So while we don't exactly LOVE white chocolate, we are both white people in love. Does that count?
Welcome to Day 3 of our trip where we visited the theme park of the exclusive chocolate from Hokkaido: Shiroi Koibito! The park isn't the ride-type of theme park, but more like a museum to this local and famous brand of chocolate. It reminded me of the York's Chocolate Story tour we took in England, but in a much cuter more involved way.
But first, we had to wake up at the butt crack of dawn of 6:00-ish, like you do when you are 13 hours ahead of your home time. I honestly don't mind staying on this end of the jet lag. Waking up at 6am and going to bed around 10pm is a good schedule for around here. I had noticed the other day that a seafood market I wanted to eat at has a free bus that can be requested to stop at our hotel, so I talked with the front desk and we got that all squared away. What an awesome free service! I can't wait to try some fresh, Sapporo seafood tomorrow for breakfast!
This branch of Karaoke Manekineko must really love Santa!
You know what makes a really delicious breakfast and is open at 7am? Ichiran Ramen, that's what!
Oh, by the way, we really REALLY need to get on the trolly of having our stores and shops on a walkable street underground. Away from the elements, warm in winter, cooler in summer, don't have to worry about traffic. We first need to bring back physical stores and shopping malls and get America back on the trend to going out to shop. THEN we can work on making walking easier underground and but those shopping streets there too. Get on that America!
Maybe don't call our underground shopping street Pole Town in America. We won't be able to resist making lewd jokes about it! [Jeff Edit: This is precisely *why* we should name it Pole Town.]
Shiroi Koibito Park is another easy subway ride from Sapporo station. Only 8 stops away on one train and then about a 10 minute walk, you're there within 40 minutes! As we were walking to the park from the Nishimachi Kita station, Google Maps had us walking one way, but thankfully a local spotted us and told us it was easier to take a different street. Thank you local!
The park was easy to spot as soon as you turned a corner and a large building was no longer blocking your line of view. We knew we found the right place!
But the true charm of the park is hidden behind this building!
We still had about 30 minutes until the park opened at 10am, so we wandered to the soccer fields across the street, bought a drink from the vending machine, and watched the local professional soccer team, the Consadole Sapporo, practice. Sapporo's team are actually sponsored by Shiroi Koibtio and this field is owned by the company and considered part of the park!
Also sponsored by Hudson Soft? I recognize that logo from a couple Nintendo 64 games!
10:00 finally arrived and we made our way into the park/museum to buy tickets. Tickets are nice and cheap, only 800 yen! And that's how much it costs to get into the paid area. It's free to be in the middle, outside part of the park or the first floor of the museum where there's a large souvenir shop and a couple of small cafes. Oh, don't worry, they'll be taking my money from various other ways.
The tour about the history of chocolate and of the Shiroi Koibito and Ishiya Co. Digital projection and cute little movies and shows lead you through the history of chocolate as Willy Wonka Professor Julian Dandino Ishimitty and his two black cats (which they kept calling Spirits or Faeries) Purumi and Ramuru talk about the Four Geniuses of Chocolate, and how they contributed to making the delicious chocolate we enjoy today. It was a very cute and interactive show and tour from room to room. They offered screens with subtitles in English and Chinese, as did most of the signs and information placards. There was a quiz you could take and get a free cookie as well!
{Video I took of cute animatronic Oompa Loompas White Dwarves (that just look like cute little elves in white cat hats) would appear here if Blogger would FRIGGIN SUPPORT MP4. Why even still have the "insert video" option??}
The third floor usually features a window into the actual factory below and you can watch the conveyor belt line as they produce the actual chocolate and cookies, but alas, it is under renovation until this summer of 2026. Instead they added a few more projection shows and some videos of what the floor usually looks like.
At the end of the history tour, which ends at the top, fourth floor, you have the exclusive paid area entertainments: a baking class, cookie decorating, personalized cookie tins, a small arcade, a cafe with an amazing view, and what looked like a train waiting area with benches, and a "magical marche" with photo op spots.
We first put in our order for a personalized cookie tin and magnet in the shape of the cookie tin. Then we tried to get one for Paul and Julie next door, but they won't put other people's photos on items unless you have explicit consent from those people, and alas it was like 1am back at home. Sorry Julie and Paul! We tried! [Jeff Edit: This is what happens when you don't have any photos together with your neighbors - which is a thing I never would have thought of.]
While those were being made, I bought tickets for a cookie decorating class where we got white and dark chocolate to decorate heart cookies with and you get half an hour. Definitely a big hit with kids, but we still had fun as they gave us chef hats and little aprons LOL. Plus, we got what I think is my favorite photo of us so far this trip (and top ten photo of us as a couple overall)! [Jeff Note: See how my hat seems really big? That's because the adjustable strip at the back is, in fact, far too small for my giant head - so it's just kinda... open and sitting there.]
We also won ourselves two little keychains that look like the cookie package from the arcade.
We still had some time until our cookie tin was ready so we decided to have a little snack and break at the cafe.
It as a lovely, fancy cafe with a huge viewing window that looked at the park's iconic clock tower, the soccer fields, and down in the park's outdoor square below. I ordered a cold chocolate drink with a chocolate brownie with ice cream, and Jeff had hot chocolate with a strawberry and cream pancake/short cake/pound cake. They did a fancy thing where they lifted off the plastic ring, the cream and strawberry design flowed over the cake and made a flower pattern.
We oohed and aahhed appropriately, and right when Jeff was about to dig in, one of the cafe workers, probably a higher-up, noticed the slightly off-kilter state of the strawberry flower and was like "Ohhh no! We did such a bad job! I'm so sorry!" and though we were telling her that everything was "daijoubu" she ran off to get a translated card that apologized profusely for the state of their product and we can send it back and get a new one if we would like. It was a big to-do over a slightly melty looking design, but were insisted everything was daijoubu and looked oishii and they were finally satisfied. I don't know what content creator tore them a new one over the state of their pancake, but they were scared, apologetic, and ready with a card in English for this exact thing and I hope that content creator gets cancelled for being a jerk.
When we were finished we took some pictures in the photo op marche, went down a beautiful grand staircase, and exited the paid admission area and down onto the first floor with the souvenir shop. It was time to pick up our cookie tins! They turned out really cute, but alas I didn't take a picture of them before they were wrapped up. Instead, here's our little selfies and photos from around the rest of the park:
There's a tree to the right surrounded by a little wooden fence that says "Apple tree, do not touch" but if you try to touch it a little gopher dressed as a constable comes out and tells you to not touch. There was a gaggle of seniors that were having a good time with that! LOL!
It was about 3:00 and we saw all we came to see and had a good time, but it was time to go back to the hotel, rest our feet, and come up with a plan for the evening. Neither of us were very hungry yet, so we decided to head back to Susukino, where we had Ichiran that morning, and shop at the Mandarake and Suruga-ya that hadn't been open yet. That was about 3 floors of wall to wall second-hand anime merch! Wooosh. I bought some anime stuff from the bargain bins to use as prizes for my fandom club back at the library (I know they like Gojo from JJK anime, so got a couple things of him, and then anything with cute guys or generic cute or anime on it) [Jeff Edit: I had tried to convince Angie to just buy any "guy with white hair in black clothes" and play it off as Wine Aunt Syndrome - assuming that any guy with white hair is, in fact, Satouru Gojo. She declined.]. I found an old Full Metal Panic figurine that apparently came with a DVD way back when it was released, but the DVD was gone and only this little figurine of Kurz remained. I bought it anyway for Christina because I have never seen FMP merch in my life! I bought a little figurine of the Undertaker from Black Butler and some doujinshi (Cloud X Sephiroth and no I did not get that ordering wrong). I'll leave it to Jeff to talk about his purchases!
We have yet to eat the Sapporo staple of soup curry, so we walked to the nearby Soup Curry Sama that I had bookmarked....and it was closed. Boo. Oh, look at that! Cafe Gusto is right next door! DON'T JUDGE US! We were done with walking and it was after 7pm. I had a tonkatsu set and Jeff had his new fave of Cheese ON Cheese IN Hamburg. We shared a plate of baked mashed potatoes and wished for salt for some sorta flavoring.
Then we got back to the hotel and crashed around 10, like clockwork. Gotta be up and ready by 7:30 for our bus to take us to breakfast!
I'm gonna go take a shower. Take it away Jeff:
You may see various edits sprinkled through the blog today from me, but I can't think of anything otherwise that was missed. In the comments, let me know your favorite Hokkaido-based confectionary company!
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