what do you see?

A rainy day, and a little chilly, but somehow it still feels springlike. This afternoon we'll continue the tidy-up operation.

(You'll be very pleased to know that Nana has updated her page again, with some interesting new entries)

Cleaning cleaning cleaning. We did a lot today, from 11 this morning til now. Most of it is fighting the curse of Japan, "kabi" (aka mould). We didn't expect so much of it up in Hokkaido, as it's not so humid up here as down in Tokyo. But still it comes. With a vengeance. Anyway, we're going to reward ourselves with yakiniku in a bit, so all the hard work is actually very worthwhile!
(The yakiniku was great BTW, again at "Nankouen" in Susukino)

The holiday season begins...today is Green(ery) Day, and Tuesday-Thursday next week are all holidays, which means next week is designated Golden Week - the time of sky high travel prices and crowded tourist destinations all over Japan. We're planning to do some relaxing around Sapporo (hopefully the weather will be good enough to start going to the park and Odori again) and also some spring cleaning...and it's very sad to say that we're also looking forward to a new 100 yen store / drug-store opening very soon, just around the corner from us...it's been in the pipeline for much too long.

Please don't give up on the showcase...it's not updated often, but coincidentally I just happened to update it a moment ago!

Also, I just watched the maiden flight of the new Airbus A380; scarey. There's a video clip on this page of the BBC news site at the moment.

So, a seemingly sweltering 16C this morning, and sunny. I spent a few hours schlopping around various electronics shops looking at small notebooks (the Sharp Mebius range looks pretty good) , and wireless network stuff. Then, today's lunch out was at a Mexican place possibily called "Sombrero Mexicano" in the hive of restaurants in Paseo - it was pretty good and relatively authentic I reckon.
After the "Mexican power-lunch set" (enchillada, some salad, couple of bits of cajun chicken, rice, drink) and then slogging all the way back home again on foot (stopping to unfocusedly browse a CD shop) under now heavy, bright white overcast skies, I was almost sleeping on my feet. Due a last minute cancellation I have no more official "work" to do today, so I feel like a bit of a slacker.

Well, it is snowing/hailing pretty hard this evening, covering the roads and roofs AGAIN! Taxi drivers seem to be taking it hard, and deciding to drive like maniacs to compensate.

On a lighter note, and at risk of you all saying you knew about this 5 years ago...oh well I knew about it 10 years ago...well I knew about it when I was 1 year old...I knew it when I was 1 day old...I knew about it before I was born...(that kind of thing), I found a Cafe Latte kitkat the other day, also apparently made with Hokkaido milk! No pictures this time though.

Well at least someone appreciates me! Just trying to keep the conversation going you know...

Did you know that a huge slab of ice is currently hitting "the world's biggest ice tongue" ?
I didn't even know such tongues existed until now.

By the way, Nana has written a lot of diary entries recently, all now online on her page!

So, I hope you like the three "sakura" pictures below. It was a very warm sunny day, and I managed to see a lot before the large study groups of photographers and artists arrived. Back to reality here in Sapporo, and it's snowing a little today...yes, really it is.

A pink variety 

I think this is the pride of the park, a very large cherry tree 

Shinjuku Gyoen 

It got really nice here yesterday, very sunny and quite warm. Perfect for seeing cherry blossoms, so I headed out early and went to Shinjuku Gyoen. It was really good. Although the recent rain had taken down a lot of the blossoms, somehow that made it even nicer. Each tree had a carpet of blossoms underneath it. Of course I took pictures, which I'll post when I get back home (although obviously not all of them).

I'm in Tokyo this week by the way, and it's cold and rainy here! It's just not right, it's supposed to be warmer than Sapporo, but...oh well, it's kind of nice to back here for a while. I forgot how the place smells a little like tatami and ramen.

Well after quite a bit of legwork we've overcome one hurdle, and got the all important stamp in the passport which says that our (self-sponsored) visa extension is pending...this means we can relax and not worry about the expiry date (next week!) until they get back to us. It also means we've been out here almost three years, which sounds quite long when you think about it!

Here's a brief log of our Hong Kong/Macau trip (I'm doing it bit-by-bit):

Day 1 (Sat.) - we arrived in Hong Kong at around 9pm as usual, after a really good flight with Cathay Pacific. I can't express enough how good that airline is, food, service, entertainment and generosity with drinks. A big difference from a certain major US airline which we used (for the last time maybe!) for our Christmas trip. Anyway, we got a shuttle bus to the hotel, which was in the Western area of Hong Kong island, a little out of the way but good for us as we'd never been to that area before. Although there were only about 10 passengers getting on the large bus, it took over 10 minutes for them to organise who should get on first, who's luggage should be put on first etc.! All we did the first night was go to a nearby 7-11 for some snacks and rest.

Day 2 (Sun.) - it was a bit cloudy and humid, as we expected. So we boarded the tram to Admiralty, and then walked up to Hong Kong Park. Among a lot else there's a fairly interesting Museum of Teaware there, and a really cool and very large, walkthrough aviary. We saw a lot of birds there, unsurprisingly. After that we made our way past the Victorian cathedral (unfortunately it was too late to join the Easter service) and then kind of back on ourselves and round the houses, to the botanical gardens. Here we horrified ourselves by watching the various orangutans and howler monkeys (not our favourite beasts) and managed to find the jaguar. By this time we were well overdue for our first lunch, so we trekked into SoHo and then Lan Kwai Fong to find a dim-sim restaurant. This was the first point at which we found that a lot of places had suddenly changed even since the newest Lonely Planet guide was published...(the quite famous China Lan Kwai Fong at 17-22 Lan Kwai Fonghas now become ManchuManchu in case you're interested) but it was good anyway! After that, we trudged down to a bus station somewhere near the Airport Express station and found the bus to Stanley...the journey there was scenic as described in many guides, but also WELL SCAREY!!! Imagine being upstairs at the front of a double-decker driven very very quickly over steep hills, around very tight blind bends with sheer drop-offs, with a lot of oncoming traffic including other similarly driven double-deckers...Stanley itself is a sometimes run-down but interesting little town with the famous Stanley Market, a couple of quiet beaches and restaurants. We helped a group of high-school students with some kind of survey before heading back (cue the same journey in reverse plus rain) for dinner in Soho. This time we discovered that a place we visited last time, Shang-hi! (38 Elgin Street, Central), which is mentioned in all the books, had transmogrified into a Thai place called Chedi Thai. We went there anyway, and it wasn't half bad. After that we had time to catch the happy hour at Dublin Jack, which is a good, and really friendly Irish pub a bit lower down from Soho, just off the escalator. Ah, Tetley's, it had been a long time!

Day 3 - coming soon, I'm tired now though.

Well, the mythical double-figures (temperature) might have finally been reached today in Sapporo. It certainly felt warm earlier today.