Hokkaidou, and more specifically the capital city of Sapporo, was one of the most beautiful places I visited in Japan. The second largest island in Japan, Hokkaidou was not even inhabited by Japanese until the past century of so. It is still the least densely populated region of Japan, with Sapporo being the only city with a population over one million. This actually works to the advantage of Hokkaidou, as it is the 'final frontier' of Japan in the sense that it is one of the few preserved, natural areas left to be found in Japan. It contains several national parks and interestingly has its own indigenous people known as the Ainu. Sapporo itself is one of the most well organized cities in Japan due to its relative newness. Western city designers were brought in to assist with the design of Sapporo and the grid system so common among Western countries was implemented, making the city much easier to navigate than other metropolises around Japan. As for aesthetics, Sapporo has plenty of beautiful architecture and the surrounding mountains greatly enhance Sapporo's skyline.

I visited Hokkaidou in late March using the slow trains and the ju-hachi kippu. I arranged yet another homestay for my stay in Sapporo, this time through an international association there in the city. The family was very nice and they had one son who just happened to be home from school on break. I spent about half of my time hanging out with him, which was convenient because he had a car. He took me to some pretty neat places on the outskirts of Sapporo, which included a little off-roading through the snow in his little Toyota. I spent the rest of the time roaming around the central part of the city myself. The day of my departure, which wasn't until nighttime, I traveled a up to Otaru on the northwest coast near Russia. It was a quaint little town with a famous little canal and several gift shops selling some specialty glass ornaments blown there in Otaru. It was neat to find there was actually more Russian written in the town than Japanese, and I actually ran into several Russian fishermen. Evidently they were a much more common site in the town than Westerners were.

The pictures are divided by the approximate time I took them. Click on the links below to see the pictures corresponding to each day (or group of days):

• Day 1 - These are all pictures that I actually took on my second day in Sapporo at a rather large historical village on the outskirts of town that evidently displayed the typical makeup of an early 20th century settlement village.
• Day 2 - These are pictures from the next three days of my stay, with shots of places all over town ranging from Hokkaidou University to the Governor's mansion in the center of town.
• Day 3 - I took these shots on my last day in Hokkaidou and on my way home. They are mainly shots of my visit to Otaru, as well as a few shots of various areas in Touhoku.