City of dragonflies

Our first day in Sapporo and one without any work commitments.

Sampled the Japanese breakfast at our hotel. I've been fairly worried about how a vegetarian was going to fare in Japan. I managed to find cooked pumpkin, potato croquettes, tofu, yoghurt and fruit at the Japanese buffet. My colleague indulged in rice, pickled whelks, small whole fish, sausages, Japanese-style bacon and squid. There was a huge vat of rice gruel with green tea and salt dressing. We'd been offered this on the plane on the way over and I did try it but it was a bit too salty and fishy tasting for me (would probably have been able to hang a few sheets of wallpaper with it though).

We set off for a walk around the city to get our bearings and some fresh air. It was raining and very hot. An umbrella was an essential item - too hot for any kind of raincoat. There were dragonflies buzzing around in the city streets above the traffic.

We went to a small art gallery devoted to Migishi Kotaro - interesting but a bit odd. We then visited the University Botanical Gardens. There were huge signs about Asian Hornets at the entrance and we did see one of these enormous insects on flowers in the gardens. The highlight for me was the huge number of dragonflies whizzing around the gardens - lots of butterflies too.