Hokkaido is more known as a travel destination during winter season (December to February). For Filipinos, we visit the northern side of Japan to experience the thickest snow, wear our heaviest coats, and participate in snow activities like skiing, snowboarding, and even just to create a snowman and snow angel! 😁

The second popular seasons to visit Hokkaido is Spring-Summer, where you can see fields of flowers in full bloom either in Furano or Biei. Fall is often the least traveled months as people opt to go to main cities like Tokyo or Osaka.

On my third time in Hokkaido, there is still so much to see and do.

What I like about this trip is that I was able to experience new things, and even new things from sites that I have already been to before but in a different season. I still find it amusing that any changes of the colors of leaves, a drop in temperature, or the appearance of rain or clouds changes a whole place in its entirety. It's always as if it's my first time! I will always be a fan of the magic of four seasons.

Our winter in Japan trip was from February 14 to 17. We left the night of the 13th, and slept on the plane (Japan Airlines). It was around midnight when we stepped foot in Japan (Haneda International Airport), took the free airport shuttle to another airport terminal for another plane ride to the underexposed side of Japan. This is my kind of Valentine's! 💖

Would you believe, this trip is about 2 months in the making! I received the first email invitation while I was in Japan with my sister Cea around November last year. I felt a little sad that we were a bit too early for snow, and then suddenly I received an email from Japan Airlines inviting me to experience winter in Japan with them!! Napa-iling nalang talaga ako in awe, I will always be amazed with how God works. The timing is perfect, and all His plans and surprises are really the best. This media trip turned out to be one of the most unforgettable I ever had!

For my first blog post, I will try to explain why I prefer JAL's new MNL to Haneda flight, show the inflight meals they serve for vegetarians, and a few tips on how I survived this -10 to -20 trip without spending too much on winter clothes I won't even use back in Manila. It's going to be another loaded post, so enjoy! ❤

Merry Christmas guys! I still have about travel backlogs from this year, but iniisip ko nalang na at least there are so many stories yet to tell in this blog! Hopefully before the year ends, we are down to zero backlogs so we can start 2019 with new pages! 

Anyway, we're down to our last few hours in Sapporo, and honestly the days prior this Cea and I were  already running out of ideas. We wanted to do so many things but they wouldn't fit the time frame before our flight back to Tokyo. These other things include a visit to an onsen, a few more day-trips outside Sapporo, Mt. Moiwa, etc. But since we only had 3-4 hours to spare before we check out and ride the airport bus for our flight, we decided to just play it safe and visit one of the places I often see in Sapporo blogs: Shiroi Koibito Park and Ishiya Chocolate Museum. 

Ahhh again, when weeks passed by after a trip, my brain starts to take out some of the details which is very unfortunate as a blogger. So I will just try my very best to look back on this day to still make a comprehensive blog even with the delays!

Furano and Biei is a city and town in Hokkaido that traveller friends highly highly recommend. If you have time, budget, and energy to hop from one Hokkaido city to another, then you have to include Furano--and stay there for a night or two. I would have done so if not for time constraints and our huge maletas.

Furano / Biei are known for their lavender fields (Farm Tomita) with a wonderful view of the Mount Tokachi, the Blue Pond, and for their ski resorts. If you are into nature and the great outdoors, then make sure to visit Furano / Biei when you're on this side of Japan.

I am so excited to take you around Hokkaido's quaint harbor town of Otaru. ❤

When my sister Cea (the youngest) and I planned a trip to Japan by end of this year, specifically in its northernmost and coldest part called HOKKAIDO, we weren't thinking of movie locations (Kita Kita in Sapporo) or that we're in for dairies overload. We wanted to see more of the snow haha.