Friday activites and little about this weekend

I decided to skip saturday because nothing much happened. I was bit tired so yesterday was spend mostly inside, reading a book and watching some series.

Friday though, is a different story altogether.

Friday (2 pm) me, professor Akiyama and 3 students from HIT who are going to go into exchange program in United States this fall went in a "Maruyama tour". What this means is that we used small tourist buses that travel through Sapporo stopping at various important locales.

First stop was at the ski jump stadium. Weather wasn't as good as it was last week, air was bit cold and slightly rainy. This time I took my camera with me so I'll just post couple pictures without further explanation.







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Second last image is the Sapporo Winter Sports museum, where you can try various sports simulators and see history of local sports events.

Next stop was at Maruyama park. It's very beautiful park with natural forest trees. It also has important shrine within it, which was founded at same time as the city. Shrine is simply called Hokkaidō Shrine.

Before you enter shinto temple, you have to purify yourself with water. Mr. Akiyama showed us how to do it. Basically you rinse your hands in correct order, clean your mouth with water and then wash your hands again. You also bow at the temple entrance before going in. Inside we did a short prayer and bought Omikuji, which is a written oracle. And now some pictures which will probably tell more than thousand words, like that saying goes.





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And last activity was a dinner and what a great dinner it was. We went to Mr. Akiyamas favorite restaurant. It's small italian restaurant very close to Maruyama bus/subway station. Maybe 30 customers can be in this restaurant at once. Food was very good, this was first time for me to try catfish. Catfish meat is white and has slightly grainy texture. It tastes bit like fish back home but somehow lighter. Best thing was paste made from sundried tomatoes and various vegetables which was eaten with crispy white bread. You also get free drinks for 90 first minutes, which includes beer and various soft drinks, or ice tea. For some reason most of my photos failed but I do have one close up from the front.



I also saw the elementary school where I will be paying a visit on 24th of this month.

Anyway, that's it for friday.