No trip to Japan would be complete without trying out some kind of strange and interesting food item that we don't have back in Vancouver. Thanks to a friend at school, I discovered this Hokkaido ice cream treat. Corn ice cream! It's basically like a corn waffle with ice cream inside. The ice cream is super creamy and tastes a bit like vanilla but also mildly corn flavoured... And extremely delicious. You'll just have to trust me when I say that this corn ice cream treat tastes better than it sounds!

It says "Toukibi" which is basically.. "corn", er no surprise there.

The waffle even has a detailed corn texture.

During the weekend I went with some friends to visit Shiroi Koibito Park, a chocolate factory. Shiroi Koibito (which translates to "white lovers") is probably the most popular souvenir from Hokkaido. It's a kind of cookie with white chocolate in the middle.


There is an outdoor garden. To the right of this photo there's a rose garden but unfortunately they weren't in bloom.

Outside the factory. So pretty!

From the cake set, which is a cake/drink combo for around 750 yen (about $8.00). They have a cake buffet too, but it requires reservations and is around $25.00.

A lovely pink piece of cake

Part of the old toy exhibit

Not sure why a Resident Evil/Biohazard like monster is at a place that features a rose garden, tea cup collection, and cake buffet. But it lights up and looks neat.

Some kind of bad-ass Hell Rider! Again, not really fitting in with the surroundings but one neat fact is this was all made from recycled/found materials.


View from second floor of the main hall area. It was a lot nicer than I expected for a chocolate "factory".


They have recommended "picture taking spots", and this was one of them!


Fountain outside the factory


From one of the displays

My impression of the place is it's a bit of a tourist trap, but there is stuff to see and do that doesn't require an access fee. There is a English pamphlet available that tells you exactly what is available and what requires a fee. There's a place where you can make your own cookie, but its over ten dollars to make one and I just wasn't interested enough to do that. The whole place is pretty cute and quaint. As for the famous cookies, they are kind of expensive on a student budget. I bought some for family but haven't even had it myself yet. The only other chocolate factory tour I've been on is Purdys when I was a kid back in Vancouver. Obviously Purdys was nowhere this nice and interesting, but there were tonnes of free chocolate samples that I ate until I got sick. YUM!