Our Hokkaido Adventure Day 8

This is what the campsite looked like on Sunday morning.

Sunday 30th June, Sapporo

Camping next to a clock and thermometer was novel, but the boys enjoyed reporting the temperatures as they went up and down.

I didn't write anything in my notes about this day at the time, so I'm going by memory. Unfortunately I also didn't take many photos, I think I ran out of camera battery power (my new camera is hilarious, the message is "battery is exhausted"). So, I've mostly used old photos for this post.

This day we headed up to Sapporo for church. We joined the congregation where we served after language school, from April 2003 to August 2004. We were surprised how many remembered us and how warm a welcome we received. Again, I wish I'd taken photos!

Our apartment was the one in the very middle. It was
wonderfully warm and overlooked a small park.

Members of Hiraoka Church sometime in 2003.

Hiraoka Gospel Christian Church

After church we went shopping, stocking up for our drive north the next day. I also insisted on buying some more warm clothing. I'd been a bit shocked by the coldness overnight on Friday and wanted to be prepared, we were headed north, after all.

It's amazing going back to a geographical location that you once lived in. It stirs up memories that you'd thought you'd forgotten. There were bits I remembered and bits I didn't, actually it was a little scary how little I remembered about how to get around. Of course the boys remembered very little. Our older boys were two and five years old when we left, and our youngest wasn't born yet.

We shopped at my old favourites: Ralse Mart for groceries and Homac for household goods like mosquito spray. I miss these two stores down in Tokyo.

When we finally got back to the campsite, many campers had packed up and left already, so on our third night there we had it almost all to ourselves again.

After dinner we hiked up the hill to the main centre for our showers showers (this seems a standard location at campsites here) and enjoyed some vending-machine ice cream for dessert. Yum!

This little boy on my lap is turning 11 in just under 2 months. Wow!

Here's a cooking class that I was involved in in 2004. I wished I could have led it, but my Japanese cooking vocab. wasn't that great back then. They're making my Shepherd's Pie Recipe.