Family Trip to Hokkaido - May 23rd to June 2nd '08

It has been 1 week since i got back from Hokkaido and i've been really procrastinating to blog about it due to sheer laziness. There's way too many photos since our family alone brought 3 cameras and 1 video camera. And each of us had hundreds and hundreds of photos! Way too many! Hence, i've uploaded my camera photos on my facebook. Just go there and view them! However, there're aren't many family photos because they were taken using my dad's camera...i'll upload them once i've received it from him. It's gonna be such a messy affair sorting out all the photos! But then again, the photos taken were really beautiful. Me, my bro and my dad were constantly trying to practise our camera-taking skills throughout the trip! And my dad was encouraging cos he said my skills have improved over time. i love photography.

This trip has been really unique, cos it's self-drive. We were given a suggested itinery, but we can choose where we wanna go which gives us lots of freedom. However, being the kiasu singaporeans, we wanted to see as much as possible, thus instead of having a slow, relaxed trip, we ended up like gan chiong spiders, trying to maximise time and see as much as possible. The drivers were mainly my brother, with my dad taking over when he's tired. The driving was pretty smooth and my brother is really quite good. It's really not easy to drive along mountainous roads.

It's unfortunate that i fell sick for almost half the trip. Mom and i was really unprepared for the change in weather. It was supposed to be around 10-20 degrees, which both of us thought would be relatively cooling. Thus, 3/4 of my clothes were short sleeved. To our horror, when we reached there, most of the days were cloudy with slight rain, and the temperature was below 10 degrees almost throughout the trip! Imagine our surprise when we saw huge patches of ice on the mountains. It wasn't supposed to be early spring! Hence, i caught a chill the 4th day and had fever. It was really uncomfortable. Subsequently, i had vomitting and nauseus spells which caused me to miss 1 whole Japanese Set dinner and 3 nights of 'onsen' which is hotspring. What a waste of money. I felt like i dampened my whole family's trip and wasted their money :( Following that, my fever went on and off and i ended the last 2 days with lots of diarrhoea and wind in my stomach. Oh my goodness. I barely ate ever since i fell sick. Think i lost quite a bit of weight which was quite a disappointment to my dad cos he wanted me to put on weight during the trip.

Other than that, the trip was really quite enjoyable. At least i managed to go for 1 night of hotspring! It's really cool :) and the scenery at hokkaido is superbly breathtaking! My family managed to bond during the trip too, and i really praise God for that. Really thank God for taking care of us and making everything work out fine. Throughout the journey, there were certain hiccups like no petrol kiosk, bad weather, not in time to reach a destination, lost somewhere etc..and everytime i prayed, God answered and it's really amazing! Truly, each answered prayer is not a coincidence. God is just so, so, awesome.

To sum it all, this family trip has been enjoyable and has strengthened the bond shared between the low family. It wasn't easy for me and my brother since we were like 2 love-sick birds. And my sickness placed a toll on my family too, esp my mom. She was so worried for me all the time and poor her, because of me, she had to go for onsen all alone. Sorry mama, thank you for the love u've shown towards me like giving me your jackets and sacrificing the cold. i love u!

Hokkaido is a place full of flowers, lakes, mountains, hotsprings, food. If you're a nature and food lover, that's the place to go :)

When i have any free time and i'm not snoozing, i'll try to post some Hokkaido pictures here! Till then! :)