Blank Doll returns.

I came, I saw, I ate. Ah, Hokkaido is good. As usual, I shall comment on my trip to soothe the homework-frayed nerves of the poor things who had to stay in Singapore to study for their exams. Sigh, tough luck.

First, let's talk about the physical place. The air was so fresh! There's something about the countryside that calms me, that makes me feel the sort of homely contentment which actually scares me. I wanted to be a spirit so I could stand a hundred feet above the mountains and the forests there. We take so much of nature for granted but here is a people who respect the land, whose hearts beat to the rhythm of nature. Hokkaido is a land of splendid fecundity. It bursts with the fruits of the earth, spread across her navel in careless abundance. I really liked the climate too! It was cold, cold enough for me. I think I thrived a little better there because of the fresh air and the chill. Everything was so fresh! Ah, you have to go there to know what's it like, to be in a land of rolling fields growing perfect vegetables and fruits, of cattle delivering the freshest milk, of mountains and seas that pamper the people with their gifts.

And hot springs which means ryokans with onsens. Oh the joys of bathing in a hot spring and then retiring to your room with chilled plum wine. Ahhh. Splendid. The Japanese have really thick skins I think since they can enter the pool as if it were nothing but warm water.

And supermarkets! We have such lousy supermarkets here. I love the freshness and the variety and the space. Going to Japan made me wish that Singapore had the same standard of living. I wouldn't mind if we had the same cost of living since we ARE converging on that, as long as I get bigger supermarkets and more air conditioned malls.

Enough about the land. Let's talk about food. Oh my goodness, I ate enough to have to work out everyday for the rest of the holiday and still not reverse the damage done. I drank like eight glasses of milk everyday because the milk there is unbelievably fresh. I ate three soft ice cream cones a day because dairy products there are divine. I ate a pack of yoghurt everyday. There was all that salmon. I ate kobe beef and nearly died. I ate toro sashimi and sushi at an actual Japanese sushi place. I ate ramen at a place the locals go to. I ate curry rice done the way only the Japanese can do it. Crabs. I ate crabs and then more crabs. Scallops thrice the size of those we get at home. Sweet prawns that aren't exported to Singapore. Chocolates. Tonnes and tonnes of the best confectionery and chocolates galore. Dark chocolates, individually made biscuits of chocolates sandwiched between wafers, chocolates infused with red tea extract, lavender chocolates, pralines, smooth gananches that melt in your mouth like butter. Gastronomic orgasms at every turn.

And the people. I love the people. I find the Japanese so sexy. The women with their perfect attires and their damn big eyes. Their lips touched by the sheen of lip gloss and their hair let down and slightly curled to face their face. The men with their strong features and clear eyes. I love the way they do everything with such courtesy and with such, I don't know, something we don't have. I didn't see a single example of rudeness anywhere. Where I would expect impatience or impudence in Singapore, none came save a pained grin or a bow and a smile. Not a single piece of litter on the floor yet strangely, no dustbins in sight.

In the end, I'm not sure what to make of the Japanese. I love their culture and the way everyone in society pays heed to some unwritten code of polite behaviour and comportment. I love their land. It pains me that we Chinese and the Japanese cannot get along since we are obviously brothers in more than one way. How do you reconcile this strange people? They are unfailingly polite yet massacred thousands in the world war. They're such nice social people, returning wallets with money inside and picking up the litter of others yet spawn murderers of the first order. Their land is at once nature unchained and the great bastion of technology and the effects of Man.

I guess I'll just have to go there again, won't I.

C'est tout.