church today was simply amazing. probably because i've missed a week of church la. the sermon was excellent as usual (pastor jasper rocks!!!) and sunday school was pretty fun and very relevant. ^_^ we talked about relationships and dating. XD
yes, it is a touchy topic, and everyone seemed pretty laugh-y about it. said some stupid things and made people laugh as usual. XP NOT on purpose, okay. it was interesting to discuss it with the church mates and even more interesting to hear their point of views. some of them have really funny views XD had fun laughing with them. XP yup, brought some chocolates and cookies from hokkaido to fatten them up too. then a certain church friend kept bugging us to buy his concert tickets. he ah... XD
anyway. basically my trip to japan was extremely memorable. the food was really REALLY good. i'm so thankful that we managed to get a flight there. one of my poor church friends didn't manage to book it and she was so sad! >.< that's why i didn't dare to talk too much about hokkaido.
anyway hokkaido people seem to be crazy about melons (rock melons, that is). the tour guide told us some can cost up to 450,000 yen, which means several THOUSAND sing dollars! O_O well. luckily the ones they use in food aren't so expensive. ^_^ the melon soft cream ice cream is SO GOOD!!! XD ack almost all the food was really good. yum yum yum.
oh but the bad thing about winter is that the sun sets super early. by 4-4.30 it's already dark. terrible terrible.
okay. so first day.
3rd dec
most of the time was spent on the plane. so we didn't get to do much. eek plane rides can be soooo cold. >_<
4th dec
i was the first in the family to fall down. typical. XD i tripped over a rock. hey i thought it was a huge mound of snow okay! so i attempted to walk over/into it to take pictures of some icicles. instead i tripped and now have an ugly bruise on my knee. -_- oh this was the day we got to drive our own snow mobiles! it's really expensive but really fun! like riding a motorbike, only much much safer. i had a lot of fun. mann, the instructors/guides were so pro. super impressive.
5th dec
the scenary here is truly amazing, it's exactly like what you see on postcards or in the movies, only better. ^_^ tonight we slept on tatami mats! i love them. it's a pity our pillows felt like they were filled with glass marbles. >=( the hotel was lovely, though. the typical traditional kind you see on anime. finally i had space to lie on the floor! we changed hotels EVERY DAY and they are all narrow and cramp, though the room itself is pretty nice. ^_^
we were made to wear yukatas for dinner, which wasn't so bad, except for the fact that the yukata was so stiff that it was really hard to walk in. i lifted mine up to my knees in order to get to the restaurant without ending up like i did the previous day and bruising my other knee. ^_^
for the first time ever, my mum and i went to the hot springs. we went slightly later so there weren't so many people, besides some tour mates and some japanese old ladies. going in stark naked was the hardest part. i think i almost ran in. X) but yeah. went in, boiled ourselves (it's only 39 degrees, don't worry) and came out again. pretty refreshing la. :P
6th dec
was brought to a place that was -17.1 degrees celcius and asked to swing a wet towel as we passed through the room. the room itself didn't feel like -17 degrees but the towel froze! cool.... ^_^ my brother got really annoying today. he's been throwing snow at me ever since we first saw it on the first day. he prepares several snowballs and just hurls them at me the moment he sees me. and i can't retaliate or else, my mum will tell us both off like she did on this day. so i just had to let him pelt me. -_-
we went to feed ducks, seagulls and swans on this day too! they are soooo super cute! it's a little scary to see them fighting for food, but fun to feed them anyway. :) the swans kept getting their food stolen by the seagulls, so much so that i once saw a swan dive for the same piece of bread a seagull dived for AT THE SAME TIME. the seagull's head was in the swan's beak for awhile, yet they were still fighting! of course, the gull got away in one piece la. were they that hungry?
had ice cream in the cold! wah, shiok man, eating ice cream in that weather. XD i had 2 ice creams today! the second was SOOO good, reputed in japan ^_^ the rock melon flavoured one i talked about earlier. :) yummmyyy.
in the evening we watched some traditional ainu song/dance thing. the singing was...yeah, interesting. ^^;; let me put it this way, if i was stuck alone in a place at night with songs like that playing, i would be praying like xiao. ^_^
managed to catch ayumi and takuya kimura on tv. man, the dude had GIGANTIC eyebags. but he can dance, which is cool. :) it was only on this day that i realised we were coming back on saturday and not sunday. ^^;;
7th dec
we saw jack neo at breakfast! super super sure it was him. my bro almost went up to ask, "excuse me, are you jack neo?" XD when we went to feed some swans (again), we saw him again! this time with a child actress from TCS. yeah, don't see him in singapore, but see him in hokkaido instead. - -
we saw some cranes then went shopping--i got to eat a gumball!!! XD that night i was a little high. i guess i was kinda missing city life a bit. mum called me a city slicker, and i can't help but agree with her. XD
8th dec
like on the first day, the airport had to check our liquid before we could board the plane back to tokyo, in case we were going to make bombs out of it. i'm serious. my mum's water got confiscated for some reason. my brother and dad were merely made to drink theirs to prove it was um.. normal drinking water and not bomb liquid. i slept through the entire plane ride. XD i don't really like domestic flights. i'm glad we don't have to take planes to toa payoh from bishan. :P
today was shopping shopping shopping. ^^ went to ginza, a place we went to 2 years ago, and went inside a shop which we went into 2 years ago. :) had another gumball!!! 8D the top floor of the shop had AWESOME stuff--KH2 & FFX2 & FFVIII figurines plus naruto and bleach games! my bro played the naruto game for awhile. XD it appeared that dear naruto had some special power which allowed him to make 4 copies of himself. uzumaki something. SO, my brother, being who he is, created 4 copies of naruto, watched them all running about hitting walls with their heads etc. and decided that another 8 narutos would perfect the choatic scene. XD so there were narutos EVERYWHERE. XD
went to asakusa after that. i've been there before too, but i've never witnessed such beautiful scenary there. saw several school girls and boys. ah i love jap school uniform! this one i saw bore some resemblence to the goong one XD saw some jap boy posers and super short school skirts. HELLO IT'S WINTER.
we stayed in that hotel before too. ^^ turned on the TV and desperately tried to find anime. i mean, no anime in japan? that would be absurd! but absuridity prevailed. there was no anime. so i watched home alone instead. ^^
it was my bro's turn to fall down today. poor fellow.
9th dec
had a huge mess up regarding seats on the plane, so much so that my family members and i were all separated. we weren't the only ones, several of our tour mates were separated too. but SHEESH dad rammed my leg twice with the baggage trolley (it was the same darn leg) while my brother elbowed my head by accident so by the time we went to the gate i was really sore. -_- saw a guy who i saw on my flight there--i remember him because he looks like jay chou! XD but i don't think he is la. some differences here and there. AND he was travelling economy class. ^_^
i got excited when we were on the plane as when i looked at the movie catalogue, i saw good movies: monster house, the devil wears prada and STEP UP. i resolved to watch all of them and watch step up 3 times. :) the former 2 were good, but when i checked the actual movie list for step up, to my horror, THERE WAS NO STEP UP. spent my time drawing instead. :)
when i caught sight of green from the plane window, i felt immensely happy. ^_^ it's true that every season has it's own beauty, but i miss seeing so many colours. seeing spring/summer and seeing home again really made me happy. :)
i missed everyone so much!! it's really good to be back. ^_^
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