Mjau, we finally had enough of living in Åland so we convinced our butler to quit their job, give up their apartment and travel for a bit instead. On October the 1st was our flight from Helsinki to Osaka. Mjau, we started our trip by enjoying delicious snacks and cocktails in the Finnair lounge.
Mjau, our dumb butler had forgotten they needed to apply for a QR code from the Visit Japan website so we had to do that in the arrivals hall. After going through customs we headed to the train station to get our ICOCA card and took the train to Fukushima station. We were staying at Osaka Guest House U-En in a dormitory room. Mjau! We do not want to stay in hostels anymore! It was especially infuriating since our sisters were in Tokyo Disneyland at the time, staying at a nice hotel!
Our butler was too tired to do anything since they decided to watch the first season of White Lotus instead of sleeping on the plane. We just got some snacks from 7 eleven and ate them by Dojima river.
On our first day in Osaka we went to visit Osaka castle. Mjau, we only walked outside where we did not need to buy a ticket. We got breakfast from a bakery by the park. We had a bacon avocado bread and matcha croissant.
After our visit to Osaka castle we headed to America-mura and Dotonbori. Mjau, our butler had an appointment to get some botox (as if that will help with their unfortunate looking face, mjauhihi). After the appointment we walked around the shops and then got some takoyaki at Dotonbori.
We had a wonderful breakfast at Folksaka, a vegan and glutenfree bakery and cafe close to our hostel. We had the carrot cake french toast with pears and persimmons.
After our breakfast we took the train to Himeji to visit the castle. Mjau, we think our butler took the wrong train, a regular local train and not the rapid train as it took us so long to get there. At least the view was nice. We got the combo ticket to Himeji castle and Koko-en garden. Mjau, we walked inside the castle but there is not much to see, no furniture. Mjau, you only walk up and down the steep staircases. The garden was much nicer. After walking around Himeji for a bit we took the train back to Osaka.
We really enjoy the Umekita Park and surrounding area so we spent a lot of our time walking around the food courts. We found a lovely cat themed bakery. We went there twice during our trip. We tried the Japanese style curry bread, sweet potato kouign-amman and rum raisin chocolate scone.
Another day we went to Kobe for a daytrip as we had made reservations for Propeller restaurant. Our reservation was not until 17:00 so we walked around the city for some sightseeing. We visited the Ikuta-jinja Shrine and Meriken park and walked around some shopping malls.
Mjau, we got the lean A5 grade Kobe wagyu beef with a salad, soup and fresh bread. It was delicious although we could not taste a big difference from the regular beef from a nice restaurant. The salad was fresh and tangy. The soup was a minestrone soup, we think. It was fine however nothing spectacular. The bread however was wonderful, hot from the oven served with butter. The interior of the restaurant was cozy and they played jazz music. The restaurant was quite small, only around six tables. Fortunately we got one by the corner so our butler could struggle with the chopsticks in peace.
Once again we struggled to find cozy cafes with interesting pastries in Japan. We did finally find Gourmet Boutique Melissa by the RIHGA Royal Hotel Osaka. They had wonderful halloween pastries. We had a chestnut-earl grey mousse pastry shaped like a black cat and a raspberry mousse pastry. Mjau, they even packed an ice packet so the pastries would stay cool.
The rest of our time in Osaka we mostly just walked around and had snacks at Umekita park. During our stay the Osaka Expo 2025 was still going on so there was a bit more people and tourists than usual. Therefore our butler decided to not take us to Universal Studios Japan as we had already been there once before not too long ago (that scoundrel!). We would much rather visit Tokyo Disneyland for an extra day instead. Mjau, we will have to pay attention and make sure we get one extra day in Disneyland! Our stingy butler might try to pull a fast one on us in order to save money!
After Osaka it was time for our next destination: Sapporo. Mjau, it is a bit colder than we expected as Osaka was still having summer weather. The first day we had breakfast at a bakery. A sweet potato croissant and a pumpkin caramel muffin. The sweet potato croissant was very delicious with its sweet potato filling. The muffin was underwhelming.
We also got some chocolates from Cacaocat. They reminded us a bit of Lindt chocolate although not as smooth. The flavours were interesting, however we still prefer Lindt or Ghirardelli (Of course neither of them compares to Fazer). We got the yuzu, hojicha, maple, pumpkin, yuburi melon, brown sugar and cafe latte. The maple was the most delicious. As most of the others had white chocolate they tasted more like candy and less like chocolate. Slightly too sweet. Mjau! As we are already so sweet, we might turn into sugar cubes if we have too much sugar!
We are unfortunately staying at a hostel again, although this one is much more agreeable than the last. They have a nice lounge area on the top floor as well as by the lobby. The hostel is Grand Hostel LDK Sapporo near Susukino.
We had delicious dinner at Curry & Cafe SAMA. It was easy to order as it was through a QR code and they offered free Wi-Fi. We got the coconut soup curry with chicken and vegetables with extra pumpkin. Mjau, you can pick the level of spiciness from 0-30. Mjau, our butler chose level 1 as they can not handle spicy food. We should have chosen level 30 for our butler in secret! Mjauhihi! The coconut soup curry was delicious, a perfect mix of sweet and spicy. The portions were very large and we would have been fine with half a portion.
We decided to book a guided tour through Biei and Furano on Klook. It was almost the same price as a one way ticket to Furano would have been on our own so it was an affordable and efficient way to see the countryside of Hokkaido. The tour started quite early; 7:50 from Odori park. The bus ride to our first stop was quite long, over 2 hours. The bus drove along the Rollercoaster road as well. Mjau, we wish they would have driven faster so we could really feel like we were on a rollercoaster!
Our first stop on the tour was to Shikisai-no-oka, a farm famous for their colourful patchwork fields and lavender fields. Mjau, lavender was not in season at the time but there were several other flowers in bloom. We still got to taste Lavender soft serve ice cream. It was tasty but we would have preferred regular ice cream over soft serve.
Our second stop was to Blue Pond and Shiraito Falls. It was just a short stop at each place. Enough time to take some pictures and walk around. This was the least interesting destination as we have seen lakes that are more blue and waterfalls more spectacular. They sold Blue Pond Ice Cream and Blue Pond meat buns at Blue Pond. Mjau, our guide said they do not have any special flavour, it is only blue food coloring, so we did not buy them. The ice cream was also more expensive than the lavender ice cream.
After visiting the Shiraito Falls we had lunch at Herb Garden. Mjau, we had the chicken (and pumpkin) tempura. The dinner was not anything to write home about. It was affordable though, 1200 yen. We still wish we would have gotten some melon instead! We stayed at Herb Garden before heading to our last stop. Mjau, we felt that the stop at Herb Garden was a waste of time. Perhaps the tour was partly sponsored by them, as the tour guide talked about their lavender face creams and other products for ten minutes before arriving there. Mjauhihi, it was like our tour got interrupted by an ad break similar to Youtube! Mjau, we are unfortunately no longer premium members and will have to suffer through ads like peasants. Another money saving attempt by our stingy butler!
Our last stop was at Farm Tomota. Mjau, we had seen pictures of their cheesecakes so we were looking forward to trying some. Mjau, unfortunately we could not find any. Perhaps it is more of a summer treat during peak season or perhaps they were already sold out. We did however get the Furano Melon Pan. It was delicious and warm. Mjau, the filling was more tasty than the ones we have bought from the store or regular bakery where the melon flavour in the filling can taste artificial. After walking around the farm for 50 minutes it was time to head back to the bus for our drive back to Sapporo. Mjau, to summarize the tour was nice however we would have preferred to skip Herb Garden and instead have lunch and stay longer at Farm Tomita as they had a cafe as well.
It was our butler's 30th birthday while we were in Sapporo. They got to take us out to a nice cafe as a birthday gift from us. We made reservations for the Autumn Afternoon Tea at Fika Cafe Lagom at Fairfield by Marriott Sapporo. The afternoon tea cost 5500 yen and included savoury and sweet treats, mushroom soup, a drink of your choice and a customizable mont blanc.
The mont blanc had a chocolate cake base and vanilla ice cream. You could choose between strawberry, chestnut or sweet potato cream. We chose sweet potato cream and strawberry topping.
The scones were served warm and with cream and persimmon jam. We got a plain scone made with Hokkaido grown wheat and a seasonal caramel-coffee-macadamia nut scone. The macadamia scone was delicious. We had some leftover sweet potato cream from the mont blanc which paired well with the scones as well.
The mushroom soup was nice and not too creamy. A nice savoury break from all the sweets.
The savoury dishes were salmon and cheese canapé, a fried lotus root with mashed potatoes and a prosciutto cream with persimmon jelly and a chestnut.
The first platter of sweets contained a semla (or fastlagsbulle) with a cocoa bun, pumpkin paste topped with pumpkin flavoured chantilly cream and a tea and coffee verrine. We wish the semla had more of the pumpkin paste. Fortunately we still had some sweet potato to use as extra topping.
The second platter had a chocolate chip mousse cake with cranberries and a caramel noah. The caramel noah was our favourite pastry from the Afternoon Tea. It is a tart filled with chocolate, caramel and caramelized walnuts and fluffy meringue.
The third and last platter was a chestnut cake with a brownie with candied chestnuts and caramelized chestnut mousse. As well as a Dubai chocolate style cake.
The afternoon tea was positively delicious. We had three hours to finish our meal so we could take our sweet time. The sizes of the cakes were a bit bigger than expected so we were quite full after we were done and did not eat anything until breakfast the next morning.
We also visited Royce Chocolate Factory. Mjau, we only toured the free area on the first floor. We got delicious hot chocolate as well as a nama chocolate filled croissant and curry bread with a potato. We also bought some chocolate from the shop. We got the famous Nama Chocolate, a Gateau Ganache and a small box of different products we were interested in sampling.
The day after our visit to the factory the weather was gloomy with spontaneous showers of rain so we decided to stay inside instead of sightseeing. It was the purrfect opportunity to try our chocolates. Inside the box were a Nutty Bar Chocolate, Fruit Bar Chocolate, Pure Chocolate "Venezuela Bitter", Coffee Bean Chocolate, Baton Cookies "Hazel Cacao" and Royce R Chocolat "Gianduja".
We decided to book another guided tour. This time to Lake Toya, Noboribetsu and surrounding areas. This time the tour group was smaller and with a minibus. We had requested a window seat in advance so our tour guide assigned us a single seat by the door. Purrfect as we did not have to have anyone in front of us obstructing the view. Our first stop was Fukidashi Park. We got to taste natural spring water formed by the melted snow from Mount Yotei. Very refreshing! Mjau, our butler was supposed to take a photo of Au drinking the spring water. Mjau! We could not find the photo in our gallery. Our useless butler perhaps got flustered as an elderly man called Au cute. The leaves are starting to change colors so we got many nice photos!
Our second stop was the Lake Toya Observatory. We started to get a bit hungry so we got a pizza bun and caramel pudding from the shop. It was really windy and cold so we hurried back to the minibus after our snack break.
Our next stop was just a five minute drive away to Lake Farm Hill. Mjau, the others rushed to the ice cream shop our guide recommended. We went nextdoor to the cafe instead. There we got the basque cheesecake. Creamy and delicious! Better than the one we had in Bilbao in Spain! Here we also got a better view of Mount Yotei. They also had a bunch of adorable bunnnies on the farm! As well as an unfriendly horse or pony that we stayed away from.
Our next stop was to the lakeshore of Lake Toya. We got some more pictures of Nakajima and the lake. Mjau it was sunny out but still very cold and windy.
Next we headed to Shōwa Shinzan Bear Ranch. Mjau the ticket to the ranch was not included so we decided to have lunch and take some pictures of the mountain. We had some katsu curry which was perfect for the cold weather.
After Shōwa Shinzan we headed to our last stop: Noboribetsu: Hell Valley. Mjau, it was a bit smelly due to the sulphur, however not as bad as we expected. We walked the shortest trail and got some nice photos. Mjau, some people were 8 minutes late to the bus. We really hoped the guide would have just left them there to take a taxi back to Sapporo. Mjau! It was a recurring theme of this trip. People not arriving back to the minibus on time. All in all this tour was well worth the money. We much preferred this tour over the one in Furano. The guide was nicer and with the single seat on the mini van we did not have to share seats with a stranger.
On our last day in Sapporo we visited Shiroi Koibito Park. The entrance to the park and shops were free so we decided to not buy a ticket to the factory tour. Mjau, the garden was wonderful with many picturesque sets for instagrammable photos. They also had a shop, bakery and cafe in one of the buildings. We got a chocolate bun and chocolate cream puff. We also got chocolate soft serve ice cream from the cafe. Mjau it was really delicious! From the shop we got Ramuru and Purumi. They are chocolate fairies and the mascots of Shiroi Koibito. Their story is that they are childhood friends and now a cute couple and bless chocolate lovers with good luck. The park also had a small show by the clocktower every hour, unfortunately Ramuru and Purumi were not in the show.
After Shiroi Koibito we went to Hokkaido University Museum as they also have free entry. They did not have a lot of signage in English so we mostly just looked at the displays.
Mjau, we really enjoyed our stay in Sapporo. We preferred Sapporo over Osaka. We tried so many bakeries. Our favourite was Donguri. They had a delicious salt bread with fried chicked with yuzu spice, lettuce and onion. It was so delicious we went back for more twice! We also got a chocolate chestnut cake, it was nice, however we would have liked to be a bit more gooey lika a Swedish kladdkaka. We also tried the Kinotoya cheese tart. From Andersen Bakery at Marui Imai we got a delicious apple brioche bread and a crème brûlée bread.
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