| Thursday, December 27, 2007 |
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so i left for Japan on December 18th, for my flight to Narita, Tokyo. Matty and Iffah came to see me off. =D  and i was feeling quite happy about it until i learnt that i would be sitting alone on plane, which wasn't really that bad a news as compared to the big snoring man sitting beside me and the magnificant view of the aircraft's wing outside my window that really made the flight a truly memorable one. Thank god that morning's sunrise made things a lot better. pretty pretty, with fluffy clouds, like candy floss.  and..and.. that i had my nice manicured nails with me!! =D hurhur.  Hokkaido. well, Hokkaido was a lot more than what i expected - rural with just scenery and no shopping... just old-fashioned houses, the snow, trees, mountains and rivers.....   but i'm glad Hokkaido proved me wrong! it was colorful, vibrant, beautiful with loads and loads of shopping to be done in Sapporo!!! the number of shops along this street just goes on and on and on... everything is just so pretty, and for some - cheap, you can't help but wanna buy everything!!  JR tower is a lovely place to shop too!! loads of jewellery shops, selling very unique pieces! the next time i go to japan, i'm so gonna bring money to buy jewellery!! It was a recorded minus 2 degrees outdoors when we were out shopping but that didn stop us. i didn even want to put on my gloves as it was troublesome, having to remove them whenever i wanted to shop. (that wasn't the coldest. the coldest we experienced was a minus 7 degrees, when we were on the mountains)  if my mum and finances didn hold me back, i swear i would have came back to Singapore with a carton full of boots, in all heights and colors. they're sold for so cheap over there!! i am so regretting having not bought one pair for the fear that it would take up too much space in the luggage. but it's okay. the next time i go back, i shall buy two. to make up for my current loss.Look. they even have Anna Sui boutiques. and the things sold are frigging cheap as compared to singapore prices. especially the cosmetics!!  and there were Maneki Nekos everywhere~ almost every shop has one, if not a few. this was the only one i saw which was lighted..  Quite a rewarding trip this time as i finally bought a wallet for myself. it's about time really. i've been losing many cards and too much money by keeping things in the pockets. Mummy bought the Burberry one, and i got the white one from Blue Label. hurhur. Mummy's wallet is cheaper though, just 19,000 yen, about $250. in Singapore, it's nowhere even near that price..so it's quite a steal i must say..  Not only was the shopping good, the food in Hokkaido was simply amazing. We had Kobe beef. it's about $120 per slice, which is considered cheap in Singapore, as it is afterall, premium beef, sold only at stores with the official cert to prove the authenticity of the beef. apparently the cows were massaged, fed with good cow feed and were made to listen to classical music to help them relax so as to improve the texture of the meat.. i have no idea why, but they say such TLC helps the cow obtain a evenly distributed fat layer. (as depicted below)  the beef was very tender and it tasted faab. but after a few slices it gets a bit oily. so it's good to get a piece to share!  Lunch is usually a mini soupy hotpot, containing tofu, mushrooms and beansprouts, which i like. Dinner can be a fulll-fledged affair - consisting of starters, miso soup, the main course, rice, nabe soup, dessert and fruit! Only a few will be able to wolf everything down, i barely made through half! and the starters are always made so prettily, i don't even know where and how i should start eating! We even tried the famous Hokkaido crab! i think its called the Alaskan crab or something like that and it's waay cheaper to eat it there. Only about $160 per crab. and the crabs are huge! The restaurant had this wet market thing going on at the first level, with all the tanks, holding the scallops, crabs, oysters, abalone, etc.. captive.  so all you have to do is pick out whatever you what to eat, then take a picture with it (if you want to) and then you can proceed up to the table at level 2 to wait for the food. the people working there will chop up your selected item and send it up so that you can cook it youself in the miso-flavoured steamboat! it's freshness to the max i tell you.they even bbq fresh seafood at roadside stalls. the hygiene level is like super AAA grade, even though they were cooking by the road. i think such clean roadside stalls can only be found in Japan. they make our pasar malam stalls look like crap.  and they sell crabs everywhere. everywhere. at domestic airports, supermarkets, even souvenir shops! not fresh ones though.. but they looked something like this..  oh, and the ice cream there is addictive. it feels really good to eat ice cream during winter there, i dunno why. maybe cause you wouldnt have to worry about drips as the ice cream wouldn melt! The melon and vanilla's really good. i'm not so sure about the lavender one though..it's a bit funny.  there's no lack of shopping, really. as below every restaurant, you'll have this whole floor selling souvenirs and their local products like melon pudding, smoked eel, chocolates or cookies like the very cute hello kitty ones!  or the funky melon kit kats!  Japan is also the home to the best vending machines ever. this time in Hokkaido, i found a Haagen-Dazs one selling ice cream! only $3.90 for 1. super cheap!! i also saw a vending machine selling fried rice, fries, hot dogs and fried noodles! damn cool i tell you. nyp should buy these kind of machines and trash the lousy m&m one.  Besides the shopping and food, one of the main reasons why we went over to Hokkaido was for the scenic view.. and boy do you have to do some serious travelling on the roads to get to these spots! i think there was once i sat for 5 hours straight on the coach. 5 hours! enough for me to fly to Hong Kong from Singapore!! i was so bored after finishing the japanese magazines i bought, i started to camwhore! my big-ass shades are so huge, you can see the snow on the side of the roads in them.  oh well, here are some of the pictures taken by the famous Otaru Canal.. they say it's prettier at night when the lights come on.. it's as pretty as a postcard, no? It looks almost fake.. like some backdrop in a studio...    Even in cups, the Otaru Canal is depicted..alongside a hello kitty!  Somewhere along the streets of Otaru... i really like my mummy's leopard shawl. i have this sudden liking for leopard prints. must be due to my mummy's and hsien's influence. lol. at the cafe, getting bullied as usual.. saw loads of mountains, ice, lakes, crater lakes and snow....         sometimes you have to put in a bit of effort to get to the best view. like climbing up several flight of such steps while battling the strong cold winds. looks easy but trust me, it ain't easy to climb up these steps as the floor is super slippery.   but the view from the top, always pays off.
i also got to visit this fox farm where i got to see my new love! super cute right~ i don't want a dog now.. i want a foxxx!!  the sunsets there are also really pretty. we got to see the sun set almost everyday as around 3+pm Japan time, the sky starts to get darker...  the nights there are super long, and with the shops all closing early. the only thing left to do is to go back to the hotel, don the yukata for the traditional japanese style dinner followed by a long soak in the hotel's outdoor hot spring.  every hotel i stayed in this time provided yukatas in the room. i liked it so much i almost bought one. it's comfy to laze around in one and they look good too. better than pjs. oh, and did i mention that i managed to catch my first snow fall ever? i don't care how stupid that sounds cause its true.  it was beautiful. we were having breakfast at this hotel cafe which had a full length glass window framing the view of lake touya when we saw snow FALL from the sky.it was just tiny flakes, but it was still pretty cool nevertheless. and it was very very pretty and super romantic.... yes, there is snow falling while we took this picture. just open your eyes wider and you'll see it matthew! lol.  the snow was thick and powdery. so snow-ball making proved to be qutie a failure but i got my sister to make snow angels instead! yes, the snow was this thick. so the tour guide brought us to try out the snow mobiles! friggin expensive things. costs about 150 sing dollars for a ride on these babies which looks so unstable. i was so damn worried that the mobile might overturn halfway through the circuit. so before i got on i asked the guide if anyone's snow mobile ever flipped. he said no. so i happily went up the 'mountain' on the snow mobile with kelwin my driver..and not even half way through, the couple in the snow mobile infront of us flipped. the bugger lied. i was so @#%$ but at that point of time there was no turning back. so all i did was pray and hold on tight. lol. i know. i'm such a scaredy cat. but you had no idea how glad i was to go back to the starting ground.  please pardon my helmet.  i was happier walking through Odori Park instead.  Look lenny. you saw the Eiffel tower right. i saw the TV tower. yipee. i wonder who would pay for a ticket to go up.. but the whole park was still pretty, dressed in snow. so yeah. that about sums up the week i spent in Hokkaido. loads of snow, scenery, hot spring baths and food.  i was a happy girl when i left for the new chitose airport terminal, and guess what plane was scheduled to take us back to Narita Tokyo for our return flight to Singapore? A pokemon plane!  no kidding!! it was super cute please. the curtains had pokemon on them, the air stewardesses wore pokemon aprons while serving the drinks that we poured into pokemon cups. even the headrest had pokemon on them!! hurhur!so..i spent the whole of christmas eve travelling on planes. from Chitose to Tokyo and back to Singapore. watching Stardust and Mr Bean..i also spent the first few minutes of christmas on the plane. even the food was themed for christmas.  the plane arrived back at Changi around 0030 on christmas day.. by time i got home and unpacked it was about 4am! slept for a while and woke up early to spend the day with cm! so that's how i spent my christmas. and i do hope you guys enjoyed yours. =) and thank you mummy for the wonderful present - a holiday in Hokkaido. Let's go back again soon. =X  |
