6 Days 5 Nights Hokkaido Sapporo Sakura Itinerary Day 3
6 Days 5 Nights Hokkaido Sapporo Sakura Itinerary Day 3
This is the 6 Days 5 Nights Hokkaido Sapporo Sakura Itinerary Day 3. It will be Sapporo all the way until the last day in Chitose.
For those who are planning to visit Sapporo Hokkaido for Sakura, you probably want to go through our entire itinerary. We try to cover as many places as possible in Sapporo during this trip and we do have plans to visit Hokkaido again in the future.
Sapporo Maruyama Park
Maruyama Park in Sapporo is modeled after Maruyama Park in Kyoto. It is created and opened in 1957 and it is one of the popular tourist attractions in Sapporo Hokkaido.
Maruyama Park is one of the best places to find the Sakura trees during cherry blossom season. The Maruyama Park or Maruyama Koen is only a short walk from Maruyama Koen Subway Station (Tozai Line). You can find many people walking towards the park and there are signs along the way too. It takes around 15 minutes to walk from the station to the park.
Three things you should do in Maruyama Park, you can picnic at the park, visit the Maruyama Zoo and visit Hokkaido Mikado Shrine Temple. You can spend the entire day exploring Maruyama Park and taking photos with the sakura trees.
The Maruyama Baseball Stadium is also located here so it is really busy here during matchday. We decided to visit the Maruyama Zoo first, visit the Park and the temple later.
Maruyama Zoo
There are two main zoos in Hokkaido, one in Ashakiwa and one in Maruyama Park in Sapporo. the Maruyama Zoo opened in 1951 and home to 177 varieties of mammals, birds and reptiles and exhibiting 991 types of living creatures.
Maruyama Zoo is a popular zoo in Sapporo Hokkaido. Since it is the ‘Golden Week’, there are many families with children visited the zoo. We hope to bring our boys to visit this zoo one day when they are older.
The entrance ticket is 600 Yen each (which is around RM 22 and US$ 5). There is a 7 Eleven store at the entrance so you can buy water and food into the zoo. This Maruyama Zoo is very food friendly which is a surprise to us. This is our first time visiting a zoo in Japan.
This is not a huge zoo but it is very well designed and it is very tourist friendly with many signages in English.
This is the view of the sakura trees within the Maruyama Zoo. What we like about this zoo is they have chairs and benches so you can take a rest and enjoy the sakura trees.
We took our time slowly exploring all the sections of the zoo. Found this hyena resting and can’t taking this photo with the zoom lens. Camera is Sony A6000 + 55 – 210mm lens.
This another photo we took. The timber wolf taking a rest while the wind blew the cherry blossom flowers into the lair. This is also taken with Sony A6000 with the zoom lens. There are four timber wolves in this zoo.
The zookeeper is feeding the harbor seal. Captured with the zoom lens.
This is the view of the sakura trees in the zoo. After two days of intensive walking in Sapporo and Otaru, we take our time in Maruyama Zoo. The weather is good, it is windy but not too cold.
Look at the sakura trees inside the zoo. It is a good resting place if you bring your own mat.
This is the perfect way to spend your day in Maruyama Zoo picnicking with your loved ones under the sakura trees. What we like about the culture here is you can chill or eat under the trees without much restrictions.
Lunch at Food Stalls in Maruyama Park
This is the view of the food stalls in Maruyama Park. The tables and chairs belong to respective stalls and you can only eat here if you purchase the food from there.
There are stalls selling oden, fried food, grilled food and many more. Most of the stall sellers are friendly and speak simple English.
We didn’t bother to venture out of the park so we can spend more time here. This is simple street food but it is comfort food. Please take note that the eating area is very clean even with the food stalls operating here. Don’t you love the Japanese culture?
Sakura Trees in Maruyama Park
When you walk further into the center of the Maruyama Park, you will find more sakura trees. Of course, you can’t compare to the ones in Tokyo or Kyoto but this is good enough. From our six days of exploring Sapporo, Maruyama Park has the most sakura trees compare the other parks.
You just can’t help taking photos under the Sakura trees.
The park wasn’t overcrowded even though it was the Golden Week. Most of them are visiting big cities like Tokyo and Osaka.
This is close up of the sakura flower.
Hokkaido Shrine Mikado
This is one of the ‘gates’ to the shrine.
This shinto shrine is built in 1870 by an order of the Emperor Meiji. It is a beautiful shrine located within the park. Please do check out the Google Map or check out the map inside the park for directions.
Since you are in the park, you can pay the shrine a visit. It is a beautiful shrine and we have seen pictures of this shrine during winter.
It is common to have Japanese wedding in Shinto shrine like this one.
We finished visiting the shrine around 4.40pm. We walk to the subway station to visit the Sapporo Factory. The reason we spent the entire day in Maruyama Park is because we were taking our time. We walked too much so we took it slow. The best part of traveling is to enjoy the scenery and the weather. This is also the main reason why we spent 5 days in Sapporo during this trip.
Sapporo Factory
To go to Sapporo Factory from Maruyama Park, you need to take the Tozai Line Subway to Bus Center Mae Station from Maruyama Koen Station. It is a brisk walk from the Bus Center Mae Station to the Sapporo Factory.
Sapporo Factory is a huge shopping mall that is established since 1993. They are located in the central Sapporo with 160 outlets of clothing stores, souvenir shops, restaurants, cafes and more.
Dinner at Fugetsu Sapporo Japan in Sapporo Factory
Fugetsu is a local restaurant serving food like okonomiyaki, yakisoba, teppanyaki and monjayaki. It is not a particular popular restaurant but we wanted to try the monjayaki.
This is our first time trying monjayaki and it is quite tasty. The texture is softer than the usual okonomiyaki and it feels like liquid. It has the similarity of starchy texture but the taste is pretty good. You have to eat it hot from the teppan!
The Sapporo Factory is constructed on the former location of Japan’s first beer brewery. The red brick Akarenga building is located next to the shopping mall. there is a small brewery in the building.
If you plan to visit Sapporo Factory, we advise you to come earlier before dinner time as you can have your dinner at Sapporo Beer Museum and also for the factory tour. You can also skip the Sapporo Factory and visit Sapporo Beer Museum from Maruyama Park.
Sapporo Beer Garden and Museum
The easiest way to go to Sapporo Beer Garden from Sapporo Factory is to take the taxi or you can walk to there for less than 20 minutes. There is also the ‘Loop 88 Factory Line’ that can bring you to the Sapporo Beer Garden. We chose to walk.
After 20 minutes of walking, we reached Sapporo Beer Garden.
We reached late and there were no more factory tours. You can book for your buffet dinner in advance at https://www.klook.com/activity/5012-sapporo-beer-garden-hokkaido/?aid=602
There are many different types of beer and souvenirs available in the Sapporo Beer Garden.
This is the last picture we took before we took the ‘Loop 88 Factory Line’ to Sapporo Station and that is where we stayed.
Here what we thought about our 3rd day in Hokkaido. We were overwhelmed by the beauty of the sakura trees in Maruyama Park and we overspent our time there. Sapporo Factory can be an optional visit and we regretted not to visit Sapporo Beer Garden earlier for the factory tour. The reason we didn’t plan to eat in Sapporo Beer Garden is because we booked another lunch at Kirin Beer Garden on the 5th day in Sapporo. We hope this will make things clearer if you planning to follow our itinerary.
6 Days 5 Nights Hokkaido Sapporo Otaru Itinerary:
6 Days 5 Nights Hokkaido Sapporo Otaru Itinerary Day 1
6 Days 5 Nights Hokkaido Sapporo Otaru Itinerary Day 2
6 Days 5 Nights Hokkaido Sapporo Sakura Itinerary Day 3
6 Days 5 Nights Hokkaido Sapporo Itinerary Day 4
6 Days 5 Nights Hokkaido Sapporo Chitose Itinerary Day 5
6 Days 5 Nights Hokkaido Chitose Itinerary Day 6
