First order of business upon landing at the airport: stock up on Lipton Milk Tea at Lawson, my water for the trip.
My family and I ate at this cozy hotpot restaurant, where we had ourselves some seafood hotpot. The place was completely barren; there was only one other table occupied. Two if you count one of the staff handling some papers. Snow began to fall heavily while we ate, what a great way to start the trip! My restless nephew kept himself busy while waiting for everyone else to finish their meal. Afterwards, we bought ourselves some soft-served ice cream. Blueberry for me.
Traditional Japanese toilets, nyehe. How ominous looking.
As a travel agent, my mom organized the trip as part family vacation and part familiarization trip. A lot of time was spent inside a bus as we moved from one area to the next. Sometimes it would take up to three hours to get to the next destination, but I don't think I slept once on that bus. The snow kept me busy. There were times I'd stick my camera out of the window to take a photo of the scenery and pull back quickly as if I were shooting bullets at some zombies, then quickly hiding to reload. Although in reality, I was hiding to prevent frostbite. I'd love to open my window and feel the icy breeze on my face. You can't get that in the Philippines. I was like a dog sticking its head out the window, but that didn't matter. It did not matter at all.