Hello Kitty Shopping Adventure Episode 1: Otaru

Around March this year I decided to revisit Hokkaido, because the last time I was there was in summer of 2017 with my family and I never really got to enjoy Sapporo City the way I wanted to. It had just snowed heavily the night before when I landed at the New Chitose Airport on a warm Sunday morning, so I was definitely grateful I had my reliable snow boots on.

I booked my stay at the Holiday Inn in the Susukino district in Sapporo, and luckily I had early check-in privileges. Because of this, I was able to stow my luggage, get my lunch, and have the obligatory Starbucks tumbler pictures at some of the famous Sapporo spots taken just before the usual 2 PM check-in time.

Now that my personal goals in Hokkaido were already accomplished so early in the trip, I got stuck with a question: what am I going to do for the next 3 days? The answers to that question came gradually, starting with scheduling trips to the Mount Moiwa observatory (because when I visited there in 2017 it was so cloudy that I saw nothing from the peak) and to Otaru, which is an hour from Sapporo by train.

In Otaru I initially planned to just have a meal at the Hello Kitty Café and walk a little around the area before heading back to Sapporo. I had no plans of staying there the whole day because the forecast that day was that it would rain around afternoon. Why Hello Kitty Café, you ask? That is because I wanted to document my experience of visiting Hello Kitty places for my good friend who runs TokuDeals, an online shop for Hello Kitty merchandise along with other kawaii finds.

Unfortunately, the Hello Kitty Café in Otaru was closed when I got there, so I ended up just taking pictures of the café from outside.

Not wanting to waste this trip, I decided to check out the area, starting with the interesting building next to the café. As it turns out, it was the one museum I had been wanting to visit: the Otaru Music Box Museum.

Several years back I had the chance to visit the Kamakura Music Box Museum and was amazed with the music boxes there. From a quick web search, I learned of the other music box museums in this country, the biggest of which is the one in Otaru. Once I got inside, I immediately explored all 3 floors of it, though admittedly it was on the ground floor where I ended up staying the longest.

It was at this point where I finally realized the other theme that will dictate my future domestic travels: Hello Kitty merchandise shopping.

The moment I saw the Hello Kitty-themed music boxes, I knew I had to call Lara (my TokuDeals friend) right away to let her know. That phone call quickly became a Zoom video call with her telling me which music boxes to purchase.

I left the museum with a 5-digit-yen worth of music boxes, definitely happy with the purchases made and personally hoping that I can return and buy some more in the future.

I also would like to go back to Otaru because I forgot to bring my Hokkaido tumbler for the obligatory photo. Oh well…

Next episode: Sapporo

Hi City-Cost Readers! If you have friends from outside of Japan who are interested in exclusive Hello Kitty Japan items, please invite them to check out TokuDeals at https://www.tokudeals.com/. They are also on Facebook and Instagram.