I love going to shopping streets around the world and in Sapporo, they have Tanukikoji Shopping Arcade, which is a ten block stretch of covered pedestrian passageway surrounded by stores, restaurants, clubs, amusement centers and even a capsule hotel.
I usually like to shop in places like these. It's a little bit different from the usual mall shopping as you'd usually expect to find more unique items being sold here, like these colorful looking floor mats made of scrap cloths. It could actually be used as a decor too ;-)
A very unusual item I bought here was actually some Japanese digestive medicine from one of the local drugstores here, called Wakamoto. It's a popular and effective digestion medicine that I could buy back home but of course, would cost me a fortune with all the embedded taxes and import costs. Where best to buy it but from where it was originally made :-)
I also managed to step in one of the amusement centers. If you're familiar with those claw machines in circuses or carnivals, where you try to grab a stuffed toy with a mechanical claw but fail immensely 99% of the time, then this is the place to see. They've got hundreds of them in these centers and I dare not spare a dime as this could be really addicting, haha!
Sapporo JR Station is the central railway station of the city of Sapporo. We stayed in a hotel near this area, so it was really convenient.
JR Tower sits at the top of the station, which houses one of the best observation decks to see Sapporo at night. It also houses one of the two famous Ramen places for which Hokkaido is known for, the other one is Ramen Alley in Susukino, 2 stations away. Here in the Sapporo JR Station area, you can choose one of the Ramen places at the 10th floor of the Esta Building and get a great view of the city at night. Esta Building is interconnected to the JR Tower at the basement level. Aside from the popular Ramen restaurants, there is a large Japanese electronics chain named Bic Camera, for the tech-lovers.
Interconnected also to these buildings from the inside are the Stellar Place and Daimaru. Stellar Place is a shopping center which houses a variety of restaurants at the 6th floor and lots of the local retail chains, including Uniqlo and Muji. Daimaru, on the other hand, is one of the popular Japanese department store chains.
Make sure you drop by the basement floor of both Daimaru and Esta, which sells all sorts of food and delicacies, and best of all, offers free tastings, so that you can taste before you buy. This in itself is a very interesting and popular attraction common to the Japanese. Be ready cause it's always crowded and full of people; but very interesting things to see, even if you don't intend to buy anything.
