stopping only for meals and toilet breaks. But the happiest thing I guess, was when I finally saw snow! Not only fallen snow on the pavements and roads, but FALLING SNOW!! It was so beautifully white everywhere! And not to mention very very cold!! Didn’t remember the exact temperature, but it could not possibly have been higher than a minus 5 degrees. But all these

were such a novelty to me, that I couldn’t help feeling delighted over the slightest thing, such as the visible breath coming out of mouth whenever we talk, or even having to pile up all the winter clothing, just to go for our toilet break. Day 1 ended with me enjoying my first onsen – 温泉 at our hotel. Felt a bit awkward at first lah….cos have to be totally naked mah. And the best part was, after we stripped and proceeded to go to the bathroom first, we couldn’t find it! All the signs were in Japanese, and its very embarrassing to walk around looking for the bathroom all naked. Hence, we learnt our lesson well and in our future onsen trips, we always determine where the bathroom is located first, b4 we take off our yukata. The first onsen that we went was a 露天温泉. The feeling is very good, when you are inside the onsen, looking out into the sky and stars, and feeling just a teeny weeny cold.

Day 2, we headed out to the wine castle, to see how wine is being made in Hokkaido and the different types of wine they make. Its quite an interesting trip, except that most of the information were in Japanese, so didn’t really understand also. Our next stop was to see the cranes at the Kushiro Marshlands National Park. We couldn’t really see the cranes upclose, as they had those barriers to protect the cranes. It seemed that these cranes were mostly from Siberia and Russia, and they always make their way to Hokkaido at this point of the year, where the temperature at their homes plunges to a low minus 40 degrees. Winnie and I enjoyed our second 露天温泉 at our hotel, and this time, it was even more fun. While we soaked up at the onsen, it was snowing all around us. Felt like I was in a Japanese drama….haha. After dinner, the hotel had an excursion to visit the nearby Lake Akan. It seemed that the town always have some kind of celebration atop the frozen Lake Akan during winter, and its rather like a mini-fun fair. There are games stalls, frozen ice slides (very very FUN!!!), small gift shops in igloo-lookalikes and my favourite of all, FIREWORKS!! This place was also the coldest in our itinerary, a low low minus 14 degrees. I forgot to wear my thermal pants for this excursion, and did I suffer man! I had to keep walking to prevent my body temperature from going down, and the worst part? It was so cold even the mucus in my nose froze up! Had some problem breathing through my nose…..terrible! I was really glad when all the celebrations ended, and we trudged back to our hotel. Walking in the snow is also not an easy task, especially if one is wearing the snow grip like I was. Your thigh muscles can really ache with all the snow-walking and near-slipping. I’m sure I had my fair share of exercise during this entire trip!