We are going to Hokkaido for 5 days at the end of December. On a packaged tour! The last time I joined a package tour, as a tourist, was when I was fourteen years old. FOURTEEN! Now I am forty. Coincidence or what? That was also a trip to Japan.

Anyhow, don't ask what prompted it, temporary insanity is a possibility.

I guess I had a half-baked idea to go to Korea this X'mas, stay at a ski resort. But of course, I soon found out that HEY! Whaddaya know! I don't speak Korean and not many Koreans speak English or Chinese. Could be a bit of a problem if you are trying to negotiate a ski instructor or rent appropriate equipment. More importantly, my husband is the only one in our little family who can ski. I had a go at it some twenty years ago, in Canada. Can't say I love it or anything even close. I remember experiencing a lot of fear and my toes were numb the whole time. So why bother?

We haven't been away for X'mas for a while, I suppose, and it would be nice for the kids to do something different. Yeah, right. Like, join a packaged tour and get bused around and freeze their asses off.

I didn't do any research or anything about this packaged tour - my friend booked it for her family (they also haven't been on a packaged tour for fifteen years at least) and I reckon, worst comes to worst, I will still have a friendly face to share my complaints. And likewise she will have me. And our kids would have one another. And our husbands can talk to one another.

Well, that is the plan anyway, if my husband manages to get my son a new passport in time. How does a passport vanish into thin air? Strange, innit. All our passports are kept in a drawer, and only his one has disappeared. The control freak in me is panicking - you can probably tell. I fear that my husband will not get this done. I fear that he must have made a mistake about the new passport only taking 7 days to be ready. I fear that we will have to cancel the whole trip and not get our money back or even worse, leave our youngest son alone in the hands of our domestic helper whilst we go on this trip. Please tell me everything will be okay. Okay okay okay okay okay.

Change of subject : I have written a story, based on some conditions set my my husband. Well actually, him and my two sons wrote one as well, based on the same conditions. It's kind of a competition we have going on. See who can write the best one. I will post it in my other blog tomorrow. Let me know what you think!