behind the approach is that you rise to the challenge as it comes. It’s generally working and my last 100km effort shows it but I don’t think I should overdo it going forward. I also should stay one more day in town, to give my back and muscles a little but of time to recover.
The bike shop was some 3km away from the hotel and I got there relatively quickly, phone + mobile WiFi provided. A friendly bike shop attendant checked what I needed. I want the same tyre for my front as I have on my back: Schwalbe Marathon. One tyre retails in the UK for around £30-£35, if you can get gem as they are popular thanks to their status of being “unplattable” (no my punctures). The attendant sucked air in, bent his head and went back inside the store. After 5min he came back with a brand new Schwalbe Marathon in his hand. I was very happy. He said they charge for changing it - ¥1000 (£7). I know exactly why. They are a pain to put into your bike as they are super tight and don’t give way. In London I broke various tyre levers and bent about 3 strong table spoons beyond recognition. But I came prepared, my local bike shop in London had reinforced tyre levers. So, no need to pay for changing it, i can do it myself. The next thing was the headset. Here I wasn’t so lucky as they had nothing that would make a big difference. Either they were not angled enough or they were adjustable head stems that were too long, stretching me out even further on the bike. No thanks. I asked him if he could change a spacer from the top of the headset and put it underneath. He agreed, free of charge. The last piece was a bike pump. I bought a mini foot pump. All in all it was super expensive compared to UK. The tyre cost £50 and the bike pump £45. I also got a spare inner tube as I busted 4 already on the days before.
Then came changing the tyre. It took me about 15 mins to put the tyre on the wheel, carefully, so I don’t burst the inner tube. I asked the bike shop to check the pressure and off I went. That already felt so much better. The old front tyre was actually in such bad shape that the side wall was already destroyed and practically had become unusable. Knowing how well the back tyre performed so far, i knew this investment should be worth it. The shop attendant who checked my air pressure also said he never met any bike travellers who didn’t have the Schwalbe tyres. That made sense.
From there I went to my next destination, a Mammoth shop in town to get an air mattress. The bike ride so well with the new tyre, I was very happy to have made that decision. At the shop, the attendant told me they didn’t have mattresses but was kind enough to show me where to go to get it. That was also some 4km away, no problem I thought. I need a new one, no choice. I got to the outdoor centre and it was a specialist mountaineering and climbing shop over 4 floors. This was great news. They even had an air mattress section with a choice of over 20. I checked for something in middle price range and found a discounted one for £65 (normally £80). I haggled with the shop attendant for another 5%, something I wouldnt do in any other shop but it seemed they wanted to get rid of their air mattresses :)
The day before I met two friendly Gaikokujin, we connected on FB and one invited me to join them later to watch a rugby game in a pub. Good idea I thought. When I checked on the map, it was not far from the Mountaineering Centre. Just another 3km. As i got there it was still closed. I was confused as they guys told me where they’d be and when. The place was about to open and the waiter told me that there were 2 Irish pubs. That made sense. The one I was meant to go was in town...and not in the outskirts, where I was. Getting around Sapporo on a bike is awesome. You can anywhere pretty quickly and don’t have to rely on underground or tram. It was Saturday and there were a couple of roads blocked for traffic with entertainers performing pantomime, juggling and there were DJs and small stalls everywhere. I walked through it to soak up some of the happy atmosphere in the late afternoon sun. Somehow I felt like being in America (thinking of the Air album/ video to All I Need, one of me all time favourite songs). There was this relaxed vibe and the sun soaked everything into a mellow reddish yellow.
I didn’t realise it was already 5pm and I had spent the whole day without eating any other food or drinking anything else other than that coffee and pastry in the morning. As I got to the “right” pub, there they were. A large group of Westerners and Jamie and Mike. Nice. Most of them were either rugby players or coach or Jamie, who was a rugby club manager. We had a drink, beer for him, tonic water for me...two actually as I felt pretty dehydrated by that time. I left them after about half an hour as i simply didn’t understand rugby and they were all pretty into the game, and I was hungry. I left to go back to the hotel.
My laundry had washed and smelled good. I used the coin dryer to get it all dry, which took 1h (¥200/ £1.40). Making the overall wash cost £2.80. Good stuff
After sorting my clothes I went out in search for food. I walked around and found a ramen place. I hadn’t realised that i pretty much exhausted my phone battery as i used talk day for navigating and somehow the phone charges don’t last for that long here in Japan. The phone seems to get down to 0% batter much more quickly. Not sure why this is, but it’s the same with my electrical tooth brush, 3-4 days instead of the usual week or more...
After the ramen place i went back to Buddha Bar, where I went the night before. I had a chat with the friendly bar tender from yesterday who immediately recongnised me and came over to meet me. We talked and I asked if they had any vegetarian/ fishetarian food. They had salads and some hot pot dishes. That sounded great. I was still hungry. I got fried cabbage with anchovies and a shrimp Cesar salad. This as the best fried cabbage and Cesar salad ever. Whilst also being a bar, they are also a little eatery and people around me had all kinds of dishes and all looked good. Why surprised me the day before was how affordable everything was compared to its location and how nice they all are. Very different to the eatery around the corner where I had a tiny plate of sushi (sashimi actually), the day before with a tiny glass of tonic water - for £17. I paid the same for the 2 dishes, a beer and a glass of sake.
Phew, the food and drink made me super tired and I didn’t notice but I cycled probably 15km all day in the sun, when not walking around, without any other food and drink all day. I graded back to the hotel, thankfully I didn’t need my phone as i kind of remembered where it was, thanks to Sapporo’s easy to find layout. Without shower or brushing my teeth I went to bed, exhausted but happy I managed to complete all my maintenance tasks. Tomorrow, Sapporo sightseeing.
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