Japan 2016 Day 15: Wonderland at Shiroi Koibito Park (白い恋人パーク)

I am working super hard on finishing the series of 18 Days Graduation Trip to Japan posts - Day 15/18 now! *Pats pats, my shoulders* Day 15 is the day where we rushed to visit Shiroi Koibito Park (白い恋人パーク), then had a filling lunch and realized we were early for our flight to Tokyo and finally ended the day with a bento for our late dinner. Anyhow, Shiroi Koibito Park is worth a visit, see what I mean by reading on!

Day 15 - 3 June 2016, Friday

Overall itinerary of our fifteen day

0830 - 0900 : Best Western Hotel Fino Sapporo, Sapporo >> Odori Station >> Miyanosawa Station

0900 - 1100 : Shiroi Koibito Park (白い恋人パーク)

1100 - 1230 : Travel to Susukino Station

1130 - 1330 : Lunch at Soup curry & dining suage+

1330 - 1435 : Collect luggages from hotel and head to Sapporo Station for train to New Chitose Airport

1435 - 1512 : Sapporo (JR Rapid Airport train) >> New Chitose Airport

1725 - 1900 : Domestic Flight to Tokyo (Haneda)

1900 - 2030 : Take bus from Haneda Airport directly to Kamata (Tokyo) Station >> Check in at Urbain Tokyo Haneda Kamata

2030 - 2100 : Buy bento dinner from the stores at Kamata (Tokyo) Station

2100 onwards : Eat the bento back at Urbain Tokyo Haneda Kamata & rest

Another bottle of milk to start the day! I think this ended up tasting like yoghurt too, is it really milk because I always prefer yoghurt over milk...? If it is, I do not mind having one everyday.

Knowing that we would be spending much of the day travelling, we decided to head out for Shiroi Koibito Park (白い恋人パーク) early. We checked out of Best Western Hotel Fino Sapporo, Sapporo and managed to get them to store our luggages for us till 2pm. Taking the Sapporo City Subway line, we alighted at Miyanosawa Station and followed the signs below to the park.

It took us about 10 minutes to walk from the station to the entrance of the park. The sky was slightly gloomy and it drizzled throughout our entire visit. No biggie though, we were still all ready to pose for the cameras!

The building which we passed by on the way to enter the park actually looks like a castle to me with those majestic walls and railings. At the entrance, there are a few miniature toy houses, a great photo booth for both kids and adults (like us).

If you walk further in, you will see more pretty spots for photos such as on the bridge with those wonderland-like buildings as backdrop, or with the huge patch of colourful flowers.

Even though it was cold, we did not miss out on the chance to taste the Shiroi Koibito flavoured soft serve at 308 yen. We chose to have the one with both white and dark chocolate flavours. It tasted somewhat like the famous Shiroi Koibito biscuits. The soft serve is available for purchase at several locations within the park itself - Chocolate Lounge, Restaurant Owls, Soft lce Cream House, Takeout counter and Cafe Entrepot.

As the rain got heavier, we walked into one of the main buildings where the souvenir shop, Shop Piccadilly is situated. You can get a variety of snacks there including the famous Shiroi Koibito biscuits, the Mi-Fu-Yu( Green tea flavor if you like Matcha snacks) and the Shiroi Baum "Tsumugi" (circular cake with many thin circular layers). Other than Shop Piccadilly, there is another confectionary store selling hard candy and you can see how they made it too!

As a tourist, I like to collect stamps wherever I go and so, I got myself one stamp Shiroi Koibito Park castle icon.

Within the building, we took another few photographs there with the red carpeted staircase, feeling like princesses walking down the stairs.

Oh, and they have a pretty big tank filled with Clione fish, also known as sea angel. Quite cute, aren't they?

When we heard music coming from outside, we decided to head out again and we were 'welcomed' by these bubbles. Most of the buildings have miniatures moving about to the music blasting out of the speakers installed around the park. It felt very much like the music box. The whole music segment lasted quite some time while everyone looked up the entire time. Quite a magical moment.

Other than the music segment, there are many other activities you can spend your day partaking in. For example, they have the Factory Tour of Shiroi Koibito where you can see how the Shiroi Koibito biscuits are produced, or you could also make your own Shiroi Koibito cookies at the Cookiecraft Studio. For more information, you can visit their website here.

We then went to Soup curry & dining suage+ located at Susukino for Hokkaido's local specialty, Soup Curry. As we arrived earlier than their opening time at 11.30am, we waited around for awhile before we were led into the restaurant with a few other patrons. I guess that's a sign of good food, right?

If you do not know how to read Japanese like us, you do not have to worry. Just order from their English menu! To order, simply choose the type of curry, soup, spiciness level (6 levels), amount of rice and any extra toppings you want for the dish you ordered. There are 2 types of soup you can choose from: Basic suage soup or the Squid ink black soup (I went for the basic one!). I went with the Hokkaido Fried Chicken which comes with potato, carrot, pumpkin, eggplant, broccoli and a boiled egg. As a cheese lover, I added a slice of melted cheese on top of my rice too.

How good was the soup curry and should you try it too? It was so good that I finished the entire bowl of soup curry and I wished I had ordered more rice to go along with the curry. In other words, you have to try it if you visit Sapporo!

After which, we went back to Best Western Hotel Fino Sapporo, Sapporo to collect our luggages and back to Sapporo station. Since we were early for our train (we bought the tickets when we reached Sapporo using the machines at the station), my friend went to this donut shop and bought a seasonal flavoured donut. Funny thing was the cashier was really long winded with her service, and it took awhile for my friend to leave with the donut. I have to say, Japan's customer service is really on another level.

While waiting for the train at the freezing cold platform, I munched on my red bean and chestnut dorayaki which I bought the day before at Kutchan: Sweet Shop FUJII. It's good, you can really see and taste the bits of chestnut in it!

When we checked in our luggages at the airport, they labeled our luggages as heavy... must be due to all those snacks snuggling comfortably in my luggage haha. As mentioned previously in one of my earlier blog posts here, we flew by Japan Airline (JAL) at a special fare of 10,800yen for tourists. After checking in, we went around those souvenir stores tasting samples of Hokkaido confectionaries again. If you did not manage to get your hands on those snacks during your stay at Hokkaido, you could still get them at the airport before you fly. I bought another bottle of milk. This time round, it has the milk taste, no sourness in it. My verdict is, I prefer the yoghurt kind of milk.

Boarded the plane at 5.25pm and touched down in Tokyo again at 7pm.

We quickly made our way to the bus stop and took a long ride to Kamata (Tokyo) Station. Google map saved us again because we alighted in the middle of some street and the station was not in sight either. After spending a fair bit of time wandering around with our heavy luggages, we finally found Urbain Tokyo Haneda Kamata. We actually found the area quite scary at night though, with women standing outside the buildings along the dark alleyway and quite a few men drinking around the spot. Definitely not an ideal place to stay if you have young kids or you want to have a peace of mind walking back late at night.

Hungry after so much walking, we bought bentos at Kamata (Tokyo) station and heated them with the hotel's microwave before we turned in for the night. Hmm, it is not bad but I would have preferred a freshly prepared meal.