The spirit of Tomte

One thing that can always entertain you as a foreigner in Japan ­­are the hilarious english texts you'll run into every now and then.
Me and my swedish friend ­found a chain of bread and bakery stores here in Sapporo that market themselves by selling Scandinavian bread.

It's just a surprising fact for me, being a Scandinavian, that we eat buns similar to donuts with ginger and some kind of white cream cheese on top, and the inside filled with squid and some kind of vanilla cream.


Ehm well, actually I have never ever seen such bread in Sweden, and I hardly believe it can be found in the other Scandinavian countries either.
All the bread in those stores were sweet, white bread, sometimes with chocolate on it, sometimes just with other strange stuff.
However, the funny way they market themselves and the absolutely hilarious texts on their plastic bags just makes me want to visit them again and again!

The text on their plastic bags reads:


"Scandiavian natural roman - best bread message. Our little friend "TOMTE" use magical secret power for delicious BREAD that. Well enjoy in next morning. Children who living in NORTHERN EUROPE tell us secret that just baken BREAD. Yes... TOMTE's secret.
HOKUO as. BREAD country SAPPORO is very similar with TOMTE's land."

And the second one I found:""We are tomte." The Scandinavian region of northern Europe is the fabled home of gnomes called Tomte. Tomte love children. At night, when everyone is sound asleep. Tomte go about casting magical spells to ensure the next morning's freshly baked bread will be especially delicious for the children. Cherishing the spirit of the Tomte, we at "Hokuo" take a highly skilled and gentle natured approach to bread making."