Our itinerary for our 15 day trip to Japan starting next week is – for the most part – firmed up finally, and we’re just now re-checking routes to get from place to place, and making movement notes to visit the different winter illumination places around Sapporo. And of logistics:
We’ve picked up three traveler Data SIM cards for the two smartphones and the tablet coming along for the trip. I’ve become a big fan of these, as opposed to WIFI routers or getting data SIM cards at airports.
Winter gear has been all acquired. I noticed that this section at Decathlon Singapore Lab was perpetually packed with people every time we went by: winter places are clearly popular tourist locations for Singaporeans!
Day trips to Asahiyama and Lakes Shikotsu and Toya have been booked, alongside also the JR Hokkaido Pass. We decided to go with the 5 day JR pass @ SGD275/adult since the price for it was finally the same as the 4 day flex version, and we’d be making use of the pass on consecutive days anyway. The rest of the passes: the JR Tokyo 3 Day Wide pass, Hakone 2-day pass, and Otaru Aquarium pass we’ll have to get onsite.
As for accommodations; we’ll be staying at three different properties: Hotel Mystays Haneda for the front and end segments of our trip in Tokyo, Vessel Inn Sapporo Nakajima and Smile Hotel Hakodate for the Sapporo and Hakodate segments respectively. As a rule, we try not to change hotels when the kids are with us, and all three hotels are reasonably close to our transit points. Mystays Haneda is a short 8 minute away by train or limousine bus from Haneda International Airport, and Smile Hotel Hakodate is just beside JR Hakodate station. Vessel Inn is a little further from JR Sapporo station, but the room size and quality of accommodation were the most attractive against the asking rates compared to the other hotels we checked out in the city. We also had to amend our lengths of stay after dropping the Niseko segment earlier during our planning in October. Smile Hotel Hakodate readily offered the same rate for the extension, but Vessel Inn did not – asking that we pay a significantly higher rate for the extra day, despite that we’re already staying a length seven nights. Bleh – that’s a minus in my early appraisal of the property already.
What about photographic gear? Well, the downside of having so much camera bodies and lenses is that I can’t make up my mind what to bring. Unlike last year’s Taiwan trip where we pretty much drove from place to place, we’re relying on public transportation this time round, which makes me wary of carrying gear that’ll weigh me down. And there’s also the cold conditions to think of, and how gear will react to it! For instance – the capacitive touchscreens on smartphones won’t work well when we’re wearing gloves, which means video capture on the phone will be a lot harder than it normally is. The only gear that I’m sure will be coming is the Sony A73 and ever trusty FE 24-105mm f4, and the DJI Osmo Pocket. The Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 is still in consideration, but it sure would be lovely to do portrait shots of the kids playing in snow. Or perhaps portraiture duties should go to the FE 85mm f1.8 this trip?! My shoulders certainly will thank me for it! As for the pocket camera: I’m undecided between the Canon G7X II or the new Olympus E-PL9 with the Panasonic 14mm f2.5G attached to it. The Canon G7X II is of course a lot more versatile and benefits from in-body USB charging, but the E-PL9 is just way more fun to use.
Arrrgghh – first world problems. In any case, more to come next week when we begin our series of posts covering visitations!
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