Private Night Cityscape and Food Walking Tour in Sapporo

Wanting to explore the Sapporo food scene, I booked this experience. I am a foodie, and as foodies do, we seek out things to eat in the cities we land in. Normally, these types of experiences are a walking, all inclusive eating and drinking shebang, like the recent one in Shibuya, where one can quickly get a ley of the land and devour delicious local dishes along the way and meet other folks. This is not that. What I got was something else - not exactly a food tour, but instead a personalised 6 hour tour of Sapporo with the Sapporo’s only qualified tour guide Yumi. Weirdly, this turned out to be my second favourite tour of this Japanese trip (I did 7 in total) over the past 2.5 weeks. Zen meditation in Kyoto coming in first place. Yumi picked me up from the hotel - two hours ahead of the advertised start time (only qualified tour guides can collect you from your hotel in Japan- hence the meeting places often advertised outside supermarkets and train stations on others). We drove all over town in the falling snow visiting a cemetery with Easter Island figureheads, a Golden Sleeping Buddha (we had the shrine all to ourselves) and the well known Ropeway for night sights and photo ops with the tourists up the mountain. Some of the activities Yumi had planned for me were cancelled last minute due to bears 🐻. I happened to arrive when the bear attacks were going off the Richter scale in Hokkaido - so walks in the woods, a parkland or even by the cities river off limits. After driving about town for a few hours taking in the sights and quickly fading winter light, I had built up quite an appetite (also had not eaten lunch as I thought I would be stuffing my face). Yumi took me to a sushi conveyor belt restaurant - and while that sounds ho-hum (they are often that in Australia) I can honestly say it was best sushi I had ever eaten, full stop. Hokkaido seafood in winter is absolutely amazing (and I come from a land of seafood in Australia). This was something else.) Cod’s balls, yes the testes of the male cod, were in season (Yumi’s favourite) so we had a few of those. So yummy Yumi! Afterwards, Yumi drove me to a quiet dessert bar for cakes and coffee before dropping me back at the hotel. - Important point to note - Unlike other food tours, and I have been on a few around the world, the cost of the tour - pricey - does not include food. You will need to budget not only for your meals and entry tickets but for your guide’s meals as well. Something I learned on my very first tour in Kyoto where I also paid for ceremonial matcha and set lunch, and an Aud $450 touring fee. Like going on an old fashioned date….This is one of the odd customs here in Japan. Note to tour operator - please include these details, you are also expected to pay for your guide’s food in your advertised tour so everything is transparent and the customer knows exactly what they are in for. - An excellent tour and the only way really to go deeper quickly into Hokkaido with zero subway/train and public transport stress.