We enjoyed Sapporo more than we thought we would. Not that we had bad expectations, just that we had a great time!
We spent an entire day at the Hokkaido Historical Village. The village consists of a bunch of historic buildings that they’ve brought in and restored, all in one big village. All of the Japanese architecture and design elements gave us a ton of inspiration for the eventual Japanese airbnb studio that we now want to build 🙂
I find the Japanese style very appealing, with clean and contrasting elements. Yet still very comfortable.
A whole fishing village was moved on site. The inside of this fishing house was fascinating. This is the area where all the fishermen ate and lived.
Could be mistaken for just about anywhere in New England. The signage said this barn was built in the American style by a dairy farmer.
A sake brewery, which was really interesting to learn about.
An inn and fabric dye shop.
The autumn harvest moon came while we were in Sapporo. The autumn equinox is a holiday in Japan and the harvest moon is celebrated with moon viewing parties and the making and eating of moon cakes (made to look like the full moon). We were lucky to see a group making moon cakes (steamed buns made of rice flour and water) while we were at the historic village! A very nice gentleman explained the process to us when he saw we were interested.
After the historical village, we went to the Sapporo brewery. They had a flight for tasting and a somewhat interesting museum, but the highlight is really the building itself (the beer all tasted the same anyways – decent light lager). 
Downtown Sapporo has a fall festival that stretched along the main 13-block park. It’s mostly food, so we tried out a variety of things, did a Hokkaido sake tasting and had pumpkin ice cream.
While wandering around Sapporo, we got Ramen in ‘Ramen Alley’ and went to the top of city hall for some city views.
In the last bit of time we had remaining, we explored the Sapporo underground. Really extensive, kilometers long, underground passageway/mall that has regular exhibits and events. Crazy to think of so many people spending so much time down there!
Highlights of Sapporo:
- Hokkaido Historical Village was easily the top thing in Sapporo for us. And we only went inside half of the buildings!
- Finally did some sake tasting! We were able to find our favorite one in the store afterwards.
- All of the festivals. The autumn festival (including an Oktoberfest section) will just run right into their winter festival (complete with ski jumps in the park).
We had a dear friend who was adopted by an American doctor as a 16 year old after WWII from Sapporo. When he died in the mid-1980s, his birth family came to America and took his ashes back to Sapporo to be interred with the rest of his family. Thank you for sharing some insights into his home city…..