Hokkaido Historical Village

On the outskirts of Sapporo is a place called Hokkaido Historic Village. Here many houses and shops dating back to the mid-19th and early-20th century  have been relocated to form a village replicating what Hokkaido would have looked like not long after it was settled. Fiona was dying to check it out so she could, "finally see a real live Japanese house." I was a little perplexed by this announcement so I had to probe it a bit further. Turns out, many of the books about Japan that she read prior to our trip had pictures of Japanese houses with very ornate roofs consisting of curved eaves and extending far beyond the walls of the structure. This house, for example, has been classified by my traveling buddy as a "real Japanese house":

 

After explaining that all the houses we see in Japan are, in fact, "real Japanese houses," we set out for our visit to Hokkaido Historal Village to see if we could find some more traditional architecture.

As we entered, there was a booth set up with modern day-like toys made with more natural materials. Fiona loved the water squirter made from bamboo and an stick:

There are over 70 homes and shops to visit at the village and my compulsively ordered daughter mate sure we didn't miss even one. It was quite a day given that we had to take our shoes of to enter every single one of them!

I will say, the experience quickly helped me develop a new appreciation for the shoe horse! One was provided at the entrance to each structure.

In an old newspaper printing house, we saw how newspapers were historically printed. Then Fiona got to try her hand at the printing press making her own postcard:

Try as we might, we had a very hard time finding Fiona the architectural style she was looking for - instead most of what we found looked more like this - similar to what we'd find in the US.

Most of the places we visited were staffed volunteers who were spending time with visitors explaining more about the architecture and former uses of the structure. Because the explainations were in Japanese only, so we didn't pick up much, but one woman at one of the houses we visited recognized us as Americans and took it upon herself to give us a private tour with lots of Hokkaido history built in. What we learned was incredibly interesting and suddenly made Fiona's search in vain for classic Japanese architecture.

Briefly, what the woman explained to us was that up until about 150 years ago, Hokkadio was inhabited almost exclusively by the native Ainu people. Following the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate during this time, the Japanese government opened its boarders and pushed for more Western influences in Japan's future development. No where was this change in policy more influential than in largely undeveloped Hokkaido. The population of the region ballooned from 60,000 in 1870 to 2.3 million in 1920, and during this large growth and development period, city planning, construction, manufacturing, and technology was all being led by experts from the US and Europe. The result was - among other things - a Japanese state with roads set out in grid systems and houses built in very American and European styles. At last! An explaination for why Fiona can't find the types of houses she expected to here! It will be very interesting to compare our time here to what we find when we start traveling in Honshu (the main island of Japan and Hokkaido resident's go-to term for the region) at the end of next week.

Despite the western influences on the outside structure of the homes we saw, what we found inside was still very typically Japanese:

Those homes and buildings that were not staffed by volunteers were instead home to some rather creepy fake people. This one armed with a large butcher knife:

And this was what we found in the village barber shop:

While wandering the village, we even managed a stint as honorary police women!

A common outdoor activity for kids and adults alike here seems to be trying to master the skill of walking on stilts. Everywhere we go there are a few pairs available to try out. We've never remembered to give it a try at other parks we visited, so we made sure to do so this time. Let me tell you, it's HARD! Fiona managed to balance herself for a few seconds, and neither of us got anywhere near taking an actual step!

Among other early 20th century technologies (e.g. telephone with wall-mounted mouth piece and hand-held ear piece) there was a hand pump water well for visitors to try. My grandparents actually had one of these and I can still remember using it. Fiona thought it was the coolest thing ever. What's funny is that this was her first introduction to several historical inventions, and I wonder now if she'll look at these as Japanese technologies rather than historical technologies!

Our last stop of the day was at this old photography studio:

I mention it only because I was so incredibly envious when I got inside and saw the light this place had. It was a photorapher's dream studio! I'll take one of these please!

Finally, our last stop for the week was for lunch with Daddy at Sky J - a buffet restaurant on the 35th floor of the JR Tower that's known for it's delicious international food and its amazing views:

As it turned out, both were fantastic! When we walked in, I was actually terrified. The restaurant was very nice - not what I was picturing when thinking of a buffet restaurant. I immediately told Jason that he was in charge of paying because, "I don't even want to know..." Well, as we left an hour later all stuffed full of deliciousness, Jason turned to me and said, "I feel like we just stole something." When I looked at him obviously confused, he told me that the bill for all of us had only been $50! For the equivalent in the US, we definitely would have been out at least twice that. Looks like we might just be back Sky J!