I’ve missed a day … never mind, yesterday was securing bike boxes, the guesthouse owner had a contact only 1km away and kindly arranged it all. It was cold, cloudy and windy we walked to the Sapporo station then found many shopping centres and the underground space of 520m between stations with 2 shopping centres and general shops … and no wonder, this city has snow for 6 months of the year.

Today is very sunny and warm, a little windy – t-shirt weather … we picked up the bike boxes then headed out on our bikes, first the Former Government Office building, a lovely old building and open to the public and exhibitions in English (a plus); a ride through the Hokkaido University Campus surprisingly all the signage was in English and Japanese, then onto the Sapporo Brewery Museum which was very well presented and informative.

Another park up the other end of town … here we discover that there is a festival this weekend … the penny drops … accommodation was at a premium and hard to get. The park is full of stalls selling food of all description; game booths etc … I hear screaming … a ghost train ride. Lots of people taking advantage of the beautiful weather and the teens and above are out in their Komonos – such a pretty sight.

A nice soup curry for dinner … baseball is on TV what better thibg to watch on a Friday evening.