Sapporo 札幌市: Shiroi Koibito 白い恋人パーク

I love this place!

I love this place! It's colourful, fun and it's free! The park itself is free... there are exceptions to certain entrance.

Ok, let's get through the "technical" bits first, some info on the park and how to get there :)
Shiroi Koibito Park is a theme park by Ishiya, a local chocolate company.

The flagship product is one of the most famous souvenirs from Hokkaido - the Shiroi Koibito cookie. This cookie consists of two thin butter cookies and a layer of white chocolate in between.

The official website gives very different ways to get to the park - bus, subway or drive, so I won't repeat them. Anyway, I took the subway and the picture below was taken from the Miyanosawa station on getting to Shiroi Koibito Park.



Getting to Shiroi Koibito Park from Miyanosawa Subway Station

Walk out of station via exit number 5 and follow the red line. Technically, if you can see "Chieria", just walk towards that direction. I can't remember if it is written in romaji (Chieria) or hiragana (ちえりあ) but I remember able to see the words from station :)

From across the street!

From my previous post, I actually visited the Consadole Sapporo Exhibition House first, thinking it was part of the part. Hey, I just found out that it was included in Shiroi Koibito's website... so maybe, I wasn't being silly eh? ;)

There were some nice statue fountains and little houses for kids to play. I can so imagine my little niece would enjoy it!

At the opposite end of the park, one can find the Shiroi Koibito Railway. It is a miniature six-car steam train which runs for about 10 minutes.
Fares - Adult: 300 yen
Children of 12 years or older: 200 yen
Children younger than 2 years old: free.



Hansel & Gretel candy house? LOL

Cute choo choo train

 

Opposite that, was these cute baker sculptures trying to balance the dome of a building. Is it call a dome?

 

 

One of the attraction in Shiroi Koibito park is the Sapporo Mechanical Clock Tower.

 

There were also singing owls and dancing bakers!

A mechanical show of Chocolate Carnival starts at 9am and ends at 7pm, at every hour. This performance however may be cancelled depending on weather and scheduled maintenance. I was lucky as I didn't know of this mechanical carnival show prior to this. Lucky that I didn't miss it and the weather was great despite it threaten to rain at some point.

 

Somehow the English version of the official site does not seem to have information on this? Or maybe I missed it. However this is definitely in their Japanese version website.

 

Can you see the bubbles?

It was such a happy carnival, everybody just stopped and enjoyed it, it ended with bubbles shooting up from under the Mechanical Clock Tower :)

 

Surprise surprise, the cheapskate me actually paid to enter the fee-based Factory Walk. Hehe.

Entrance fee: 600 yen, comes with a Shiroi Koibito Passport and a piece of chocolate :P

 

The stamp is not part of entrance fee



Aurora Fountain

According the the website, Aurora Fountain was produced by England's Royal Doulton Company in around 1870. There were some cat's paw print to guide you to the next exhibition room.

 

I regret that this photo is not taken at the right angle :(

Stained glassroom and was followed with Chocolate Cup Collection... and here's the cue for me in insert some description from the leaflet.

"Chocolate was a popular drink among aristocrats until around the 18th century. The collection showcases chocolate cups that were treasured in those days."
 

Next up was display on previous label packaging followed with The Chocolate Time Tunnel.

It was basically a dark room with display on chocolate making. The cool part was this...

Touch to START

I'm not a nerd....

After you "touch" the button, images were projected with description and there were some mechanical dolls to illustrate the descriptions better.

Then we get the see Shiroi Koibito production line.

I saw a poster which said that they also check to see if the taste is ok and all, does that mean that there would be a staff whose duties is eating shiroi koibito everyday? *ponder*

If you want, you could also participate in cookie making or decorating sessions, with a fee at their Cookiecraft Studio. Fee varies depending on which type of activity you opt to participate. No doubt it would be nice a experience but I think it is a little costly. Not that I am artistic and all, so I am contented with just purchasing the cookie off the shelf.

There were also a nice lounge to enjoy your drinks and sweets, called Chocolate Lounge. On the way to the Chocolate Lounge, you could check out some sugar craft. I read somewhere that it is not edible... I don't know...

There were also other exhibition rooms - Gramophone Gallery and Old-style Children's Toy Box.



Side note: Yawn... the diligent side said I should go out and enjoy the good weather, the other side said I am entitled to a nothingness weekend. :P