{"id":31215,"date":"2019-12-16T16:19:23","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T08:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=31215"},"modified":"2026-03-14T14:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T06:14:09","slug":"15-days-in-kanagawa-hokkaido-day-05-sapporo-shiroikoibito-and-odori-parks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2019\/12\/16\/15-days-in-kanagawa-hokkaido-day-05-sapporo-shiroikoibito-and-odori-parks\/","title":{"rendered":"15 Days in Kanagawa & Hokkaido – Day 05 – Sapporo – Shiroikoibito and Odori Parks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 05 is when we finished the first segment of our 15-day trip and headed to its main event: a ten-day stay in Hokkaido. We\u2019d initially booked an 8AM ANA flight from Haneda to New Chitose Airport. Hotel Mystays Haneda is just ten minutes away from Haneda Airport, so we availed ourselves of the early morning complimentary shuttle bus service and arrived at the airport two hours before departure. And at check-in, the ANA officer asked if we\u2019d like to bring forward our flight to an earlier one at 7AM. Since we were all ready and good to go, why not \u2014 we\u2019d have an additional hour to spend in Sapporo on the first day. Unfortunately, that meant we gave up our already reserved window seats \u2014 and in retrospect, seeing that the morning weather was wonderfully clear over Hokkaido, the fact that I couldn\u2019t get any pictures of the now snow-covered landscapes turned out to be a painful sacrifice for this extra hour.<\/p>\n

Our place of stay in Sapporo is Vessel Inn Sapporo Nakajima Park. The property is just over 2km from Sapporo Station. If I was traveling alone, I might have just walked it \u2014 even with luggage. But with kids and in winter, it\u2019s a different story. So we ducked into a cab to bring us to the hotel. Thankfully, the fare wasn\u2019t as bad as I had mentally prepared myself for: just \u00a51,150 including tax. One thing about getting into Japanese cabs so far: the flag-down rates are high, about \u00a5670 \u2014 so I didn\u2019t feel too bad about the short distances traveled each ride, assuming that cab drivers in Japan also like longer fares like their counterparts in Singapore. Check-in time at the hotel was at 2PM, and the cheerful cab uncle brought us to the hotel doorstep just before 11AM. So, luggage deposited at the hotel, we headed back to Sapporo Station for an Italian lunch, then to our first place of visit: Shiroikoibito Park<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The park comprises numerous very pretty Tudor-styled buildings that house the public areas of the Ishiya Chocolate Factory, the Hokkaido company that specialises in sweet treats and chocolates. We\u2019d initially planned to sign the kids up for a cookie-making workshop. But upon seeing the prices involved \u2014 and that the workshop would also require an additional and separate admission fee into the factory itself \u2014 we concluded the workshop just wasn\u2019t value for money anymore for our party of four. And the wife quipped that she could just as well run a similar cookie-making lesson for the kids when we\u2019re back home. The general consensus online also notes that the admission prices into the factory are very high, and a number of other visitors say it\u2019s just not worth the expense. So, we settled for exploring the park \u2014 which does not require admission fees.<\/p>\n

Finding the park was a cinch: basically, take a train on the Tozai Line from Odori Station, alight at Miyanosawa Station, leave via Exit 2, walk in the reverse direction, and after two minutes, you’d see the huge billboard at the top of the Ishiya Chocolate Factory building just a few more minutes’ walk away.<\/p>\n

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The billboard \u2018Chocolate Factory\u2019 can be viewed from a distance. There are some gorgeous snow-capped hills in the background.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The weather was very slightly drizzling. The kids\u2019 first experience of walking through snow was exciting \u2014 but as expected, it became routine shortly thereafter!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Bubbles were blown by machine above head level, which excited lots of kids in the park.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The staircase leading up to a cafe and museum. This was a popular spot for pictures, but unlike the Hakone Shrine Torii gate, visitors took quick shots only so the queue moved quickly.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Shiroikoibito Park done and we were still well ahead of our scheduled timing before the next itinerary item: an ascent up Mt. Moiwa for sunset and evening photography. So we headed back to Odori Park<\/strong> for some time for the kids to play with the bit of snow there. The snow layer, of course, is minimal, but the kids didn\u2019t seem to mind and they had a ball of a time making tennis-ball-sized spheres for snowball fights.<\/p>\n

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The Sapporo TV Tower.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This ten-day segment in Hokkaido is where the kids will likely try to kill each other in snow fights. Our ground rules to Hannah and Peter remained though: do not aim for each other\u2019s faces, do not aim for each other\u2019s hair, and do not aim at Daddy. LOL.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Next post: up Mt. Moiwa<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 05 is when we finished the first segment of our 15-day trip and headed to its main event: a ten-day stay in Hokkaido. We\u2019d initially booked an 8AM ANA flight from Haneda to New Chitose Airport. Hotel Mystays Haneda<\/p>\n

Read More 15 Days in Kanagawa & Hokkaido – Day 05 – Sapporo – Shiroikoibito and Odori Parks<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[662,608,613],"class_list":["post-31215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traveling","tag-kanagawa-hokkaido-japan-2019","tag-sony-a7-iii","tag-sony-fe-24-105mm-f4-0","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/blog-2019-japan-kanagawa-hokkaido-day-05-A7_02520-sapporo-shiroikoibito-park.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38445,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31215\/revisions\/38445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}