Date

2022-10-12, Wednesday

Distance

6 km

By the time we set up our bikes, it was already noon. We began our first bike ride in the heart of Sapporo, from our hotel to the train station tower nearby. There is a Republic of Ramen that groups many well-known ramen restaurants in one area with old-style decorations. I purposely ate my first authentic ramen wearing the Ramen Cat t-shirt that my friend bought for me from Taiwan.

Biking in Sapporo is a pain. Most of the time people bike (without helmet) on the sidewalk that is designated to be shared by pedestrians and cyclists. I need to constantly avoid people so my speed is not very fast. Bikes are allowed on the outer edge of the street only when blue arrows are printed on the ground. Sometimes, the ride is so far from being smooth that I just want to bike in the street.

This aside, the real pain is parking. There seems to be very strict rules about where one can lock one’s bike: in the designated areas only, everywhere else is marked with 駐輪禁止 (‘no bicycle parking’). Most of these parking lots are payable and reserved for residents. When going from place to place, we need to look around a long time to find a parking, then walk a long way to our destination. This is utterly inconvenient.

Unlike in Montreal, Asian cities are filled with tons of overpasses at a crossroad for pedestrian to cross the street. Sometimes it’s even roofed. I wonder how the elderly population sees this. They seem to handle this inconvenience of climbing up and down the stairs with grace. In Montreal, pedestrians are the kings/queens, meaning that normally pedestrians get the top priority to cross a street. At popular intersection in downtown, every green light can often only allow 1-2 cars to turn.

The night falls fairly early, at around 5:30 pm. Stores also close early at around the same time except restaurants. So we did nothing serious beside eating. The tourism industry seems to have waned considerably due to the pandemic; I didn’t see anywhere that sell postcards.

I got back to our hotel before 9:30 pm to prepare for an online interview with a graduate student in art history whom I met in Montreal this summer. Very interested in my attempt at merging some aspect of mail art with the philatelic tradition, she asked a lot of details about the genesis of my idea, my Ukraine and Postkard project, and thought that my paying visit (which I called pilgrimage) to location and post office a performance. It was nice to speak to someone about my art.

Tomorrow, all the way to Wakkanai and Cape Soya!