Sapporo Cafes: Hammock Base Cafe

Hammocks. Do you like hammocks? Talking about this place with my sister I discovered that she has an irrational hatred of hammocks in cafes. I think it comes from living for too long in areas with a high concentration of cafes that are trying just a little too hard, and, for her, the hammocks have become tainted by their association with annoying people. If, however, you harbour no ill will towards swinging seating then Hammock Base Cafe near Sapporo TV Tower is worth checking out.

In one of those like-attracts-like occurrences, Hammock Base Cafe opened just over a year ago in the basement of the same building that houses the ultra-stylish Fabulous Cafe. Hammock Base Cafe's concept is hammocks, but it's a very cool looking cafe all round with a small menu of handmade dishes and a well stocked bar to boot.

Here's where the good shit is:

Hammocks, son. I think we were actually expecting more traditional... reclining hammocks? Slung-between-two-trees hammocks? These are more like chair things, but if you get yourself properly positioned you can stretch right out and swing around a bit. Just try not to knock over your coffee.

There aren't all that many hammocks so I think that pretty often you'll have to wait before getting to sit in one of those low-slung things. We waited sitting at the bar, which is also impeccably cool. Here it is, through the strings of a hammock.

When the hammocks are free you can go climb in, but if there are people waiting you can only dangle for an hour and a half. We got a slice of meat and potato quiche as a snack. It was good, but small. The guy kept telling us it was small, but when it came it was actually smaller than we expected. It was warm, which I think is possibly a mistake about quiche that is commonly made in Japan, but one for which I am grateful since I don't really like cold quiche.

The drinks come in these cool two-tone light plastic mugs. Almost camping style, which I guess goes with the hammocks and the fake grass underneath them.

The coffee was fine. Nothing to write home about, which I kind of guessed because they only had the one coffee drink on their menu.

Hammock Base has all the other trappings of a creative cafe too: handmade crafts for sale, a weirdly eclectic bookshelf to browse, flyers and posters for all sorts of stuff. It's a good place and I'll head back, even if I'm a little worried about trying to eat while sitting in a hammock. Oh, and motion sickness is a possibility.

As I said, Hammock Base Cafe is under Fabulous Cafe, along with another few cool looking places. The closest station is Bus Centre Mae, and we got there, avoiding the snow, by walking along the long underground passage from Odori Station. I'll mark it on my map, and if you don't hate hammocks it's worth checking out.

Sapporo Cafes: Fabulous Cafe

I went to Fabulous Cafe the other day, and thought... wait, have I actually blogged about this place? Or put it on my map? A search of my site says no, I haven't, so I will now.

Fabulous Cafe is a really, really, trendy cafe near to Bus Centre Mae Station, just over the river from the TV Tower (y'know, at the point in Sapporo where there is actually no river, just a road with a river under it, even though the river is still marked on maps). It's actually more a combination cafe/design boutique/men's clothing store - which should give you an idea what it's like. As should this photo:


Sadly I don't seem to have more photos, and it's the kind of place where snapping away might make you feel a little gauche. It's a fantastically cool place where they play nothing but cool music, stock nothing but cool design innovations and cool men's clothes, and you can go and sit in there feeling just... cool.

Of course, it's incredibly expensive.

Well, not so bad really, not like - wincingly expensive. But I know many people who would blanche at the prices for coffee there, and the servings are never what you would call 'generous'. Everything's good though, I took my folks there and I seem to remember my dad saying that the cheese toast (read: cheese on toast) was amazing. He'd have to confirm that though. The coffees are all great though, and I always find the staff there to be incredibly nice too, although, obviously, hipsters. The photo I took up there was from a while ago, and that guy's afro is now long, straight and cool in a totally different way.

The place looks amazing, always, and I think it's really fantastic if you're after a high-end cafe, or just a cool, interesting place to go. They stock D-Bros. stationery, which I love too. But I want to be utterly straight here - it is pretty darned expensive. I never have a problem dropping a little more than usual to go somewhere like this from time to time, but your mileage (as they say) may vary.

I have stuck it on the map, and not before time.

Jack Bauer says...

Originally posted on Facebook on 15th September. This new look makes me a lot happier!

"WoOOOH!"

According to the posters for 24 season 6 that are up here that is. Also included as a picture below is the heartwarming motto that adorns all the 24 adverts here. Brings a tear to your eye it does.

A number of the big US dramas are big in Japan, including Prison Break, 24, Lost and Desperate Housewives. I'm not sure if they screen on TV or cable, but they do a hell of a trade in DVD sales and rentals. They don't really sell as boxed sets either, there are just racks and racks of individual DVDs, each containing three or four episodes. Someone's raking it in, and I for one am looking at Keifer Sutherland.

I snapped that poster in the internet cafe that I no longer need to go to. Someday I'm going to spew out a ream on the oasis that is the internet cafe here, and on the comic book libraries that even tiny restaurants seem to have for their clientelle, but not today.

But hey, yeah! I no longer need to go to the internet cafe (which is bad timing, coz I'd just reached my second free hour on their loyalty card) coz I'm all hooked up to the internet in my appartment! It took most of a morning, and there were teething problems for sure, but the end, when it came, was a happy one. Getting set up also allowed me to experience one of those tremendous moments of serendipity that probably happen all the time here. Ostensibly both the company that runs the wires and the provider I was signing up with have English language support, but the setup CD for getting myself online was entirely in Japanese, so after bungling through that for around an hour and a half I eventually reached a screen that looked approximately what I thought a screen towards the end of the process should look like. And there even with my useless Japanese I could read the two boxes saying USER and PASSWORD and that they should be from my PROVIDER. However I had recieved nothing from my provider - infact I didn't even have a number for the provider, just for the company that owns the lines. I sat for a couple of minutes and turned over some pieces of paper, hoping to find a hidden password. No password. I gave up hope of getting things sorted anytime soon... then the doorbell rang. I didn't understand any of what the guy said, but I pressed the button to let him into the building, and seconds later he was at my door with a parcel from my provider with all my information.

Oh yeah! That's the sort of psychic service that you just can't pay for!

Of course it still didn't work and I had to call the helpline, but at least I had a number for the helpline now.

So I'm a happy, lucky bunny coz not only do I have the internet, but I have a sofa and an armchair too, for a less than princely sum off another teacher who's leaving soon! So I'm sitting here, in my armchair, with a peppermint tea (I found somewhere that sells that too), on the internet. Like The Sugarcubes said, life's too good. OH! And one of my colleagues had some speakers that she doesn't need at the moment, so she lent them to me for my computer. They turned out to be a three piece unit with a quite ludicrous looking bass woofer. Seriously, it looks like a freaking jetpack, I love it. Once I've tidied stuff up and cleaned a bit pictures will be around of some of this stuff for you guys who keep bugging me about seeing where I live. I still need a lot of stuff to make my box look like a home, but it's a great start!

After I posted last weeked it all went to hell, in a good way. For a start I found THE BEST COFFEE that I've had in Japan. Flavour! Strength! I was prepping a discussion class, and the coffee was so good that I had to just stop what I was doing and drift off into space for a while. I even looked up "excellent" on my phone's crappy Japanese dictionary so I could complement the lady behind the counter. Then again, maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised - the slogan in the window did say "For Thecoffee of youlife" (sic).

In the end I picked the birthday party over Inland Empire, but the epic trail of meat, beer and karaoke (until 6am) that led to was probably a similarly deranged experience to watching Inland Empire again. I had a great time! And funnily enough we wound up running into the people who went to see Inland Empire anyway, and discussing David Lynch's dream-reality in a rowdy bar at 3am.

Happily this weekend isn't letting up either. It will probably end up involving the second of three or four leaving parties for the guy whose sofa I bought, Sapporo Gay Pride Parade, Sapporo Short Film Festival and a barbecue!

See you in the funny pages!