It used to be a factory producing Sapporo Beer, but has since been converted into a shopping outlet and a crafts area. Here at Sapporo Factory , they consolidate all the crafts of Hokkaido like glass making. So you can actually make a music box here and blow glass if you didn’t manage to do so in the earlier areas. Some of the crafts session follow a schedule so its good to check before heading there and finding out that they have no schedules on that day.

They have wind mills within the building too! Probably for energy conservation.

We walked around a bit and window shop before heading to the basement where we had the first fast food of our trip! KFC. lol! My friends saw their favourite actress promoting KFC and they had to have it.

There are pet shops all over the place here in Japan, it’s like a normal shop that you see. The Japanese really loves their pets a lot! All the animals in the pet shop are adorable. Wish I could bring this one home with me too!

We had crepe for dessert after that!

There was a small garden near the factory where tulips were grown.

We also had fun at the arcade and didn’t manage to win the giant bowl of instant noodles! Sadness!

Our last meal for Sapporo was Hamburger! We hadn’t tried it yet in Japan so we went to the restaurant on the highest level of Daimaru to take a look!

I love the demi-glace sauce that came with the hamburger! It had bbq, sweet and source taste and I don’t really know how to describe how delicious it is! Just thinking about it would make me salivate.

We had caramel panna cotta for dessert!

The last cake that I would have in Japan. Bought from morimoto cakes at the basement of Daimaru! It’s a strawberry sakura cake!

Other than that, the rest of the day was mainly shopping and more shopping! The goods sold here are high in quality (and in price!) but they look and feel good!

The bus services here run on time-table, so we found out what we could on the bus that we had to take to Sapporo Beer Garden. Turns out that the buses here don’t have unique numbers and they serve different bus-stops. So its probably good to check with the bus driver before you plonk the money in otherwise you might be taken to a merry tour around Japan.

The beer garden itself was located near a beer factory.

We kept ourselves a little bit for the beer garden.

Our welcome mat at Gengkis Khan.

The decor near the entrance! All have something relating to beer and bears!

The restaurant area.

Our apron! Each of us were given an apron before we can start cooking!

Look at the slabs of meat!

And these were our drinks (we had Sapporo beer too! Unless you are allergic or don’t drink alcohol, the Sapporo beer is a refreshing drink.)

By the time we were done, it was night time.

Night time view of the factory.

Close up of the beer thingy near the entrance (I have no idea what they call it)

After having the good night’s sleep, we prep our feet and head towards Tokyo Hands!

We took a walk along the park near where our hotel is and caught sight of the television tower. (Not sure what’s it called NTV tower I think)

The sakuras were in full bloom by now and we could see trees alongside the pavement with the beautiful pink petal flowers.

We spent a long time in Tokyo Hands, going from floor to floor and picking up knick knacks along the way. On the top floor of Tokyo Hands was a toy shop, the sales assistant was kind enough to take out the cute Shiba Inu puppy and gave me an opportunity to take a photo of him. Isn’t he adorable?

At Parco, we didn’t really walk around much as it contained more upmarket shops. Most of the designer brands are located within.

We did find a lovely place near Parco that sells pancakes! Which we had for lunch! Yummy, the pancakes were soft and fluffy and served warm! So you can be assured of the freshness of the food!

After that was more shopping before we took a break in our hotel room and came across this best ever Soba place! It served sesame soba and the soba was not only fresh and delicious, the soup in which they cooked the soba was served as refreshment. The lady also said its supposed to be good for the skin (That probably explains why the Japanese have such great complexion! Especially if they have to eat like that all the time! Hehe)

Here’s a picture of my soba.

I really hope to make another trip like this.

The highlight on the return leg to Sapporo was the Shiroi Koibito factory. The whole place is like an amusement park. You could make your own Shiroi Koibito within the factory, visit the sights there and take pictures in the flower gardens. At certain timing, there was a Shiroi Koibito factory show too with the cats jumping from window to window in the parade square.

The clock tower in the Shiroi Koibito factory.

The flowers within the grounds.

The famous painting of a woman carrying hot chocolate.

One of the many rooms within the factory. Each room has a little bit of exhibition. There was one room dedicated to housing cups from which hot chocolate was served in.

Even the toilets were ornately decorated.

We signed up for a baking session, we cooked this huge heart-shaped Shiroi Koibito cookie.

Into the oven it goes

The warning signs are adorable!

The final product (and I do realise I didn’t write some of the characters properly. :3)

A child enjoying eating the Shiroi Koibito cookie!

They vacuum sealed our cookie for freshness so we did not really have to eat everything there. we could stop by at the cafe and grab some of their hot chocolate and cake! I tried their new tsumugi.

Even their little napkins have cats!

The view from the top floor of the clock tower building.

More of the decorations.

Alas! All good things must come to an end and off we go to Sapporo!

Otaru is a little town near to Sapporo city, its renowned for its fresh fish and the largest music box museum here.

The route there was smoother, much better than the route from Noboribetsu to Furano. Maybe it’s because there was a new highway and not many cars were using that route so we had a good time cruising along the road. Some sights seen along the road was a building that reminds me of Himeiji Castle and happy pooches staring out from the window.

After dropping the car and checking into the hotel, we had a walk along the port side and visited the famous Kitamachi Glass outlet. There we had fun picking out hand-made glasses for ourselves. I really love the little glass that I got, it has fireworks on top of it. Remind me of the fireworks at Lake Toya.

Next to the Kitamachi Glass outlet was a restaurant that serve a humongous cream puff.

Past Kitamachi Glass was the Orgel Doru music box museum. You can customise your music box here with your favourite music and characters. Haha, they even have the Darth Vader march here.

Seems like everything comes huge in Otaru, we also spotted an 8cm takoyaki stand!

Our stomach started rumbling and we decide to look for a place to eat! We came across this place along the road to Kitamachi! The sushi was super fresh and yummy, we had great fun choosing the sushi to eat!

To end the night, we walked along the famous Otaru canal.

On a side note, we took a different route back from the music box museum where there were historical buildings from the Edo era that were conserved. The new route was also filled with music from the music box shops around the area! So its good to explore when you can!

An hour’s drive away, our main objective was the Asahaiyama Zoo! It is one of the most popular zoos in Japan other than Ueno Zoo due to the unique exhibits that they have.

The zoo is renowned for making penguins “fly” and having zoo keepers write about their own exhibits.

The drive this time was quite straight-forward, without much frightening turns and curves.

Tickets were obtained from the ticket machines at the entrance at 800 yen per person.

Each ticket has a picture of the animal that the zoo has.

There were quite a number of tourists at the zoo (mostly local Japanese from other prefectures).

It was a long trek downwards as we saw signs that were decorated with the animals of the zoo.

Our first stop was at the Kapibaras. The keeper was putting something into cages. Only a little while later that we realised that the food in the cages were meant for the monkeys that inhabit the same space as the kapibaras.

The cheeky little monkeys swooped into grab their food from the cages. Although some did fall to the ground, most of the time, the monkeys picked them up much faster than the kapibaras can get to them.

We made a tour around the primates area, some of the areas had these cute little signs to warn visitors from using flash photography on the animals.

If you are tired, you can also get a ride around the zoo on these little buses.

My favourite exhibits were located in the marine section where we had polar bears walking up and down.

and seals swimming in tubes as onlookers gawked in the inner sanctum of the exhibit. Love watching the seals as the move up and down the tube of water.

I really like watching the penguins “fly” as we travel in an underground tunnel beneath their swimming area.

After the zoo, we decide to have an early night. The next day would be a long drive to Otaru.

However its best known for its farm produce like lavendar, milk and cheese.

It was kinda “farmers” day we had today as we made a stop at Farm Tomita first to view the Lavendars.

Everything in Farm Tomita had a purple theme (even the scooters)

However, the weather was still a bit too cold so we ended up having a spectacular view of the mountains, but no fields of lavendars.

We did manage to catch some lavendar in the greenhouses that they kept.

We also managed to catch a glimpse of the workers bottling lavendar perfume.

We ended our Farm Tomita trip with Lavendar soft serve, lavendar calpsis and lavendar honey pudding.

Next was off to the Furano Milk, Cheese, Ice Milk and Pizza Factory. These were all located together in one location.

We had an opportunity to try out making our own cheese there!!
These are our cooking instruments.

And how the pot looks like (with the hardening cheese) We made marscapone cheese.

They even had us designed the cover of our containers to place our cheese.

Lunch was a single slice of pizza from the pizza factory (made with their own cheese!) Love the way the cheese tastes, its not too salty or sour (like most cheese) and it goes down quite smoothly and its light too!

Our next stop was the Anpanman museum and shop. A friend asked for some help to get Anpanman items, so here we are.

The whole external area outside the Anpanman shop were filled with decorative Anpanman statues and garden decorations.

The final stop we made was at the Glass Forest of Furano where there were many beautifully made glass ornaments.

Pictures were not allowed there so can’t provide any. The glass pieces were so pretty though!

We stopped by at Edo Wonderland. (Actually, the Japanese name was something different and it had to do with Date Masamune so I am one happy girl!)

It was a mini Edo town, where we could practise our shruiken throwing (which I suck), learn some ninja hand signals and view naughty foals.

why naughty foals? Because this is a 6-day old foal that keeps escaping from its makeshift cage. Here it is again, out wandering the streets.

Oh well, it managed to worked up all its energy until it fell asleep.

Children could be dressed up in ninja outfits and they can be taken on rides on fat ponies. Simple but good. Reminds me of a theme park we once had back home (but its no longer in existence)

Their reconstruction of the town bridges and ponds were pretty detailed.

We also managed to catch a Japanese cultural show with a geisha serving a feudal lord (it was actually a comedic skit and we could understand a bit of it so it was pretty funny)

The best was the outdoor live action show where we had ninjas fighting samurais! Quite exciting!

After Edo Wonderland, we made our way to Furano.

What was meant to be a 3-hour journey actually took 6 hours! Firstly, it was a wrong turn, which lead to more wrong turns and by the time we managed to find the correct route, it was already quite late!

What made it worse was the fact that the route that we chose were filled with many sharp curves and long tunnels, that made driving incredibly difficult!

I was exhausted by the time we got to Furano…and very hungry too. So we went to the nearest restaurant that we could find. This one had this sign.

It means that it is here where you can try the special Furano fluffy curry omelet.

I seriously need a diet after this.

We made a reservation at the glass blowing studio called “Gla Gla” where we had a first-hand experience on making our own cups. Mine turned out rather crooked. >_< But I still like making my own things.

Thank goodness for the car as the glass blowing studio was located in some far away rurul country-side.

As Noboribetsu was just a short distance away from Lake Toya, we arrived early. We decided to have lunch first at this store which had pork curry.

This is the mascot for the Hell Valley.

The Hell Valley (aptly named) is an area renowned for sulphurous streams emanating from rocks! The smell is terrible!

I don’t really like trekking, but it was good to have a natural food bath after trekking around the Jigoku Dani.

Even the dogs have fun soaking their little paws in the warm spring water.

On the way back to the hotel, we saw a huge koinbori put up for boy’s day!

There was a light-up along the streets of Noboribetsu.

Being an onsen town, we had the opportunity to visit another onsen. This one was a huge onsen! It had 7 different type of onsens within one building!! Pictures are not allowed in the onsen, so no pictures!

They gave me a Gold Nissan Viera. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a mishap with my reservation and they didn’t manage to give me an English GPS, so I had to make do with a Japanese one.

It works pretty well, but they keep trying to put us on toll roads. Bah! Boo to tolls!! (toll roads are the ones in blue, green roads are free)

The roads in Hokkaido were pretty curvy and there were occasional sharp turns. I needed some time to get warmed up to it. Therefore on the first day of driving, I was the “leader” of the convoy…aka..the slow one that leads many cars behind. The roads were also not easy to overtake people.

We drove about 160km northwards towards the onsen town of Lake Toya where I had my first onsen experience.

The room we had was Japanese style with a view overlooking the lake. (this was to be advantageous later in the night)

We were able to check in when we arrive before we had a leisurely stroll along the Lake.

My first experience with the onsen was that it was hot (I heard the water temperature is about 40 degrees celcius). Although the weather is cold, therefore I didn’t really feel the heat much. A drop in the onsen and we wore our yukatas before we settled own for the dinner.

Dinner was a 16-course kiseki meal! Just like in the onsens that you watch on television.

Think I felt like just rolling around after the meal, I was so full! We were entertained by fireworks that appeared above the lake during our meal!

That was before we settled into our futon for some well needed sleep.