At this special family time of year, making a holiday trip with kids is a beautiful thing to enjoy happiness of family. To make things different from former years, my husband and I decided to go abroad and take the kids somewhere different and interesting for the holiday. Contending with my husband for several times, finally we determined that the destination is Sapporo, Japan, since none of us have been to Japan before, and also it is a better place to avoid the rushing crowds.
Before the trip, we thought over what we should bring with us to give our kids a wonderful travel. My husband and I got a common sense that bringing some Disney Pixar movies was essential, because in that way, our 5 years old son and his 2 years older brother would be able to enjoy their favorite Cartoon characters when we staying in hotel. In the past several years, we have purchased lots of Blu-ray Disney movies for the two kids, like Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Monsters, Inc., The Lion King, etc., but carrying the crispy Blu-ray discs was really inconvenient, thus we decided to backup them on our laptop in a smaller compressed form. We tried Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper, a program recommended by one of our friends. What I absolutely hated about the Disney Pixar movies was all the advertising they made you go through before you could even get to the menus. I was grateful for this little software, because it worked well to cut off all the advertising before the main movie, and compressed the movies to we wanted size and quality, so that we could set out our journey smoothly. (It has been proved that this decision is correct, because the two kids asked us for their Disney movies when rest in the hotel.)
Sapporo is a lovely city in Japan’s northernmost island, Hokkaido, in this season, it is cold and snowy, which is a good place to ski with family and do lots of other fun activities. My two kids are very exciting to have a snowball fight with Dad and Mom. Aside from the snow, we love especially the food here, like Sapporo Ramen, Soup Curry, fresh seafood such as salmon, sea urchin and crab, and another popular local specialty called jingisukan.
Sapporo Ramen and Soup Curry
Besides snow and food, the hotels and resorts in Sapporo are pretty affordable, and lots of historical buildings, and shopping malls and parks are located in Sapporo. The Former Hokkaido government office building, the Sapporo Clock Tower, the Hokkaido Shrine, and the Sapporo TV Tower are all Historic landmarks of Sapporo. All of these have shown us the totally different culture of Japan, and we like them, and like Sapporo.
Hokkaido Shrine Sapporo Clock Tower
So many interesting things to experience, so much delicious food to taste, and so special feeling to go shopping in Japan. My husband and I delighted secretly for that we have made a correct decision to bring our kids here to spend this happy family holiday. The Sapporo trip has been well worthwhile.
