Japan trip cont'd

I decided to carry on, while I still had inspiration...

on the third Morning, I awoke at 4:50am Japan to find the sun already up and shining, in my silly state, i decided to go out for a walk, whilst my dear family was still snoring and snoozing away. It was actually quite cold, and wanted to walk somewhere to perhaps find a nice warm coffee, unfortunately, the japanese were not as insane as I was, and at 5am, nothing was open yet, and the myth that the Japanese sold all things in vending machines did not hold through in our area, there were no warm drinks in the vending machines, believe me I checked! .. but it was a nice walk I walked and I walked, and after 2 hours, managed to get to Otaru, this 2 hour walk would have been a 6 min train ride. But it was a nice walk, just the Lord and I, and some reflections along the way. Saw a church too, it was actually a Sunday morning, and we were wondering if we could find a church to worship in.

Here's some evidence of the time and the temperature.. =P I think I was just wearing a pullover .. =P heh








What a lovely morning it was, by the time I finished the walk it was around 7am, decided to take the train back and head over back to the room. and from there, we went to Sapporo for more sightseeing, it was nice just walking ard town. Oh I must add that we also went to a Chocolate factory area, which was very very nice, the buildings were v. castle like, and Elijah enjoyed the flowers a lot and the space as well. He was running around in the gardens and having lots of fun. It was a joy to see him enjoy himself.





we also went up to Mt Moiwa, which was supposed to have fantastic views of the city of Sapporo, however, just getting to the place was an adventure in itself, the ropeway ( we would call it cablecar) was on top of some very high up place, and pushing a pram and carrying a bag, wasn't the easiest of tasks, and what's more, when we reached the place to get the tickets, we realised we still had to climb up these ardous flight of steps that seemed to go on forever, there was no elevator (pronounced quite triumphantly by the ticket counter girl, who looked on pitilessly at us, as if we should have known better than to bring a little baby with us up to this mt Moiwa). Well, after all the climbing, and the close to death/exhaustion episode, it was a little better after, admittedly the views were beautiful and very very majestic. Again, just reminding us of how great a God we served, both a creator and our saviour.. =) However, the decor a little lacking, a little more development would have been welcome, it would have been a wonderful place to have a nice warm cafe, overlooking the views of the city, but alas, nothing of that sort existed or looked like it would existing, it was a bare roof, overlooking the view, and below that, was a musty tourist souvenir shop, selling souvenirs that tourists (ie, us ) did not feel any faint sense of attraction toward. But well, it was a nice warm shop, which a welcome from the blasting winds on the roof above. Note the attires that we were in.

Japan Trip Con't

Our next couple of days included walking around in Otaru and Sapporo and viewing the lovely cherry blossoms, we spent the first day in Otaru, going to the all famous 'canal' area as well as tried to check out the car rental service.



it was a nice little town/ city, but mostly due to tourism ( I think), trying to rent a car there was an experience, they couldn't speak English at all, but somehow, through gesturing and some noises, we managed to get our enquiry through, and by God's grace we managed to get the car a couple of days later, it was really quite funny, cos when we went to collect the car 2 days later, they had prepared a nice little document with a questionaire of things they needed to ask us, both in Japanese and English in parallel, so that they could point to the questions and we could point the answers out to them. It showed the extent of their attention to detail. but it was a lovely little town overall and we had a nice little afternoon there.

The next day, we went to Sapporo, a 30 minute train ride away, and went to visit a nice little park where the locals went to see the blossoming cherry blossoms, again a very unique experience, where the whole park was full of very happy boisterous locals, with the charred smoky scent overhanging the park because of the barbeques that were going full force as the everyone was there enjoying their nice grilled lunches with a cold 'sapporo' beer. We of course had none of that, but managed to bring home both nice memories of the afternoon in the park as well as pictures of the cherry blossoms in all their glory. It was a nice reminder of God at work in nature...




Well hopefully more pics to come... getting a little tired...

thanks for reading..

Our Japan Trip..

We had a great time in Japan, started off with staying a night at Narita, which was where the airport was and just getting adjusted to the whole Japanese experience.
It was a good rest before we headed off on a airport limousine to the Haneda airport where we took a domestic flight to Sapporo in Hokkaido.

thank God that Elijah was still drinking his milk, and was relatively manageable. We arrived in Sapporo and had a great time at a wonderful hotel in Otaru Chikko which was abt a 30 min train ride from Sapporo. It was a hotel in a outlet mall, (which wasn't v. much of a outlet mall but still a great place for us as a family, as the rooms in the hotel were very nice, huge and comfy and more importantly affordable by Japan standards, only ard SGD130)



And check out the room views... =)



Thank God for the wonderful rooms cos it would be a lot better for Elijah to run around in .. and heard so many horror stories of hotels being horrendously small and expensive in Japan.

But all was well, Japan was indeed a very well-oiled country, everything moving at super speed and efficiency, every check in and check out was without incident and took place within minutes, literally. The service standards were superb as well, with everyone being very happy (seemingly) at what they were doing. It was interesting for us to experience that.

We are Back!!

We are back and alive and healthy from Japan! thank God. The flu was again chasing just behind us in Osaka and Tokyo! Will update with pictures and all later..