All good things come to an end some time and our Japan leg of the the production is no exception. Last night, we boarded our ANA flight to Singapore.

The previous day, we had visited the Sapporo Beer factory/Brewery and shopped in various massive shopping malls. One of these malls had a baby contest running, and the way these babies were made up was pretty funny to me! The iPhone has also made its mark on Japan, however I love some of the advertising graphics they use – this style is everywhere including street signs and the like.

The last couple of hours in Sapporo were interesting though. By 10am, we had our brunch at a small Raman Noodle shop on the outskirts of Sapporo. We had gone there when we first arrived, and I have to say they make a pretty mean Vegetable Raman soup (miso based).

Our flight was around midday and it just so happened that the Sapporo International Air show was happening right in front of us! From here we traveled to Tokyo for our connection.

After a bit of angst by the staff at ANA, they finally let me board a flight from Tokyo’s Narita Airport for Singapore. At 11PM we arrived!

Ok, nearly there! Here are the last of the images that describe what we have been up to for the last couple of days!

As promised, part 2 of my visual summery of Japan and the Hokkaido region.
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Today, we traveled back to Sapporo. Our journey through the region of Hokkaido is coming to an end, as the production of the Canon TVC is gearing to move back to Singapore. I thought I would post some of my other photos here as a visual summery of my experiences here. This will be part1

Another fantastic day comes to an end. We shot in so many interesting places. There is no doubt that the Hokkaido region is increadibly beautiful and very interesting to come and visit. As for our Canon tvc, we filmed more flowers, yellow fields with mountain vistas and ski fields! Time for dinner.

After shooting the sequence with the Girl, we traveled to yet another flower garden. I had some fun and drove a quad bike around for a bit. A reminder of things to come in Western Australia! Then we left to explore an active volcano called Taisetsuzan. Very cool and still smoken! On the way down the hill, I asked to stop to film some tall trees. Instead we found an increadible waterful with a budist preyer station. Next stop lunch!

We have just finished shooting the girl. The scene looked amazing with some beautiful flowers & mountain scenary. Having started quite early, the time now is 10AM, so we are now free to shoot more scenery shots.

The small girl was 5 years old and her name was Nico. Her mother, Mica was very helpful with the communications, however Nico understood english quite well!

After filming more Flowers and lakes, we drove back to Sapporo to the airport. There we collected the Agency and then drove a further 2hrs through some amazing countryside, to a place called Furano. This region is famous for it’s skiing and hot springs. I have to come back here in the winter time, as seeing all these chairlifts and ski resorts has given me the fast for skiing. This area is also famous for it’s flowers – that’s why we are here!

By lunchtime we had filmed more fields of flowers and wheat and the Lake of Shitzoku. Feels like the old days running around with a 35mm ARRI 3 filming the crap out of anything that looks good. I’m still tired and it’s about 30 degrees here. So starting to fade a little. The shooting Gallery team are great and they are all working hard with me. We are now off to the airport to pickup the Agency.

Here we are filming misty Mt Yotei (also known as mini Fuji) and some Sun flowers.