Sapporo: A Land of Zoos and Shopping

Posted on August 16, 2026 by Todd

We got to Sapporo and found our AirBnB. It reminds me of a New York City apartment with sliding walls to create a second bedroom in the living room and a third bed just hanging out in the living room.

Some Uber Eats sushi was in the cards for dinner, and we turned in.

Katy and I had done minimal research on the city and decided that the kiddos needed a light day, so we decided the zoo was the best choice. I have heard a lot of bad things about zoos in Japan, but this was a solid zoo. We did make a bee line for the playground to get some wiggles out. It was better than playgrounds in Hakodate, but it wasn’t as good as Okinawa playgrounds.

We saw some very active monkeys, polar bears, seals, assorted other bears, wolves, red pandas, and a host of other animals. We did have a snack of fried dough and churros to break up the morning.

We decided to Uber back to the apartment, and then Rose had a nap (truthfully, I don’t remember if she had a nap, I am writing this section ~5 days later and am consulting Katy on what we actually did, this is why the blog is good for memory, it can be hard to remember what you did a few days ago. This is an odd post where I wrote some of each day in real time and then am filling in the gaps a few days later)

Archer and Katy staying cool with the provided fans on the Ferris wheel on top of a random building in Sapporo. We went here after Rose’s possible nap
In the building of the Ferris wheel were banks and banks of vending machines with plastic toys. This was our first exposure to the huge banks, I mean 500+ machines. Archer was a fan, Rose took 20+ minutes to decide on what she wanted. She picked plastic purse. She packs it everyday before we go out.
We went to a restaurant that had robot servers for dinner that only had a short wait. I had marked a bunch of restaurants from a blog about restaurants that were kid friendly and had kid menus. One thing that o didn’t think about was that it would have us trying different foods than we would normally pick in Japan. Left to our devices many of our meals would be sushi and ramen. Going to restaurants solely because they have a kids menu opened us up to trying a bunch of styles of yummy food that we would not normally try
This is what many of our tables look like. You change the language to English and order on the pad. If you need a human you press a button.
This is how Rose eats noodles in Japan. She also will refuse a bite if it isn’t “huge”. Noodles are also how she is getting 63.8% of her calories. We get looks. At least she eats. She also is not a fan of cold noodles, but they can’t be hot. Oh Rose.

Then it was bedtime. Bedtime is easy when your kids are exhausted.

The kiddos managed to sleep in until almost 6:45am our second morning in Sapporo, I consider this a win. We really didn’t have much planned for the day. We wanted to really just wander around, eat snacks, and go into shops. We did start the day with something touristy though, we went to the top of the TV tower after taking the tram there. The view was good, no one peed their pants, and it was a good morning excursion.

Katy got a fortune at the top of the TV tower. If it was bad you could turn it in for a prize from the gift shop. Normally you leave the bad fortunes on a pole.

We then wandered to the tea shop I wanted to visit in town. A sign said that they were closed due to summer holiday but would be open the following day. It was a bummer, but it was close enough to a coffee shop for Katy to get a walking coffee. I took the kids for some ice cream and ended up in a mint ice cream shop. Turns out they own some mint fields in the north of Hokkaido and use Hokkaido milk to make ice cream, most of the flavors have mint in them. Archer went for mint-less (he is not a fan of mint) mango, where they actually custom blend the fruit into the ice cream on demand. Katy and I split a mint chocolate and mint matcha bowl. Rose had chocolate.

We then took the subway to a mall to look for a specific skincare product for Katy and go to the Pokémon store

The Pokémon store was crowded, but not anywhere near as crowded as the one I went to with Paul in Tokyo. Turns out there are a lot of Pokémon in the universe. Rose took an exceptionally long time deciding what she wanted to get. Archer was the same way when he was 3. He knew he wanted a pokeball with a surprise figure inside. He is very fond of it.
We went to one go the kid friendly restaurants I had marked and the kids meal included a choice of a toy and 2 snacks. This restaurant did lightly breaded fried food. It was by far the best fried food I have had in Japan. Something we 100% would have not picked. The kids had a curry kids meal. Archer likes to dip fried chicken in the curry. I am impressed with how willing he is to try new things. A lot of the time he doesn’t like them, but at least he tries them.

We then went to Odori park, which has a beer fest for a few weeks each summer. Each of the major breweries in Japan set up giant tents and have a block or so. Each does ordering and food a little different. We found a playground, and Katy and I got a beer, and the kids played. Archer made a new friend. The kid (age ~7) followed Archer around yelling yes/no. It turned into them playing and having a good time together. Archer was sad to leave.

Our beer fest table
I looked for places that had robots as servers and we ended up at a soup curry (Sapporo style) place. Japan does not do a lot of spicy foods, but this curry is one that traditionally had some spice. Archer ate all of the chicken (leg thigh) from his, 2/3 of my pork, and then a ton of the veg. It was yummy and unique, again something we wouldn’t have gone to if we weren’t looking to appease the kiddos. Robots as servers make them happy, especially when there are traffic jams. At the first robot restaurant we didn’t know the at sometimes you have to press a button to say you got your food and we created a traffic jam, oops.

We took the subway to a park down south and did a little playing to get the wiggles out. Very little opens before 10am around here so there often is a little morning time to kill

We went to the Sapporo aquarium. It is kind of a hipster aquarium that is sort of art museum and sort of aquarium. Rose was medium interested until the penguins. They changed her mood.

At the aquarium we encountered them giving penguins their medicine. It involved a lot of penguin hide and seek. Penguins trying to eat the fish while the keepers were trying to give eye drops to other penguins. A two person taste, like with a baby

There was a stressful moment where I guess I had rented the car a day early, and the calendar was showing 2 hotel reservations, so I was scared that I had us checking out the wrong day. It turns out I just had the wrong rental day, and they are holding the car to get tomorrow.

We had a little difficulty finding a place for lunch. We ended up at a sushi place where we got our own little room. Archer thought about getting a mixed sushi plate, but decided that he wanted to get straight salmon nigiri again.

After lunch we split up, and since Archer only got 8 pieces of salmon nigiri, he and Katy went to get some ice cream. So far we have encountered two main types of ice cream. Soft serve and gelato. Hokkaido, where we are, is known for their cows and dairy. A lot of places advertise that their ice cream is made locally.

Rose and I went to buy a stuffy. It took her a long time to decide. She then decided to fall asleep on the walk to meet up with Katy and Archer.

Sapporo, like Tokyo, had an entire world underground. I was able to walk most of the way underground, which avoids street lights and waiting at intersections and is a little cooler.

We went back to the summer beer garden in Odori park. Archer did some playground playing, but since Rose was asleep and he couldn’t meet new friends, his patience ran out and he joined us. We tried Guarana, which is a soda made in Japan, that our Hakodate guide said was her favorite.
We then went to the Uniqlo store. I didn’t buy anything since the chances of any clothing with Japanese sizing fitting me is close to 0%, I took the kids to the B2 level of the mall to look at the dessert venders to get a treat. Katy texted me that we might need an additional suitcase. What you can’t see in this image is that bag weighs like 20lbs.

Surprisingly, the kids didn’t want to eat their sweets right away, and we headed back to the apartment for some instant noodles for Rose and grocery store sushi for Archer. Katy and I got ramen delivery. Hakodate was known for more of a salt broth, and Sapporo is known for more of a miso style broth. The kids took a bath with fancy bath bombs Katy got them. They were stinky. Katy did most of the packing. We have already expanded to filling our folding duffle bag and have a large reusable shopping bag with perishables.

The next morning we headed out to the New Chitose Airport to get a rental car for the next two weeks.

Archer Salmon Nigiri Count: 79

I will admit, traveling with Rose at this age at times is more challenging than it was with Archer at 3. Also, I left out the part where Rose thinks that the handles in the trams/subways are to do gymnastics during rush hour and will express her opinion loudly if told otherwise. Oh Rose.

I commend people that blog for a living. It takes a lot of effort, especially when you are traveling with people.

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