Wednesday, Claire Martin Michael and I went to the 白い恋人チョコ工場、aka the White Lover Chocolate Factory. It's supposed to be a super-romantic date spot and so we decided to go on a fake double date. Here's the factory. It looks like a little town:
Inside they took a picture of us next to a pretty fountain.
The factory wasn't really a CHOCOLATE factory but instead made a lot of white chocolate covered cookies, which was kind of a bummer, but the cookies were good. I bought some for my host family for omiyage. After browsing around a bit we had to rush from the factory to the train station to buy tickets for a ski trip later that night. We ended up missing our train but got to chill out at Mr. Doughnuts. Eventually we made it to the slope:
Skiing was interesting because Martin had never gone before. Ever. I thought skiing would be simple because I take it for granted that I've been doing it forever and it feels natural. I guess for a noob its not intuitive to strap boards to your feet and fling yourself down a mountain. I was too impatient to ski so I only took Martin down twice, showing him the basics. Mike took over for two runs after me and then we left him on his own. Probably we are terrible friends but Martin made it down the mountain, said he loved skiing and he didn't break anything so I think everything was a success >:D
The next day I met Martin down town at Odori and we went to a concert by someone named "Kokia." Martin really likes her and according to him she was really famous back in the day but now her fame is starting to wane. She had a nice voice and the concert was short, only thirty minutes, but outdoors and free. I split my time between listening to her and browsing around the sculptures from the snow carving contest. Countries competed against one another for the prize:
This was my favorite. I think it came in 4th place.
Later in the day, to unwind from our hardcore vacation and ski trip Martin and I ran to catch our bus and arrived at an onsen spa place two hours later. At first we were skeptical because the onsen was the last stop and the bus dropped us off only us two in a dark parking lot, but everything turned out fine. We made our way into the small building and split up. I went to the women's baths and there were a decent number of people there. Everybody enjoyed the outdoor bath, which was a natural hot spring. The place was way up in the mountains and it was completely dark besides the lights illuminating the snow on the side of the slope. Then it began snowing. Completely awesome.
Following that, I met back up with Martin and we checked out what the place had to offer. For example, the electronic foot massager that breaks your bones:
Since it was our last night in Hokkaido we decided to celebrate so we got off the return bus at the party section of town, Susukino. The street was lit up and completely crowded with people and ice sculptures. There was even one with dead fish and crabs (neat idea, but some of the fish were bleeding):
This was my favorite one
They also had a tunnel of lights woo~
So when we got tired of walking around the streets we stopped at a restaurant bar and Claire met up with us later. It was a good time just talking and chilling out until Claire and I had to run for our train at around midnight.
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