Hokkaido Photos

Going to Hokkaido on a late-Autumn season was a conscious decision. Admittedly, we missed the snow-white winter beauty or the flower-fielded summer romance. What we got was cool weather, fun tour group, and a 7-day journey that will stay with me for a long time to come.

I'm actually not too bothered about getting great scenery or great food. What I look for in vacations is "experience": it can be good, bad, hot, cold, beautiful, ugly, quiet, noisy, happy, sad. But what really happens in vacations is that you experience something different from your routine life, and that's good enough for me. The more important question is: how much are you willing to pay for the experience to make it unforgetably meaningful?

Going to Japan is a premium experience, compared to, say, Bangkok. And for a lower price, you get to enjoy similar experience by visiting Korea. And for an even lower price, Taiwan is a great alternative.

Before it all becomes a distant memory, I quickly reviewed the vacation photos and picked the more significant images to share online.

Don't you feel like sitting at the chair whole day?

A mountain path to Hell's Valley

A tree stands alone

Reflections

The tranquil view of Lake Toya. It's so easy to take great pictures. All you need is a camera and be there.

Sunsetting lavender fields

I decided to use flickr to host these images because flickr seems easier to present my images in a journal fashion, allowing me to write my thoughts on the images and tag notes against specific areas of the images, so that you get to appreciate the images as I see them.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chestertan/sets/72157608470920788/

A more comprehensive and non-descript presentation of the 300+ images I choose to show can be found in the following site. Just in case you are interested to see a more complete picture of my vacation.
http://photosg.com/v/hokkaido/ (dead link)

I love this photo taken by my wife using the Fuji F31fd, who caught me in the act of photography. A proof that great photos need not require expensive cameras. Thanks, love.

Back in Singapore

Just a quick note that I am back in Singapore. 7 full 24-hour days of visual experience for me. I left home last Sun on 19 Oct 3.30am and returned back home this morning at 3am.

I brought the Nikon D90 review unit to capture the beauty of Hokkaido, thanks to T3 Magazine Singapore. The DSLR performed well, although it lacks many hardware buttons compared to D300. Image-wise, the D90 default processing looks better, and the 18-105mm f3.5-5.6 VR kit lens is sharp enough for casual photography. Shooting at ISO 1600 produces equally great images as long as you don't compare with lower ISO settings. The video function is useful, but it's not easy to zoom, focus, and start/stop the recording handheld. There is definitely room for improvement in how DSLRs handle video recording.

I'll post some photos and write more about the trip after I finish sorting the 1300+ photos I took with the D90.

NATAS Travel faire

Today I applied half day to go to NATAS Travel Fair to book a tour package. Angie and I had already decided to head for Hokkaido to check out the beauty (or lack) of North Japan. October is probably not the most scenic time to go: it neither is the flower season nor the Winter season. But Angie wanna go to a temperate country, and I have, as usual, no strong opinions on where we should tour.

We drove to Singapore Expo, and had a hard time finding a parking lot. Never fails to amaze me the number of Singaporeans who don't work during office hours, or apply leave to sign up a tour package in order to utilise more leave.

The more shocking part is yet to come.

We strolled to Hall 4, saw the queue to enter into the travel fair. We followed the queue, and it led us to the end of Hall 6. Anyone who've been to Singapore Expo will know how big the place is. The queue went from the end of Hall4 to the end of Hall 6. Walking alone takes about 5 minutes, letting alone queuing.

We struggled for a moment, and decided to give up on entering the Hall. Fortunately, there was also a Watson Warehouse Sale at Hall 3, so we popped by and bought some stuff. Then we bought a drink at Burger King and sat there for a moment. We saw the queue move quite smoothly and rethought our decision. Then I told her I'd go and queue up, and if I reached where Burger King was within 15 minutes, we'll go into NATAS.

It took me less than 5 to achieve that.

Angie then joined me on the queue.

Then the queue seemed to stop.

(Hmmm...)

After 15 minutes or so, we finally got into the Hall. But more queue to come - admission fee. There were 2 queues: pay by cash or MasterCard. Pay by MasterCard and enjoy $1 off, so we went for the MasterCard queue.

OK finally we're in. We headed straight to the Big Players. First stop, ASA Holidays. We got a queue number and was served after 4 numbers. We found that the 7-day Hokkaido package is actually 4 days at Hokkaido tour and 2 days at Narita. And the package turned out to be over S$2800.

Then we checked out CTC Holidays. The tour itinerary is better, and we get options of a 6D6N by JAL or 7D6N Northwest Airlines. With JAL, we fly on midnight, arrive Narita in the morning, and transfer to Hokkaido. With NW, we fly in the morning, arrive Narita in the afternoon, stay overnight, next day transfer to Hokkaido, thus the additional day. Ironically, NW package is cheaper at below S$2500.

We proceeded to check out SA Tours. We were presented with an itinerary that is generic from Oct to March, and seemed to showcase the Winter season more. Also, the day flight is more expensive than the overnight flight, and the quoted package is about S$2600.

We decided to go for CTC because:
1. It's the cheapest.
2. We liked the itinerary a little better.
3. Our previous Japan tour is also with CTC.
4. The sales guy is an experienced tour leader to Hokkaido which added to the convincing factor.

In order to enjoy freebies from the credit card companies, we paid $4000 for the deposit. Competition among the card companies is tight, but I decided to pay by UOB and got the Philips DVD player. It's not exactly a high-end model, so I really wondered if it's really more expensive than the luggage bag that is redeemable with just $2000. After redeeming it, I then realised that I am not eligible to go for the lucky dip (every $800 spend) once I redeemed the gifts. I walked away wondering if I could have won a better item from the dip. Then again, I was never the kind with luck. Last Sunday I spent enough at Centrepoint to earn a lucky dip and got myself some hair salon discount voucher.

Well I guess the UOB offer is still better than OCBC, which apparently gave away some cooker for a $4000 spend. But I think Citibank's the best: a 3-piece breakfast set consisting of a coffee-maker, toaster and juicer. Looks expensive, though I still prefer the DVD player for its practicality.

Truthfully-speaking, we are not well-prepared for this purchase. On hindsight, we should have done more research on the right places to visit in Hokkaido, as well as comparing the freebies of each credit card companies.

But after all that we had gone through, I'm glad we got ourselves a good deal and will be looking forward to see what Hokkaido has to offer.