Sapporo Part Three: The Chocolate Factory, Sans Charlie

(Note: clicking on any of the photos in this entry will allow you to view an enlarged version)

After an exhausting first day wandering deliriously through the streets of Sapporo on almost no sleep, we began our second day, deservedly enough, by sleeping in. Thus, it wasn't until the early afternoon that we began our day's quest: to travel to the outskirts of the city to find the famed the Shiroi Koibito park and chocolate factory.

The trains in Sapporo are, like all trains in Japan, very clean and timely. However, there's something unsettling about the trains in Japan, something that you can't quite put your finger on. Leave it to Matt to figure it out, though. "You know what makes Japanese subway trains different from all the other subway trains in the world?" he asked me. "No, what's that?" I replied. "They don't smell like pee." Oh yeah, that's what it is.

The Shiroi Koibito park was opened in 1992, to celebrate the Ishiya Chocolate Company's most famous product, the Shiroi Koibito (literally, "the white beloved ones" or "white lovers"). Two flat cookies with white chocolate in-between them, these tasty little bastards have become something of a symbol of Hokkaido, Japan's number one producer and consumer of chocolate. As a matter of fact, the Shiroi Koibito is seen as the obligatory omiyage (gift that you give to co-workers after you have traveled somewhere) for those who go to Hokkaido, which was made quite apparent by the droves of middle-aged Japanese people who dutifully bought large omiyage sets in the gift shop.

When you first walk into the park, you're greeted by a huge European-style courtyard replete with fountains, castle spires and what is quite possibly the world's most annoying song sung by animatronic chefs (this has, of course, been documented quite brilliantly by Matt).

Remember in the early 90s when everyone got all paranoid that the Japanese were going to use the strength of the yen to buy up all of America's landmarks? Well, despite what you might have heard, it appears as if the preserved corpse of Abraham Lincoln is actually owned by a Japanese chocolate corporation. Who knew?

Japanese Oompa Loompas look slightly different than their American counterparts.

These ranked among the stranger chocolate sculptures featured in the factory. They also had a fully-operational chocolate helicopter on display. Okay, not really.



If you are a huge dork like me then you would have also thoroughly enjoyed the toy museum section of the chocolate factory (it was actually supposed to be a general museum of the 20th century although it was comprised mostly of toys and other small items). If you look closely at that Astroboy picture, you'll notice that he's actually called "Atomboy" here. Much like Godzilla, Atomboy became a means for reliving the horror of the atom bomb through the discourse of popular culture. And like Godzilla, these "offensive" undertones were all but edited out when the show was exported to America.

Matt got really sick while we were at the chocolate factory and while we were walking back to the hotel from the subway, he actually had to stop to vomit in the park. Luckily, he was able to find the perfect souvenir to commemorate this occasion.

Our last meal in Sapporo consisted of the heavenly Freshness Burger. Why don't they have these in Aomori? Because God hates me, apparently. Not only do they have the best burgers and onion rings that I've had yet in Japan, they had fucking MGD on tap. On second thought, it's probably better that I don't have one nearby. Otherwise, it would probably be Miller time more often than not.

Afterwards, we went out into the city one last time, looking for something that we couldn't name but eventually found at a small "blues bar". We briefly looked at the menu and were convinced by the promise of a "performance" at 10 pm as well as pints of Guinness (for the equivalent of just under $10 USD). When 10:00 finally came around, a tall, black man came into the bar, put on a cd featuring the likes of Michael Jackson and R. Kelly and proceeded to sing along. Despite my initial disappointment, Matt astutely pointed out that this was, in fact, rhythm and blues. At one point during the performance, I leaned over to Matt and said "I'd love to hear this guy's story." Well, luckily for us, he came right over to our table after his performance. "Hey, how you guys doing, I'm Willie, from San Diego!" Turns out, he was doing a show in Tokyo with some touring group when he was offered a gig by a club owner in Sapporo. That was 10 years ago and he's still here today. And now you know the rest of the story.