American University in Japan
I get up north of the central station in Sapporo up there is the large campus area of Hokkaido University. The campus is a large area with all the different faculties and some nice wooden areas where you can walk around for quite a bit of time.
It is a bit strange for a Japanese university - but the man they praise around the university is actually an American - named Clark. He was the first president of the agricultural institute which later was transformed into the University of Hokkaido. Inside the campus area is a small museum which tells the story of the university - unfortunately most of it is in Japanese only. But there is an exhibition with a bit of the cultural history of the northern people of Asia who first occupied Hokkaido.
I leave the museum and try to find one of the best attractions of the university - the gingko avenue. I must admit I am a bit disappointed - the avenue looked really good on the pictures I had seen of it but here in real life it is not all that impressive.
Hence I leave the university and as I wonder along I stumbled upon the daily temple. I guess I should not be so surprised because it is sort of the same as the churches spread out over every city in Europe. But I am still not that familiar with the sights of temples so I am still a bit fascinated every time I pass one.
You can stroll around in the gardens taking in the view of some of the older buildings and the trees lining for instance the Gingko Avenue.
There is a fairly large museum on the university grounds. It is dedicated to all the different branches of science. Most of the exhibitions are in Japanese only but there is an interesting exhibition on the first floor which is about the culture and people of the northern most part of the Pacific. This exhibition is both in Japanese and English and gives quite a lot of information about the traditional culture of the people of the northern area.
On the university ground is a small information centre which will give out handy maps in English for the visitor so it is easy to navigate the campus ground.
