Journal #5 - Hokkaido (Significant Event)


I'M FINALLY DONE WITH MY JOURNALS.

Picture this: You’re standing in a grassy field, surrounded by the softly bobbing heads of dandelions and daisies. As a cool breeze blows, gently ruffling your hair, dandelion seeds detach themselves from the flowers and drift away, going wherever the wind carries them. The sky is a beautiful forget-me-not blue, and in the distance you can see the distinct outlines of snow-capped mountains.

This may sound like a scene from a book, but let me assure you that such natural beauty exists. Believe it or not, the first paragraph was describing what you would observe if you were driving on any highway in Hokkaido, Japan and happened to step out of the car to take a breather or stretch your legs for a while.

I’m not trying to promote or advertise the country, but Hokkaido is a place of indescribable beauty, filled with a sense of tranquility wherever you go. In Hokkaido, you can:
- Find sprawling acres of land filled with all kinds of beautiful summer flowers.
- Drive by the coast and be greeted by the sight of hundreds of seagulls noisily making the rocks their home.
- Savour the unique taste of lavender ice-cream and yubari melon, specialties that Hokkaido offers. (Though I have to admit, the freshness of the food in Hokkaido makes everything a must-try!)
- Walk through the national parks and marvel at how exquisitely perfect everything looks. There, you experience the beauty of nature in its purest form.
- Never want to leave.

I’m afraid that I’ve only ever been to Hokkaido in the summer, but what I’ve seen and experienced has left me regretting leaving every time.

I’d never heard of Hokkaido until I was in Primary 5, which was when my parents brought me there for the very first time on a fly-and-drive travel package. We were all enthralled when we stepped out of the airport – the air was so fresh and cool, so different from the warm, humid environment of Singapore that we were used to. Having spent 11 years of my life in sunny Singapore, I couldn’t keep myself still for too long, getting excited over the smallest things I saw – That was a daisy, wasn’t it, and I was sure I just saw an actual robin fly past, and was that a dandelion? I couldn’t help it; I had honestly never seen such things before. Everything was so new to me, and I was actually seeing things that I’d only ever read about before.

For my dad, a photography enthusiast, Hokkaido was full of photo opportunities. There were countless times when we would stay in a certain area for up to three hours, mostly because he wanted to get a good shot of the seagulls flying around, or the people hard at work harvesting kelp, or maybe he wanted to explore the area a little more to look for certain photo angles that he liked. My mum and I knew better than to bother him when he was busy looking for the perfect picture.

For my mum, it was all about enjoying the trip in general. She was no fan of sushi or sashimi (although she once ordered raw scallops by accident and had to finish everything), but even she could appreciate how fresh the food was. She loved the little trinkets that we could find in shops, and those became some of our favourite souvenirs from Hokkaido.

For me, I was pretty much amazed by everything around me. Scallops bigger than the palm of my hand! Crabs with a legspan longer than my arms could reach! Wild foxes and deer that could be found along the highways every once in a while, though they were usually too shy to come any closer to us, fields of poppies with their crimson heads gently nodding in the breeze, bales of hay resting in huge grassy fields… I was in awe.

I think it’s accurate enough to say that my parents were rather sad to leave Hokkaido. After all, we had some amazing memories there. For me, I never wanted to leave. I actually teared up in the plane back to Singapore. It’s not that I hate Singapore, as some people have accused me of; it’s just that after visiting such a beautiful place, a part of it will always stay with you. In this world, there is one place that we will visit and never truly leave for the rest of our lives. For example, my friend lived in Canada for a year and he swears that it is the one place he will never truly leave.

For me, this place is Hokkaido.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What's Your Patronus?

Image
What's a patronus? According to Professor Lupin, it "is a kind of Anti-Dementor - a guardian which acts as a shield between you and the Dementor". It basically conjures an incarnation of the caster's innermost positive feelings, such as joy or hope, and is a weapon rather than a predator of souls. Patronuses shield their conjurors from Dementors, and can even drive them away. They can also be used to send messages. Well. I've always wondered what my patronus would be. Once upon a long-ass time ago when I was in Primary School, I'd have said that my patronus was a dog, mostly because my favourite animal back then was a dog (of course, that was way before I realised exactly how awkward I am around animals). Then a few years after that when I was in Secondary School, I would have said that my patronus was a tortoise or a turtle, for reasons that I'd prefer not to say. And then after I graduated from NAS, I asked myself again what my patronus co...
Read more

Red.

Image
I always dye my hair red - I started dyeing it two years ago after I completed my internship because I felt that it was time, I was ready, and I haven't dyed it a different colour ever since. Of course, constant dye jobs do nothing for the hair, which is why I allowed mum to nag me into doing a henna job on my hair instead of the usual bright red I ask of the hairstylist. The result is that my hair now looks orangey instead of red, which is what I expected but nevertheless found myself incredibly disappointed with. (The irony is that I never have such complaints about my hair colour whenever my red fades to orange within the first two weeks of the fresh dye.) Tsuki-kun told me that he felt the orange suited me better since the red was too bright, but I can't quite bring myself to agree with him. See, the thing about red is that I chose the colour myself - it was the colour I was absolutely sure that I wanted for myself, and I never regretted the colour. Sur...
Read more

Break The Mirror. Please.

Image
I don't want to look at myself in the mirror anymore. I don't want to see my reflection, I don't want to see that ugly girl staring back at me. Those pleading eyes. She wants me to do something, anything, just so she doesn't look so ugly. She's fat and ugly. Hideous, both inside and outside. All she wants is to stop thinking. Because every time she does, the knife inches ever closer to her heart. She will never be as perfect as her . She just wants to stop looking. Shut up. Just shut up. Stop comparing. I know I'm ugly. Stop thinking. Leave me alone! She wants to stop seeing all the fat bits, all the wobbly jiggly bits that she aches to just cut off. Just grab a knife and slice them all off and she won't be so FAT . She won't be so UGLY . She just wants to kill herself. Please?
Read more