Sapporo Winter Sports Museum

Before

After

A friend of mine came to visit me for a few days last week, and I decided to show him the Sapporo Winter Museum, this is located on top of Mt Okurayama which over looks Sapporo City offering great views of the city ( night or day).

The museum itself was created to commemorate the Sapporo Winter Olympics held here in 1972, inside is lots of winter sporting memorabilia, dating back to the beginning of the Winter Olympics.

Once you have worked you way through the interesting museum you can head downstairs to the state-of-the-art simulators, which helps you gain some understanding of the events. There are a number of simulators one for the ski jump, bobsled, ice hockey, cross country skiing, shooting, and my favorite the ice skating simulator.

The ice skating simulator is very enjoyable (if you haven't eaten too much before taking a ride), you start spinning and the straighter you stand the faster you spin to slow down you push your arms straight and you will slow down.

This place is very enjoyable for me as coming from New Zealand winter sports like these are not played (Ice hockey is a very small sport in New Zealand). Out side of the museum they had snow rides organized for kids and a faster ride which involved walking a small way up the ski jump landing ramp and sliding down in tractor tyre inner tubes, you can gather quite a bit of speed.

Entry to the museum is 600¥ and it is open from 9.30am to 5.00pm all year round.