Out and about in Sapporo

Last Saturday I went for a hike up Moiwa yama. It sits just on the outskirts of Sapporo and has a ropeway (cable car) and touristy stuff on the top of it along with a few hiking trails. I jumped on the subway near my house down to Maruyama koen and walked up the begining of the trail. Its a very popular hike, so there were many "Konnichiwa's" on the trail up. Mainly retired folks,decked out in full hiking gear complete with bear bells(- apparently the 531m mountain is equivalent to Everest), and a few families. This is the first time I've hiked up Moiwa this year. I went earlier in the year with a couple of friends, but we took the wrong turn on the way to the start of the trail and ended up taking the cable car up (it was free on that day luckily). This time it was just me, and the other hikers.

I really like living in Sapporo because although its the largest city I've lived in, its still has a small town feel to it and the mountains and countryside is so easily accessible. The trail wound up the mountain with plenty of nature to look at- mostly insects and birds though.

There's a popular rest area just before the final km zig zag to the top and stopped for some tea. There was a family there having a rest with some small children (2 years to 8 years I reckon). I think this was their first close encounter with an "alien" cause I got saucer -eyed by the kids. Eventually ,with the parents egging them on, we exchanged sweets and 'hellos' . This is the first time in ages I've had the meet the foreigners conversation so I'm guessing they were from out of town.

I stopped at the top to warm up cause it was windy and chilly too. The top has an amazing collection of tacky Hokkaido souvenirs- hello kitty Susukino and Marimo algae men key rings, magnets, towel- you need it they have it. I headed East down the mountain aiming for the ski runs and met an entire High School year heading up the mountain in there track suits. 300 Konnichiwa's and Hallo's later I started down the trail. By now the wind was really quite strong and the path seem quite corroded with lots of little rocks, but I had the trail to myself. It was weird walking down the ski runs, this was where I first learnt to ski this winter and now instead of m's of snow it was a huge meadow.

Unfortunately the buses that run from the subway station to the ski jo don't work out of season so I ended up walking another 4km to a bus stop in the middle of the edge of town car salesrooms. It was a nice hike, though tiring at the end.