Day 6
A day of sleep till you feel shiok enough and wake up according to your whims.
Brown and Sally were accompanying us throughout the trip, and for those who know me well enough, they are supposed to represent Daddy and Ryan. So we will still take them out for photos from time to time.
The snow fall overnight was pretty heavy, and my car was covered with snow when we were going to leave the hotel.
Daddy wasn't done with the farms yet, and made another dumb decision to drive to the nearby Tomita Melon House to see if it is really closed. And yes, it is closed. No smart and no luck
So I just aimlessly drove around the area to see if there are anymore surprise finds, only to find out that the whole area is deserted. Though the fresh snow meant that driving through the forest will look pretty awesome (that's if we don't have any accidents).
And since the snow was still fresh in the area, we just drove up to an empty open carpark, and just settled there for another round of snowman making together with a video call with mummy to show her and mei mei what we were doing live (improvised the snowman buttons with coins, which was a bad idea as it was difficult to remove after we were done, and I ended up with frostbites on my fingers)
It was a long drive back into Sapporo. Returning the car was a challenge though as I had to unload the luggage at the new hotel without car park access (public parking is horrendously expensive in the city) and finding the exact location of the car rental office was another challenge too. Topping up the fuel tank has to be done at the nearest petrol station and receipt must be shown (which I didn't take from the attendant - lesson learnt) to the car rental staff.
And off we go to the Odori Park X'mas market. The atmosphere, set up, illumination, xmas tree and shops were all spot on. It was a true X'mas market with the snow still falling on us while we made our way through the illumination displays across multiple parks and shops at the market.
It was a long tiring day for Ryan boy, and he totally concussed after going back to the hotel
Day 7
It's going to be another long day of taking the trains around the city, which will be fun for the boy. Ryan was still in high spirits on waking up, so after a pancake breakfast with Dino Brown and Sally chick, off we went to the famous Shiroi Koibito factory (or more commonly known as 白色恋人 in our part of the world).
There were plenty of signages along the way from the train station to the factory, so it was pretty easy getting around
The park around the factory was free for visiting and photo-taking.
The design was pretty quaint (half-timbered old German-styled architecture) together with a good handful of small houses/huts, a double-decked stationary London bus, a tree house and a mini-train
that runs around the campus, which makes it an excellent place for photo-lust.
And of course, the factory/ museum itself was amazing in it's own rights, detailing the history of chocolate making and a view of the production floor (from above)
There was also workshops available for some hands-on for making your own Chocolate cookie, which I had to get Ryan to take up (I thought it was pretty fun though)
Their cafe was fully packed though, otherwise I would have chosen to take lunch there. Nonetheless, their soft serve ice cream at ground floor was outstanding - and I had lost count of the number of soft serves that I had taken throughout the trip...
And the standalone pop-corn stall just next to the park was pretty decadent too..
I think we probably spent close to 4 hours here (inclusive of time at a complimentary kids indoor playground). After that, we just went off to the Softbank Sapporo Factory, which had been revamped into a shopping mall - some nice deco, but nothing noteworthy of in my opinion. We were only looking for a place for some afternoon tea.
After night fall, we went on to the underground shopping mall, and found an outlet for the famous kinotoya bake cheese tart
and carried on to Susukino before settling down on a ramen shop for dinner, and finally making a 2nd trip to the illumination display again at Odori park, before retiring for the day
Day 8 (last day in Hokkaido)
Shopping day! Well, at least I had to buy some stuff back for mei mei.
Walked to the JR Tower, and the sun was just behind us in the morning, which yielded one of my favourite shot of the trip - the shadows of Daddy and son holding hands in the snow
After a long internal struggle by Ryan on whether he should buy the UFO catcher toy, or the vending machine toy, we eventually ended up buying both 2 large toys, with Daddy getting worried on whether he will be able to carry all of these luggage single handedly to the airport
Well, Daddy will always find a way to pack all the luggage isn't it...
Took the train back to CTS airport with some time to spare, as the airport itself has a couple of pretty new attractions as well.
Royce chocolate factory - where we went on another shopping spree to buy chocolate gifts for his teachers
And we eventually chose to go into Hello Kitty land instead of Doraemon land, due to the limited time left for the tour. Pretty good choice as we were the only ones in the theme park and had the whole place to ourselves. Though it was just an elaborate photo-taking session with various Country-themes
After the check in, there wasn't any additional checks on the hand-carry luggage, and I see almost everyone carrying oversized hand-carry onboard. So we continued unabated with the snack buying in the departure hall. Once onboard, Lady Luck smiled on us and left the 3rd seat in our row empty, and Ryan got to lie down to sleep on my lap on the flight back to SG.
Final thoughts
Even though there were trying times during this trip, where Ryan just didn't want to eat despite not consuming much food (he actually lost weight over the trip), and I had scolded him numerous times for that, his body language told me that he was really enjoying himself throughout the entire trip, and true to that, he continued to express that this was the best time of his life on numerous occasions throughout 2018.
I made a promise to Ryan that I'll bring him back to visit Hokkaido again someday, and true to promise, that we will be making a return together with Mummy and Mei mei at the end of 2018.
Hope that our Round 2 will be as fascinating as the first trip!
Brown and Sally were accompanying us throughout the trip, and for those who know me well enough, they are supposed to represent Daddy and Ryan. So we will still take them out for photos from time to time.
The snow fall overnight was pretty heavy, and my car was covered with snow when we were going to leave the hotel.
Daddy wasn't done with the farms yet, and made another dumb decision to drive to the nearby Tomita Melon House to see if it is really closed. And yes, it is closed. No smart and no luck
So I just aimlessly drove around the area to see if there are anymore surprise finds, only to find out that the whole area is deserted. Though the fresh snow meant that driving through the forest will look pretty awesome (that's if we don't have any accidents).
And since the snow was still fresh in the area, we just drove up to an empty open carpark, and just settled there for another round of snowman making together with a video call with mummy to show her and mei mei what we were doing live (improvised the snowman buttons with coins, which was a bad idea as it was difficult to remove after we were done, and I ended up with frostbites on my fingers)
It was a long drive back into Sapporo. Returning the car was a challenge though as I had to unload the luggage at the new hotel without car park access (public parking is horrendously expensive in the city) and finding the exact location of the car rental office was another challenge too. Topping up the fuel tank has to be done at the nearest petrol station and receipt must be shown (which I didn't take from the attendant - lesson learnt) to the car rental staff.
And off we go to the Odori Park X'mas market. The atmosphere, set up, illumination, xmas tree and shops were all spot on. It was a true X'mas market with the snow still falling on us while we made our way through the illumination displays across multiple parks and shops at the market.
It was a long tiring day for Ryan boy, and he totally concussed after going back to the hotel
Day 7
It's going to be another long day of taking the trains around the city, which will be fun for the boy. Ryan was still in high spirits on waking up, so after a pancake breakfast with Dino Brown and Sally chick, off we went to the famous Shiroi Koibito factory (or more commonly known as 白色恋人 in our part of the world).
There were plenty of signages along the way from the train station to the factory, so it was pretty easy getting around
The park around the factory was free for visiting and photo-taking.
The design was pretty quaint (half-timbered old German-styled architecture) together with a good handful of small houses/huts, a double-decked stationary London bus, a tree house and a mini-train
that runs around the campus, which makes it an excellent place for photo-lust.
And of course, the factory/ museum itself was amazing in it's own rights, detailing the history of chocolate making and a view of the production floor (from above)
There was also workshops available for some hands-on for making your own Chocolate cookie, which I had to get Ryan to take up (I thought it was pretty fun though)
Their cafe was fully packed though, otherwise I would have chosen to take lunch there. Nonetheless, their soft serve ice cream at ground floor was outstanding - and I had lost count of the number of soft serves that I had taken throughout the trip...
And the standalone pop-corn stall just next to the park was pretty decadent too..
I think we probably spent close to 4 hours here (inclusive of time at a complimentary kids indoor playground). After that, we just went off to the Softbank Sapporo Factory, which had been revamped into a shopping mall - some nice deco, but nothing noteworthy of in my opinion. We were only looking for a place for some afternoon tea.
After night fall, we went on to the underground shopping mall, and found an outlet for the famous kinotoya bake cheese tart
and carried on to Susukino before settling down on a ramen shop for dinner, and finally making a 2nd trip to the illumination display again at Odori park, before retiring for the day
Day 8 (last day in Hokkaido)
Shopping day! Well, at least I had to buy some stuff back for mei mei.
Walked to the JR Tower, and the sun was just behind us in the morning, which yielded one of my favourite shot of the trip - the shadows of Daddy and son holding hands in the snow
After a long internal struggle by Ryan on whether he should buy the UFO catcher toy, or the vending machine toy, we eventually ended up buying both 2 large toys, with Daddy getting worried on whether he will be able to carry all of these luggage single handedly to the airport
Well, Daddy will always find a way to pack all the luggage isn't it...
Took the train back to CTS airport with some time to spare, as the airport itself has a couple of pretty new attractions as well.
Royce chocolate factory - where we went on another shopping spree to buy chocolate gifts for his teachers
And we eventually chose to go into Hello Kitty land instead of Doraemon land, due to the limited time left for the tour. Pretty good choice as we were the only ones in the theme park and had the whole place to ourselves. Though it was just an elaborate photo-taking session with various Country-themes
After the check in, there wasn't any additional checks on the hand-carry luggage, and I see almost everyone carrying oversized hand-carry onboard. So we continued unabated with the snack buying in the departure hall. Once onboard, Lady Luck smiled on us and left the 3rd seat in our row empty, and Ryan got to lie down to sleep on my lap on the flight back to SG.
Final thoughts
Even though there were trying times during this trip, where Ryan just didn't want to eat despite not consuming much food (he actually lost weight over the trip), and I had scolded him numerous times for that, his body language told me that he was really enjoying himself throughout the entire trip, and true to that, he continued to express that this was the best time of his life on numerous occasions throughout 2018.
I made a promise to Ryan that I'll bring him back to visit Hokkaido again someday, and true to promise, that we will be making a return together with Mummy and Mei mei at the end of 2018.
Hope that our Round 2 will be as fascinating as the first trip!
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