Chasing After Rainbows

As the actual day comes closer, and with electronics ready, how would it be like under actual use? In this case, it would also mean how convent (or troublesome) it would be to bring all the cables and chargers with me. Looking through the things I have, which were either bought for earlier trips or not originally planned for it at time of purchase, I could make multiple use of some to save up on additional chargers and cables. The only new thing bought for this trip was a 32GB microSD card with full-sized SD adaptor for my camera (and the unrelated iPhone 6 Plus). If my camera and the laptop I plan to bring uses a full sized SD card, why did I buy the microSD version instead, you may ask? Simple: using it on a camera phone. I know I mentioned iPhone earlier, but it is for my Android phone that serves as a (second) backup camera. It served me well during my Bangkok and the Paris section of Europe trip. Even if I did not end up bringing that phone around, at least I could...

(I should rename this series since I'm not just heading to Hokkaido only.) I have mentioned earlier in this series that I have dropped the Hakone section due to accommodation and cost issues, but there are other places that I have considered that did not make it to the planning stage that Hakdate did. While I do want to visit other countries, nothing seems to come to mind. As for within Japan, I did thought of (from west to east) Himeji, Nagoya, Nara, Niigata, Fukushima, Sendai, and Aomori. However, I found this to be too much to plan around, or I just couldn't see any place of interest in there. In any case, it's kind of too late to change my current plans without incurring cancellation charges. Flights are the most costly ones to cancel or change as those are paid in full instead of as a deposit.

A laptop. Deciding to bring it is tricky because it adds weight to my travelling bag and being one additional valuable item to worry about, but yet there are things that I can't do with alternative choices. Here are my choices: Smartphone – Use it for all my internet needs, including using Wi-Fi. This is what I had done on my travels so far, and even used it to book a flight from Venice to London Gatwick. Screen is too small for things that are not optimised. Mobile data roaming overseas is expensive, and getting mobile data of that country is troublesome. Tablet PC – I don't have one and, depending on the operating system it runs on (Windows RT vs iOS / Android) and the hardware features it has, it's could as well just be a smartphone with a larger screen. It does likely to have something called USB On-The-Go (OTG), but I don't want to carry an extra cable or adaptor. Also, I can't do any quick and productive writing with on-screen keyboards. Hostel PCs – This...

As part of any planning, there would be changes to plans. Additions to it, and of course, removal of some. I mentioned on twitter and part 2 of this series that I would be adding places to visit between Tokyo and Hakodate. These are Osaka and Hiroshima, with side trips from these two cities. I know that I have visited Osaka before, but since I was based in Kyoto, an hour to get between Kyoto and Osaka, and with many places in Kyoto planned, it's difficult to add places in Osaka to visit that, in retrospect, there were more places in Osaka (and a viewing area in Kobe) that I did not visit, so being based in Osaka this time, and staying there longer, would give me more room. (The real reason for duration being to fill up most of the gap.) There may be a chance that I would visit Kyoto again, but only for the Fushimi Inari shrine and Ginkakuji. Both of which I had visited before on previous visit, but I did not "exit" properly for one because I found myself lost from go...

No one became aware of this as it happened until there was a large deviation when data was being gathered for the population census of the year after it happened, or people noticing the absence of the elderly, or an unusually high number of schoolgirls that replaced them. Indirectly, the number of deaths from age-related illnesses has dropped too. Of course, a lot of time may have passed for this to be noticeable. These transformed people had also been genetically modified to seem as if they actually the daughter of any random couple, as well as the memories of the people who knows either the new or old selves. This is technically still going on today, but the difference being everyone remembering who they were. The earliest knowns report of it happening was from my aunt, whom she claims that a man she saw on the train transforming in front of her , or suddenly having a sister she never had before living with her. It is difficult for me to use her words as an official eyewitness acco...

Flights and hotels. When should you book? If your trip involves the two together, choose the flight first if you hadn't pick specific dates or duration of travel. The reason is that flight fares vary a lot on a day-to-day basis and you would have more flexibility, especially if the flights are at the start and the end of the trip. If travelling through various cities, you may also want to check if a one-way ticket to your first city and another one-way ticket to your last city would be cheaper than having a return ticket to one of the cities. Don't forget to include the cost of getting to the airport itself! What time your flight arrives and departs would also determine if you should save/spend on a night at the hotel. Some flights fly more than once a day, some only a few times a week, with the latter giving you less flexibility. If your flight arrives quite close to midnight, local time, where transport out of the airport may have ended service for the day, or have you ...

Being the northernmost part of Japan also means it is colder there. Obviously a lot colder than Onikawa, which is considered the Hawaii or Florida of Japan. Winter in Tokyo is not that cold where seeing it covered in a blanket of snow itself is rare. While I have been to cities further up north, which were the cities of London and Paris that I visited last year, the season was obviously the wrong one to expect to see snow: May to June. (Just to let you know the other extreme of what I've been through, I have stepped to the outdoors of Quatar's Doha airport, which was very warm.) I am unsure if the warm clothing I have in my wardrobe are sufficient. Might need to head out to buy if they are insufficient. The problem is that I don't know what to look out for other than the general temperature (-5℃ to +5℃) I think Hokkaido might have in early January, and clothing stores themselves not stating what temperatures they are designed for. A jacket for 20℃ weather is not the sam...