Tourists in Sapporo

After Kyoto, we escorted mom and Meg up to Sapporo to show them around here. They were appreciative of our efforts and rewarded us with a suitcase full of Canadian products that we had been missing (iced tea mix, Dove products, hair care products for non-Asian hair types... silly comfortable things like that). Ahhhh, familiarity!

We spent the first day in Sapporo and the highlite of the day was a visit to the Ishiya Chocolate Factory. Any visit to a factory is interesting, but this one went over and above our expectations. The place was carefully decorated and left visitors feeling like a child walking around the Wonka factory. The only thing missing was Oompa Loompas - although the atmosphere was so convincing that I wonder if they are there, somewhere, hidden from tourists.


The best part was eating massive chocolate parfaits at the cafe, with a ghost player piano behind us playing a tune and the clock tower saluting the top of the hour. The clock tower is fun and I don't think that we even saw half of the dancing characters that came pouring out, surrounded by bubbles blown into the air.

For dinner we went to the Sapporo Beer Factory for Genghis Kahn (Korean Lamb BBQ). We didn't have time to visit the museum (read more about that here), but the feast of lamb and seafood was great.


Our next day was spent in Otaru, a neighbouring coastal city with glass blowing artisans and some of the best sushi in Japan. We looked through shops along the scenic canal area of town and ate a delish lunch of fresh sushi. Fantastic!


The final day of mom and Meg's visit we took a bus out to Jozankei - a nearby onsen resort town (we have been there before, but didn't walk around town, read about our last visit here). We had hoped to do some short hikes and soak our feet in the free public foot onsen along the side of the street, but the weather was too cold for that. We did take advantage of the foot onsen meant to bring health and longevity, and we walked through a tunnel at Iwato Kannon-do where 100 Buddhas line a 120 meter long cave dug into the mountainside.



We finished off with a visit to our favorite keiten sushi restaurant (conveyer belt sushi) and our first trip to the top of JR Tower. We were joined by our friends from Brazil, Dai and Natalia. The sushi was great and the chefs always put on a fun show as they shout to each other and fill orders. JR Tower observatory is on the 38th floor of the tallest building in Sapporo. The view from there was fantastic and the best part - they built luxury toilets against the glass wall of the deck on one corner where you can "relax" and enjoy the view of the city!


The view from JR Tower looking towards our apartment.