Sapporo, Day 2: What would YOU do for some chocolate?

Sapporo, Day 2: New Friends and Chocolate Factories

Apparently, it turns out that Sapporo has not only a beer factory, but a chocolate factory as well. We started off the day intending to go to a Salmon museum and then hit up the beer factory, but finding the Salmon museum proved to be rather... challenging despite having free access to a computer and an iPhone 4 (which, might I add, was not mine since I don't have one). Then again, I wasn't really the one who wanted to go to the museum in the first place, and I have since learned about myself, that if it isn't something I really want to do or are are invested in (like if I'm apathetic towards it) the chances of me doing the legwork to get it set up, found, and mapped out with directions or reservations or whatever drop drastically. Basically, if I'm not the one keen on going there, I probably won't try too hard to find it or make reservations for it.

So we ended up not going to the Salmon museum.

But, we learned instead of a chocolate factory that we could visit instead. And us girls decided, hell yes, we want to go to a chocolate factory (though it turns out it's more of a cookie factory, almost). The guy who told us about it, our Australian hostel friend, went with the one boy in our group to the beer factory early; they were going to have a little pre-party and drink a bit while we went to the chocolate factory, and our plan was to meet up with them in like, an hour or two.

The chocolate factory turned out to be more interesting than we thought. I think we spent three or four hours there. We also had to find it in a mini snowstorm-blizzard-thing. Being from California, I have no idea whether or not it was a blizzard. I just know that there was a HUGE amount of snow, we could barely see 50 feet in front of us, and I could hear the snow hitting my jacket. The fur lining was pretty much frozen by the time we got there, and I ended up pulling out my ski goggles/mask and wore that as we walked so that I could actually see/open my eyes.

Woo, ski mask came in handy! I had felt pretty silly about spending themoney on it before (I had bought it so that when I rode downhill to the train station at 7 am and it was below freezing or close to it, my eyeballs wouldn't freeze). Now, I feel like that purchase has been justified.

Oh, a picture of two of us after we finally found the chocolate factory.Yeah. We were pretty covered in snow. You can see my ski mask. I look like I'm going to trek up a mountain and through a snowstorm with a dogsled or something. That would have been sweet. But you can hardly tell it's me under all that hahahaha.

That being said, I was warm at least. Only my mouth/cheeks were kinda frozen. I felt rather well prepared. :D

Oh, the lovely lady on my left is Caroline, from the UK. She's also teaching in Okayama Prefecture with me. :)

If ice pants weren't so cold (and didn't melt) having jeans with the bottom part in ice would look super cool. Literally.

The chocolate factory was pretty awesome though. It was kinda random, this Victorian style house in the middle of Sapporo. Hokkaido, as a whole, has some pretty random European style buildings, including an aquarium that's in a Dutch castle (which we went to).

The chocolate factory also had a cafe. It was a hard decision: chocolate fondue, or chocolate parfait. I chose the parfait. Love those things so much. It had brownies in it.

The sad news though, is that we spent so long at the chocolate place that by the time we were ready to leave, the boys were sufficiently drunk from the beer place and had left to look at the snow sculptures at night (when they were all lit). So instead of heading to the beer place, we went to have lunch (pasta again) and then headed over to the sculptures to meet up with them.

I'm a little sad about not going to the Sapporo beer factory, but I'm told that there's a Kirin one somewhere here in Okayama. I'm not overly fond of Sapporo beer anyways (or Japanese beer, for that matter - it's okay, but I don't really prefer it especially if I have to pay 500 yen for it). The chocolate factory also had a really random gramaphone museum as well as a nostalgic toy/stuff section. They had stuff from when Kennedy was president, as well as a whole bunch of Nasa stuff and Star Wars figurines and pokemon things and Superman dolls. It was kind of amazing.

There was also a kind of entrance hall with this amazing double sided staircase that had a red carpet lining to it. Oh man. It was like something out of a fairy tale. I would pay moneys to be able to walk down the staircase in a formal evening ballgown (and I would pay more if, in the center, a good looking gentleman in a suit or other formal wear met me and took my arm and continued the walk down with me). :) Hahaha. Maybe I've watched too many Disney movies and read too many books. But think about it. That'd be so super sweet.

So basically, if you ever go to Sapporo, the chocolate factory is definitely worth a visit. :)

Oh yeah. The sculptures. We met back up with the boys and took pictures of the sculptures during the nighttime. And this time, I remembered my camera.

At night, they were all lit up and it was pretty sweet. This one was one of my favorites. The owl was AMAZING. There was a theme going on about relationship with China, or as the festival people put it "Traveling the world/China without having to leave Sapporo."

Actually, I like the owl so much that I'll put up a close up picture of the owl. It had the coolest eyes. The owl and foxes are supposed to be symbols or mascots of Sapporo, I think. Also, Sapporo is known for their salmon, which, I am very sad to say, I never tried. The downside to having vegetarian friends and eating with them, bless their souls.

There was also a giant jump platform and we got to see some snowboarders do some sweet tricks on it (though we kinda froze in the process). A lot of my pictures also ended up being of butts, since that's just the way the snowboarders happened to face while they jumped. A lot of my shots turned out really blurry (stupid moving things) but a couple turned out a little clearer. I was pleased.

There were a lot of sculptures of Chopper (from One Piece) and of rabbits (since it's the year of the bunny after all) in addition to the loads of Chinese things. All in all, it was pretty amazing to go to. There were also random dinosaur large ice/snow sculptures too that were all lit up, as well as an international snow sculpture competition. We got to see them as they were being built. That was pretty sweet.

Sapporo

Day 1: Sapporo

Sunday, 6 February 2011: 6:00am

This is the time that we left for the airport. Actually, I think we left some time before this, since we got to the airport before 6 am, since it was still closed when we got there. That was... fun. But, that being said, I'd rather be there really really early than really close to being late.

So our flight from Kobe left sometime around 8 am and got in sometime around noon. Despite California being a little bit larger than Japan, strangely enough, it still took longer to get from Kobe to Hokkaido than it does to get from San Diego to San Francisco. To be fair, it also takes longer by car I believe, but who knows if that's because of terrain or speed limit or what.

But either way, we reached Sapporo safe and sound, and set off on a train to our hostel. And reach... SNOWPOCALYPSE. Seriously. So. Much. Snow.

I will summarize the rest of our day in a few sentences.

1. The only kind of snow that is awesome is powder; everything else sucks.

2. Especially when you have to walk on it and you keep slipping despite there being tread on your boots.

3. Finding food to eat with vegetarians in Japan is kind of tiresome after a bit, bless their hearts.

4. Snow can be built into huge, giant things of awesome.

We found our way, after dropping off our stuff and checking in to our hostel, to where the yuki matsuri, or snow festival, had been set up. Of course, I forgot my camera in my backpack at the hostel (I brought my purse instead). Wow. Stupid me. Stupid stupid stupid. I took pictures on my phone instead. Eventually those will get uploaded. Eventually.

It was cool though, because there weren't as many people at the festival since it didn't officially start until Monday. (Oh man, the difference between the two days was AMAZING. There were SO MANY PEOPLE. O_O )

Wooooooooow snow sculptures are amazing. I kind of wish I lived in a place with more snow so that I could try doing this. Because those things were absolutely amazing. There were sculptures of all different sizes, though the smallest ones were around person size (mounted on a large block) and the large ones were.... large. Huge. Building size. There was one of the Lion King, which was pretty freaking awesome. I practically was jumping with joy. IT WAS SO AWESOME. It was for the Lion King musical, which is currently showing in Japan (I really want to see it).

I could go on and on and on and on about how amazing the snow festival was, but it's getting late and it's already ten past eight. I haven't eaten yet. Again. Oops. That's the bad thing about winter; I tend to get sucked into the warmth that is my kotatsu and then I don't move for a long time and neglect everything else. Sigh.

Since we had gotten up so early, we ended up retiring back to our hostel a little earlier than we would have normally. We were so tired, but we still managed to find the energy to play Bang! (a western, mafia style cowboy card game I brought with me). Also met some of the other people in the hostel, including a Brit dude and an Australian dude who happened to be sharing our dorm style room with us.

Hooray for new friends!