During the summer holidays in 2014, we made a trip to Hokkaido, Japan. Our first stop was in Hakodate, Hokkaido for one day before we headed to Sapporo. From Tokyo all the way to Hokkaido we took “shinkansen”, a bullet train. There is a whole another post to be written on our fun ride on different trains with JR Passes. The very first day in Hakodate was chilly even though it was already the end of June. Hot drinks at Starbucks in Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse area in Hakodate defrosted our freezing bodies. I loved how the interior of the Starbucks in Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse was decorated with a port theme.
I’m finally getting to my photos I’ve taken this summer. It took me a long time to get back to the blogging routine. Thank you so much to those readers who left me sweet comments on my instagram or Facebook page. Your words meant a lot to me and made me want to come back to blogging.
I feel like I’m not fully back yet. I had gone away from blogging for over two months. The summer time when I took a break from our expat life with a fabulous help at home and returned to the reality where I had to do everything on my own was a good wake-up call and eye-opening experience for me. During the summer, at the end of the day I had no juice to face my computer to blog or edit my photos. I was done mentally and physically. At the same time, it was great that I lived my life. I removed my blog filter and enjoyed every moment of my time with my family and friends without looking through my camera lens. It was needed and appreciated.
Here are my instagram photos which I took at the Starbucks in Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse area in Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan.
Our trip to Hokkaido was an absolutely gem. It was just what we needed.
Now I have to work on more photos.
Before that, though, I have to reevaluate how I want to balance my life with blogging.
Nice photos!! I love them!
Because of this blog, I got inspired and transferred my blog to wordpress.com, Main reason was that I don’t need to update my blog for a long time. We have priorities, right?
The former Japanese blog I used to write was in goo, and they delete the blog if you don’t access for how many months (I don’t know the exact period). It’s supposed to be good, since they don’t need to store data of blogs abundant, but I was a bit pressured. And they are both in blogger.
I have 2 other blogs in English, one is all about cooking but it’s more or less for my kids who don’t want to learn how to cook, so I decided to leave recipes there, and one about parenting mostly for Filipino parents. So I want to keep my Japanese blog simple, to record the events of my daily experiences. Blogpost is so much easier to use compared to blogger.
I’ve never been to Hokkaido. Right now, we all plan to go back to Europe again. Our 5 weeks in Spain and France was so much fun. My elder kids and my mom who lives in Tokyo traveled to Hokkaido last December (Hakodate and Sapporo). They enjoyed the trip so much! But I got so used to the life here in the Philippines, and Japan was not friendly when I wanted to enroll my youngest (8 that time) to something like swimming or gymnastic. They don’t have special consideration and I need to pay the enrollment fee which is like a month tuition, so even for 8 swimming lesson, it was like 25,000yen. And because my daughter got sick, we didn’t even consume. They only want long term customer, and no accommodation for short term. Public school simply rejected straightforward. And I don’t have much friends in Japan. In Europe, we stayed in farm, and my youngest enjoyed working in farm, horse back riding, mingled with other children even they don’t understand each other. So much fun for her. And it’s easier to rent a house and cook your own meal there. Wi-fi is everywhere too.
balancing blog and life, yes, I know what you mean!
Thank you so much for your comment! I just visited your blog and your blog is fabulous! I know what you mean about places not being so friendly to the short term visitors in Japan. The longer I stay outside of Japan, the more I feel like a stranger when I go home to visit. My kids went to a public school in Tokyo for 2 weeks during this past summer and it was very welcoming and the teachers were great with the kids in the immersion program. I’m sorry that the school in Japan you tried to enroll rejected your application for your children. That’s horrible. Europe sounds great! I’m waiting for my kids to grow up a bit more so that we can all remember the time we spend there. I would love to see your two other blogs, too, if you would not mind sharing! You should list your two other blogs under “Blogroll”.
It’s great to see you back in the blogging world but I totally understand what you mean about balancing it with your real life. With cranes and clovers (the blog I shared with my sisters) I was running everything and there was also all the social media sites to update. It was getting to be too much because I wanted to make sure that a lot of my posts had to do with culture and bilingualism. There was also the pressure of posting content because my sisters don’t post as much. And so, I took a break for a few months and we ultimately decided to take a break from our shared blog. But in the end, I realized that I do like blogging and sharing photos–when I feel like it. And that’s why I started my own blog. It’s funny though, once I started my own space, I felt like writing more. It’s strange. But I don’t think I’ll ever post on a schedule. Tekitouni, sukinatokini is my motto 😉
PS. I really enjoyed your Instagram posts from your trip to Japan 🙂
It’s so nice to see you here! It always makes me smile to see your comment! I go through phases where I have lots of energy and motivation to write and then at other times, I loose the momentum and gets too tired to write, which was this past summer. Once a wheel is out, it’s hard to put it back on, sort of thing for me with blogging. Basically I’m a big time procrastinator! I used to get nervous when I had not not written in a while, but during this past summer, for the first time I didn’t get anxious or nervous. I could care less about my blog! I was like, what got in me? I felt good about not blogging and I justified it as my heart being fulfilled (or more like I was simply too busy!). I like your motto. Even though I say that I have a schedule, it seems that I write tekitouni & sukinatokini when it comes to blogging. I’m a big tekito person. ;P We must get along very well!!