20 Sep 2026
Timing It Right: Mornings, Paper and Fresh Pastries
After yesterday’s experience of heading out too early and discovering that many shops were still closed, we were a little more careful with our timing today. There was no point rushing out just to stand in front of shuttered doors, so we waited until the shops were properly open before starting the day.
Our first stop was Daimaru Fujii Central, just off Odori Park. For anyone who enjoys stationery, this is one of those places where it is very easy to lose track of time.
Daimaru Fujii Central has a much longer history than its modern multi-storey stationery-shop appearance might suggest. Its story goes back to 1892, when Fujii Senzo, who had come to Hokkaido from Shiga, began working as an oil peddler before starting to sell paper the following year. The business gradually expanded into paper, stationery and everyday goods, eventually becoming one of Sapporo’s major paper wholesalers. The present Central building opened in 1989, and the store now carries around 200,000 items.
Inside, the shelves were filled with the sort of things that make Japanese stationery shops so enjoyable to browse: paper goods, fountain pens and inks, art supplies, craft materials, Japanese paper and all sorts of beautifully designed everyday items.
We didn’t actually find the exact thing we had originally been looking for, but that hardly mattered. Wandering through a Japanese stationery store this large was already part of the experience.
From there, we went to Donguri Odori Main Store for breakfast.
Donguri is a familiar name around Sapporo, particularly for its chikuwa pan, a soft bread roll containing a whole chikuwa fishcake filled with tuna mayonnaise. It sounds like an unusual combination when described on paper, but it has become one of the bakery’s signature creations.
The shop was almost completely full when we arrived. Fortunately, we managed to find a small table and could sit down with our freshly baked bread instead of having to eat everything while standing or walking.
It turned out to be a good start to a day that was going to involve considerably more walking.
Getting to the Historical Village of Hokkaido
Our main destination for the day was the Historical Village of Hokkaido, or Kaitaku no Mura, on the edge of Nopporo Forest Park.
From Odori, the straightforward public-transport route is to take the Tozai Line to Shin-Sapporo, then continue by JR Hokkaido Bus. The Historical Village’s current information gives the Shin 22 bus from Shin-Sapporo Bus Terminal, platform 10, with the bus journey taking about 18–20 minutes. The current fare is ¥240 one way.
For our journey, we deliberately chose the cheaper subway-and-bus option rather than paying more for a more direct alternative.
And then, naturally, we managed to make things slightly more complicated.
After walking down into Odori Station and taking the subway to Shin-Sapporo, I became a little disoriented at the enormous transport hub. I saw a bus that looked as though it was about to leave and hurriedly got on.
It didn’t take long before Google Maps made it clear that something was wrong.
The bus would have dropped us nearly 2 km from the entrance to the Historical Village.
So, rather than trying to improvise from the wrong side of the area, I quickly got us off and returned to the main transit hub. After refreshing the transit information a few times and checking the different routes, we eventually worked out the correct connection.
It cost us a little extra time, but at least we ended up where we actually wanted to go.
This is one of those small travel lessons that is easy to forget when looking at a map: large Japanese stations and bus terminals can have several routes serving places with very similar names. When something doesn’t look right, going back to the main terminal can sometimes be easier than trying to rescue the wrong route halfway through.
Historical Village of Hokkaido: Walking Through Hokkaido’s Past
Eventually, we arrived at Kaitaku no Mura.
The Historical Village of Hokkaido was established in 1983 as an open-air museum preserving historic buildings from the Meiji period through the Taisho and early Showa periods. Rather than placing individual buildings inside a conventional museum, the site recreates entire streets and settlements.
The scale is considerable. The village covers about 54.2 hectares and contains 52 relocated or reconstructed historic buildings, arranged into four areas: a town, fishing village, farming village and mountain village.
That arrangement is important because Hokkaido’s development was never simply about building a new city. During the Meiji period, the Japanese government actively promoted the development and settlement of Hokkaido, and communities developed around farming, fishing, forestry, transportation and commerce. The buildings collected here give a sense of how different those occupations shaped everyday life.
The town area feels particularly familiar at first, with streets of shops, businesses and public buildings, while the farming, fishing and mountain sections gradually make it clearer how different life could be depending on where people lived and what they did.
There were reconstructed wooden buildings, government-related structures influenced by Western architecture, old shops and homes, along with interiors containing everyday objects and displays.
The bright sunshine also made a difference. It was a beautiful day for walking around the grounds, although the amount of walking should not be underestimated.
One of the highlights was spotting the horse-drawn trolley running along the tracks.
The horse-drawn railway operates during the warmer months and costs ¥250 per person. In winter, it becomes a horse-drawn sleigh instead.
As luck would have it, there were exactly enough people waiting at the platform to fill our carriage, roughly ten of us, so we were able to climb straight aboard without having to wait around for another departure.
It was a small experience, but it fitted perfectly with the atmosphere of the village.
Despite the number of visitors, the site is large enough that people naturally spread themselves out. We never felt as though we were walking through a crowded attraction.
We spent just under two hours there.
That was enough for us because we were mainly interested in walking through the streets and looking at the buildings from outside rather than entering every single building and studying every exhibit. If you want to explore the interiors and displays more thoroughly, it would be much more sensible to allow three to four hours.
The site also has free parking, with space for around 400 vehicles, so driving is another practical option if you are travelling with older family members or anyone who finds long public-transport connections tiring.
For our visit, however, the subway and bus combination worked well enough once we finally found the correct bus.
One thing worth remembering is that this is essentially an outdoor museum. Bring water, particularly on a sunny day. There are vending machines around the grounds, but you won’t necessarily find one just when you want it.
Afternoon in Tanukikoji
We caught the 2:00 PM bus back towards Shin-Sapporo and eventually made our way back into central Sapporo at around 3:00 PM.
This created another small problem: lunch.
Many Japanese restaurants have a break between lunch and dinner service, often roughly from 2:30 PM to 5:00 PM. By the time we returned to central Sapporo, quite a few of the places we might otherwise have considered were closed for the afternoon.
Fortunately, Tanukikoji gave us plenty of alternatives.
Tanukikoji Shopping Arcade stretches for roughly 900 metres across seven blocks and has around 200 shops beneath its covered arcade. Its history goes back to the early development of Sapporo during the Meiji period, with the area becoming known as Tanukikoji in 1873.
Today, it is a mixture of old and new Sapporo: souvenir shops, restaurants, izakaya, bars, fashion stores, entertainment and small specialist businesses. The covered roof also makes it particularly convenient in Sapporo’s unpredictable weather.
We headed into Tanuki COMICHI and found Yakitori Fujiyama Tanukikoji Branch.
We ordered several yakitori skewers together with a crispy yaki-onigiri. Everything was freshly grilled, and the food itself was good, but what stayed with us just as much was the friendliness of the staff.
After walking around the Historical Village and navigating our way back into central Sapporo, sitting down somewhere warm with freshly grilled food was exactly what we needed.
Then came dessert.
At Imoten Gelato, we tried sweet potato with Hokkaido milk soft-serve. The combination worked surprisingly well: warm, naturally sweet roasted sweet potato underneath cool, rich milk soft-serve.
It was one of those simple combinations that made sense in Hokkaido, where dairy products are an important part of the local food culture.
Nighttime Comfort: Ramen in Susukino
By evening, the walking had caught up with us.
We went back to the hotel for a proper rest before heading out again for dinner. Eventually, we made our way towards Susukino and Ganso Sapporo Ramen Yokocho.
The alley is tiny compared with the scale of modern Sapporo, which is part of its charm. Its history goes back to 1951, when a small group of ramen shops operated beside the Sapporo Toho Koraku cinema. The original row began with eight shops and eventually developed into the ramen alley that exists today. After being closed because of road expansion in 1969, it reopened at its present location in 1971.
Sapporo’s connection with miso ramen is particularly strong. The city’s miso ramen style is generally traced to the late 1950s, when Morito Ohmiya of Aji no Sanpei developed miso ramen, while Nishiyama Seimen developed the characteristic noodles that became associated with the style.
That history is part of why eating ramen in this particular part of Susukino feels slightly different from simply finding a bowl of ramen anywhere in Japan.
Before going, we had seen plenty of online discussions about which of the 17 or so tiny shops were supposedly the ones everyone had to visit.
We decided not to overthink it.
The advice we had come across was simply to look for an open counter seat rather than spending half the evening standing in a queue for a particular shop.
So when we spotted a small restaurant with some red counter seats available, we went in.
And, naturally, shortly after we sat down, a queue appeared behind us.
Sometimes that’s how travel works.
The menu was straightforward, with a few main ramen choices and various toppings. After a full day of walking, the hot, savoury bowl of noodles was exactly what we wanted.
The hospitality was also memorable. The cooks even offered hair ties for the ladies so that we could eat our ramen without worrying about our hair falling into the soup.
It was a tiny gesture, but after a long day, those little things stand out.
We Almost Finished with a Shime Parfait
There was one more Sapporo food tradition I wanted to try.
Sapporo has developed a distinctive shime parfait culture — having a parfait as the final food of the evening, often after dinner or drinks. It has become part of the city’s nightlife identity, particularly around Susukino and Tanukikoji.
So we went looking for one.
Unfortunately, when we arrived, the queue was already snaking down the stairwell.
The estimated wait was around 40 minutes.
After everything we had already done that day, standing in a stairwell for another 40 minutes for a dessert suddenly didn’t seem quite as appealing.
So we gave up.
The shime parfait would have to wait for another Sapporo night.
And perhaps that was fitting. We had started the day with paper and stationery, travelled out to a reconstructed Hokkaido settlement, accidentally taken the wrong bus, walked through a 54-hectare historical village, returned to the city for yakitori and sweet potato gelato, and finished with ramen in one of Sapporo’s oldest ramen alleys.
That was already quite enough for one day.
Transport & Ticket Tips
For the Historical Village of Hokkaido, the current official public-transport route is the Tozai Line to Shin-Sapporo, followed by JR Hokkaido Bus Shin 22 from Shin-Sapporo Bus Terminal, platform 10. The bus takes around 18–20 minutes and costs ¥240 one way for adults. The official museum also notes that using an applicable transfer ticket or IC card can reduce the combined subway-and-bus cost.
The current general admission is ¥1,000, while visitors aged 65 and over are free, including visitors from outside Hokkaido, provided they can show identification confirming their age.
The horse-drawn railway costs ¥250 per person during its operating season. It normally runs from around mid-April into November, with a horse-drawn sleigh replacing it during the winter season.
For drivers, the Historical Village has free parking for about 400 vehicles, which can make it a convenient choice if you are travelling with parents or prefer to reduce the amount of walking through transport interchanges.
For Tanukikoji and Ganso Sapporo Ramen Yokocho, individual shop opening hours vary, so checking the restaurant directly is worthwhile, particularly if you are planning an afternoon visit between the usual lunch and dinner periods. Tanukikoji is about a five-minute walk from Odori Station, while Ramen Yokocho is only a few minutes from Susukino Station.
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