Day 3, Part 2 - Mt. Moiwa

Location: Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan
Weather: -6 deg, night
Author: Amy & Chrissie

After the chocolate factory, we decided it was the perfect time to go up to Mt. Moiwa and check out the Sapporo night view. It gets pretty dark by 5pm (so different from Perth at the moment) so it tends to feel as if it's really late when it is only 6pm.

We took the street car (think Melbourne trams) from Odori Station to Ropeway Iriguchi stop. Then we had to hike uphill on icy roads (at least there was gravel to make it less slippery). But it was all worth it. I think we've learnt how to walk on ice pretty well, although I think Amy's technique is slightly different from mine. I imagine I have weights on my shoes, so I can manage to move pretty fast in comparison to Amy. Amy has her own strategy, like stepping in depressions rather than mounds, so you can find her criss-crossing across a straight pathway, which is probably the reason she takes double the amount of time to walk the same road!! I tried to take a video of her doing it one time, but she must have sensed it and walked across really fast. I will get it one day!!

We finally made it to the bottom of the cable car lifts which will take us up to the top of Mount Moiwa. It costs 1000 yen (with discount coupon) for a return trip per person. It felt much colder in the mountains than in the city, so I think Amy was a little worried about getting too cold. While we were in the waiting room to board the cable car, we spotted a rack of coats which was available for free to use while up in the mountain. Amy jumped at the chance of putting on another insulating layer against the cold, which was probably wise but made for an amusing photo. I thought she looked a lot like the penguin from Batman, but I don't think she appreciated the comparison. What do you think?

Amy all bundled up and ready for our ascent to Mount Moiwa.

During the cable car ride we could begin to see the night lights of Sapporo city. The ride up was pretty uneventful since we couldn't really understand the tour guide and we weren't in a good position to appreciate the view. When we reached the top, we had to board a snow bus with very interesting snow wheels!

Our snow bus with snow wheels that look like an onigiri!

The snow bus took us the rest of the way to the top of Mount Moiwa lookout. By the way, we later found out that the bunny character you can see on the side of the bus is Mount Moiwa's mascot and the words spell his name - Morris. The lookout building at the top was basically a large souvenir shop with a small cafe restaurant in one corner and a resting place in another corner. To get to the lookout we had to walk up a flight of stairs outside the building.

From the lookout we could see all of Sapporo city with all of its twinkling lights, but it was impossible to take a photo that could do the view justice, especially with my digicam. Here are some of the views though.

View of Sapporo City from Mount Moiwa

Mount Moiwa - 531.03 m above sea level

Amy all rugged up on Mount Moiwa lookout

...and me not so rugged up on the lookout

It was very cold at the top of the lookout, so there was quite a pile up of snow and ice. I decided Amy needed a nice snowball massage. This is me picking up a decent size ball of snow.


There are no pictures to show what happened next. Although Amy tried her best to dodge her massage she couldn't move very fast due to her bulkiness. But thanks to that same bulkiness, she was quite well protected from what we eventually found out was actually a ball of ice (as it made a thunk! noise) and not a ball of snow. P.s. I did not throw very hard!

We went back into the warmth of the souvenir shop and saw quite a large amount of Morris paraphernalia. Here's one that I wanted to take home with me but I don't think he would have fitted into my suitcase.

We saw a lot of other souvenirs, particularly ones of the Kita kitsune (northern fox) which is indigenous to Hokkaido. After a look around, we braced ourselves against the cold to descend the mountain. We decided we were too tired to eat out and decided to stop by a combini (convenience store) to grab some obentous (lunch box meals) and snacks!

Happy Eating!!