Friday 29 July 2016

Trip to Japan

The past 6 days I spent visiting Japan.

For  long time I have wanted to visit Hokkaido, Japan's large northern island, so I booked a trip to Sapporo, a city of approximately 1.9 million people.

I took a lot of pictures of many different places and things, and I will divide them up into some different posts and categories.

I went on three day-long tours, and the first was to some sites of interest within the city of Sapporo.

(Note:  when you see prices, $1 = approximately 100 Japanese Yen.)

The clock tower:




One thing that I learned is that Americans had an influence on the development of Hokkaido and Sapporo starting about 150 years ago, especially related to architecture and agriculture.


The fish market:





That's right: $88 for a watermelon, meant to be presented as a gift (perfectly shaped and formed).



I enjoyed my time in Sapporo/Hokkaido, and will show more of what I saw there, yet I am happy to be back in Korea, in part because the Korean alphabet (writing) is so much simpler (the signage is easy to read).

Japan is neat and tidy and rule-bound, and I like that, yet I am more comfortable in Korea.

One interesting thing about visiting Hokkaido is that there were lots of tourists, but almost all of them were Asians (Chinese, Koreans, Malaysians, etc.).  I saw very few westerners.

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