Sapporo/Shiraoi/Otaru Diaries: National Ainu Museum

Lake Poroto

This year, Sports Day lands on October 14th, which means we get a 3-day weekend in October. Huzzah! This time around, I wanted to use the opportunity to visit Upopoy, the National Ainu Museum. If anyone plans on going, I highly recommend reserving your tickets to Shiraoi in advance!

October 12th: Originally I was going to take my usual bus, but my friend had plans in Sapporo, and offered to drive me since he needed to go. We picked up my friend from Yoichi along the way, and arrived around 10. None of us had eaten yet, so we tried to get a brunch somewhere. Hanging out in Stellar Place, we realized that the meal spots only open at 11, though the building itself opens at 10. After browsing our options, we settled on the new tonkatsu restaurant, opened by a Michelin chef. If you go during lunch, you can get a large rice for free!

The menu is small, but everything looked super good. I went for the filet tonkatsu, which is usually a better cut than the loin because the fat is more distributed. Typically, it costs a little extra, but here, their loin and fillet cost the same! This place is very interesting, because along with the usual katsu sauce, they also offer extra vergin olive oil, Setouchi sea salt, yuzu kosho infused red miso, soy sauce from Mitsuru Soy Sauce Brewery in Fukuoka, and parmesan to season to your liking.

Tsukanto Tonkatsu Filet Lunch Set
Tsukanto Tonkatsu Filet Lunch Set (1350 yen)

The coleslaw salad was pretty good (it had hazelnuts!), and the rice was very tasty. The katsu was a wildly different katsu experience. The breading on the outside was crispy, but didn’t feel heavy or oily at all. The meat inside was juicy and tender. The soy sauce tasted smokier than a normal soy sauce, and the miso had a citrus-y brightness from the yuzu. I have to say, the classic sauce was still my favorite. My friend got the kushikatsu assortment set and doesn’t eat fish, so I got to eat her salmon. That was really good too.

We spent a bit of time doing some gacha, and I had a go at the current Kirby gacha. I got an H prize, just my luck…My Sapporo friends split up with us to go do their own thing. After doing some shopping at the Wego, I picked up my tickets for my train ride the day after! This way, I could save time the next morning.

My friend wanted to go to the DonQuihote in Susukino, and on our way down South, we checked out the Travel Festival at Akarenga Terrace. The Akarenga vanue had a food truck offering Asian street food, as well as a booth selling Asian drinks. I got to pick up my favorite Taiwanese apple sidra for 200 yen! There was also a stamp rally happening down in the underground, and if you completed that, you could get a drink for free. (We were lazy.)

World Travel Festival
World Travel Festival

While my friend had a shopping list for DonQui, I did not, and didn’t think I would get anything. I ended up getting this apple roibos tea…

After killing some time in the Susukino Round 1, we went to my parfait place of choice for the day: Sinner. I’m really trying to collect all of the Sapporo parfaits…I went for the seasonal shine muscat parfait, which contains shine muscat, hard candy, soft serve, housemade grape sorbet, and a cream cheese ice cake.

Sinner Shine Muscat Parfait
Sinner Shine Muscat Parfait (1780 yen)

The parfait was pretty good, but with a few unexpected tastes. For one, the description said nothing about the raisins that were there. The candy was visually cool, but it was very hard to break it, and then eat it. The soft serve tasted like McDonald’s ice cream (nostalgic!), and the grape sorbet was more icey than creamy. The cream cheese cake was interesting.

My friend decided to head home to Yoichi, and so we parted ways as I went to go check into my hostel. After checking out the facilities and putting down my stuff, I went to Pasaaru for some sushi! Pasaaru is opens at 5pm, but once they run out, they close. It seems to pretty popular, always with a line. In factm there were already people waiting before I got there at 5.

I say revolving sushi, but you have to order everything through saying it out loud or writing a memo. Everything was super yummy! Tha abalone was a daily special, and was pretty chewy and crunchy. The ootoro was like eating a fatty wagyu of the sea. It was almost too marbled, so I got a chuutoro afterward to get an actual tuna experience. The seared salmon and unagi were thin but had an amazing charred flavor. I appreciated that the rice is small here!

The last item of business for the night was to get boba. I went to Cocono to go get The Tea, and I also got a scone from Donguri while I was at it. Read about my boba here!

October 13th: I set aside the full day to make the trip down to Shiraoi for the Ainu Museum and Park! I reserved a train at 7:30, and stopped by McDonald’s for a quick treat before my train (it’s the only thing besides convenience stores that’s open at 7am!). I recently found out they started an apple frapp, and wanted to try it. The fall seasonal triangle pies also looked good, but the chocolate had almonds in it, and the other was a sweet potato caramel.

McDonald's Apple Caramel Frappe
McDonald’s Apple Caramel Frappe (490 yen)

The frappe was pretty good! It was basically a blended frozen apple drink topped with whipped cream and caramel sauce. Very apple-y.

I initially skipped the McDonald’s in the underground in favor of the Apia location, which is closed to the station. It’s a good thing I left early though, because it turns out the Apia one doesn’t offer it, at least in the morning. I had to circle back to the other one! What was odd was that when my order said it was ready, instead, a guy came out and apologized that it’d take 3 minutes to make (it ended up taking 5), which is still very fast for fast food. I ran to my train, and made it to my seat with 2 minutes to spare.

The train ride takes about an hour. From Shiraoi station, it’s a straightforward 10-minute walk to Upopoy. The cafes, souvenir shop, and information center are free to enter, but the rest of the park is behind a paid entrance gate. An adult ticket was 1200 yen (from 4pm-closing, it’s half off). When everything opened at 9am, I got a freshly baked apple pie from the sweets cafe, and bought some souvenirs.

The apple pie was good, and just came out of the oven. Dare I say, too fresh. It was super hot, with a crispy, flaky crust. The filling had slices of apple with gooey custard. Very satisfying.

After eating my pie, I entered the park! Honestly, I’m not a huge museum person, but I’m really interested in Ainu history and culture and thoroughly enjoyed my experience. The layout was very spacious with many things to do throughout the day. Maybe too much! There were many scheduled performances and activities, most having a participant cap so lining up or getting a ticket was essential. It’s physically impossible to do and see everything on the schedule, so planning is key! Support is very tourists friendly, with guides in English, Chinese, and Korean. I found the wide availability of water fountains quite interesting, as that’s not a common phenomenon in Japan.

I reserved a seat for the 10:30 tradtional song and dance performance, and a spot at the 1:30 embroidery experience. The rest my time in the morning, I did the archery experience, and walked around the premises, planning the afternoon.

Around lunch time, I exited the gated area (be sure to ask for a re-entry ticket!) and went to Cafe Rimse for some lunch. I oredered the Ainu salmon stew lunch set. It came with the salmon soup with big chunks of veggies, grain rice, ratashikep, konpushito, kobachi, pickles, and the tea of the day was ento tea.

Cafe Rimse Kinda Cep Ohaw Salmon soup set
Cafe Rimse Kinda Cep Ohaw Salmon soup set (1500 yen)

The meal was very hearty and yummy! I would have preferred the vegetables to be slightly smaller, but I figure this is traditional. The sides were also very enjoyable, and the tea was just slightly grassy but comforting.

I spent the afternoon over on the Eastern side, browsing the museum, trying on traditional Ainu clothing, and attending my workshops. The embroidery experience was fun (very customizable), and I went to Ainu language Bingo at 3:30 and received a tote bag!

Ainu pattern embroidery
Ainu pattern embroidery

After seeing the entirety of the park and the activities I wanted to go to, I left in the afternoon and got on the train back to Sapporo! My first stop was The Alley, to get boba for the day, and a post-train ride snack. I also wanted to check to see if they still had the grape series…and they did! Read about my boba here!

The Alley Grape Yogurt Smoothie with Tea
The Alley Grape Yogurt Smoothie with Tea

The izakaya I wanted to go to seemed like it had plenty of seats, but when I asked for a table for 1, the guy said that they were full. I suppose quite a few people made reservations.

With no backup plan, I decided to head to Cocono and try one of the ramen shops that opened up recently. These aren’t any old ramen shops…some of them are quite bougie, and all feature Hokkaido ingredients! I like ramen, but it’s quite rare for me to seek it out, and I want to try 4 of the 5 Cocono ramen places.

I went for Takezo, which offers scallop ramen! The bougie part is not only does it have scallops, but it also offers a side of seaweed and additional scallop scraps to add to your broth as flavor changers (the other ones come with different additions). The bowl is also golden. and the spoon was really hefty. You can choose between whole wheat noodles or Chinese straight noodles (as well as gluten free for 200 yen). The guy recommended the whole wheat, but I went for the straight noodles.

Takezo Scallop Salt Ramen
Takezo Scallop Salt Ramen (1300 yen)

The ramen was amazing. The broth was very light, but also rich with scallop flavor. There were slightly seared, scallop sashimi, thick bamboo slices, and quail eggs in the broth. For some reason there was also croutons? Noodles were normal noodles, springy with good texture.

Time for a Sapporo evening parfait! Tonight’s choice was Purple Dahlia, which has cute rainbow floats, and fluffy parfaits. I saw on Instagram that mid-September they started a seasonal apple parfait, and hoped they still had it. Alas, they stopped their seasonal menu, so I went for the fruits parfait. The parfait names sound normal, but there are some not so normal items in them…The fruit one has soft serve, dragonfruit, mikan, grapefruit, bluberry jelly, kiwi, apple, grape, strawberry, yogurt cream, lychee gelato, kadaif, custard, raspberry jelly, black tea jelly, powdered sugar, cardamon, cherry, and cinnamon.

Purple Dahlia Fruit Parfait
Purple Dahlia Fruit Parfait (1990 yen)

There’s a lot in this one…But actually most of the components were super thin slices meant to decorate the edge of the parfait glass. I wish there was more lychee sorbet, but the inside seemed to be a mish mash of a lot of conflicting flavors. There was so much happening that putting everything in a tiny vessel messed it all up.

October 14th: The Monday of a three day weekend means I can go to Otaru to see a movie for a discount! Recently, a new animated movie called Fureru came out, and I was excited to go see it.

For a morning pick-me-up, I went to to get a matcha latte. Recently, I learned that the guy who founded Coffee&Wine Standard (with other locations), Sho Tanaka, won 3 times at the Sapporo Latte Art Championship! I’m not usually a hot latte person, but I wanted some pretty latte art, and I don’t drink coffee.

Standard Coffee Matcha Latte
Standard Coffee Matcha Latte (660 yen)

The matcha latte itself was pretty standard. I feel matcha gets more muted when it’s in a hot latte form, or I just like my matcha flavor strong. The latte art was pretty, and I was happy with wha I got.

The cafe space was also pretty cute! They have free wifi and give blankets, but not too many seats. There weren’t too many people on a Monday holiday morning at 10am when they opened.

For lunch, I went back to Cocono’s ramen hall Mingle to go try this super bougie looking mazesoba. I had ramen the night before, but because this isn’t soupy heavy ramen, I don’t consider it two ramens in a row.

Men in Ezo Premium Mazesoba [Roast beef]
Men in Ezo Premium Mazesoba [Roast beef] (1980 yen)

It looks big, but the plate itself is just super wide for the roast beef slices to sit on, and the plate it pretty shallow. I think there’s some cream, egg yolk, red onion, sprouts, black pepper, white wasabi, and dressing topping the noodles. I did without the wasabi, but mixed everything else in with the noodles. They were super bouncy, chewy, and slippery, and the dish was chilled to become like a creamy noodle salad. The roast beef had black pepper and this refreshing acidic sauce, and was super yummy! Highly recommend.

It might have been my seat the second day, but the air conditioner is very strong. Appropriate for ramen, but it was almost too strong for my mazesoba…There’s some seats with free charging outlets, and the Mingle has exclusive wifi!

I needed to take the train to Wing Bay for my movie in Otaru, so I headed up to the station. With a bit of time to kill, I grabbed an edamame bagel from Waku Waku Hiroba after browsing the goods.

Waku Waku Hiroba Bagels
Waku Waku Hiroba Bagels

I ended up eating it on the bus ride home, and it was not bad. A nice chewy bagel, with edamame inside. The top also was seasoned with salt and peppery, making it a nice savory bagel.

My last order of business is getting boba! I went with Gong Cha, because there was a new seasonal drink. Read about my boba here!

Gong Cha Apple & Blood Orange Milk Tea
Gong Cha Apple & Blood Orange Milk Tea (650 yen)

Even with a 10 minute delayed train, I still made it to the movie theater to buy my ticket, use the bathroom, and with time to spare to wait. Fureru was pretty good! Very heartwarming, and an interesting story.

I headed back to Otaru station after my movie, picked up a cake from LeTao as a birthday gift, and took the bus at 5 to go home.

And that was my Sports Day weekend!

This time, I stayed in Helio Hostel Sapporo. Overall, I had a good experience. There’s a cafe with books on the first floor, and the dorms on through an elevator outside the cafe. They offer a ton of amenities comapred to other hostels. This does include a giant tube of face wash, oil cleanser, toothpaste (personally questionable), and facial moisturizer, which may be a bit weird to share for some people. I was most surprised by the complimentary pads in the bathrooms, and beyond the usual hair dryer, they even offered curling and straight irons for the ladies! The dorm and lounge spaces are clean and spacious, and you can get new towels every day.

My only complaint is that I got a top bunk this time, and the ladder going up did not have support for both arms climbing up. I felt like I was hanging on one side every time I used my ladder.

Shiraoi tip: The base train ticket from Sapporo to Shiraoi costs 2100 yen. Although the trip is a straightforward 1 hour with trains running regularly, there are some caveats. There are two trains that take you directly: the Suzuran, and the Hokuto. However, as of April 2024, all seats became reserved seats. The Suzuran has only normal seats, and the Hokuto has normal and Green Car seats. You should either reserve these online in advance, or be prepared to get to the station early to look into reserving seats.

I used eki-net, where I got a discount on my tickets, and took the Suzuran both ways. In exchange, I paid a couple hundred yen more than the base price, had to take a slightly earlier and later train than I would have liked, but didn’t have to pay an extra couple thousand for the Hokuto trains, or spend extra time and effort transferring.

If you’re looking travel on a budget, you can consider 2 options that cost the base 2100. The first is taking a route that involves 1-2 transfers on normal trains that take at least 1.5 hr, but might end up around 2. I’d recommend using Google Maps or Navitime. When I looked up the routes, it seemed like there was one specific one in the morning, and one in the late afternoon. The difference here is needing to transfer, longer commute time, and no reserved seat.

The second option is paying the base fare, and getting on a limited express train and taking any empty seat. However, since all seats are reserved, if the person does come along, you need to move to a different seat. I actually didn’t know about this until I got on my train and read the disclaimers plastered on the train! I’d still recommend reserving though.


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2 responses to “Sapporo/Shiraoi/Otaru Diaries: National Ainu Museum”

  1. Good blogs thanks

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