New Pepsi White from Japan

Another reason to get excited!!! ^______^ 

I'm sure you can guess why just by looking at the post title. hehe ^^

First of all, the weather was not so bad this morning. It was snowing a lot, but luckily the wind was not strong, so it wasn't that cold... wait. I mean, compared to when it's windy. =P

The thing we can always be sure of is that the scenery is sooooo extremely pretty! I will never get bored of the scenery although from time to time I wish the winter will end soon haha =P, because having the city covered by snow around 5 months is just too long especially if we talk about the slippery road and having your face freezing everytime you are outside.

Some pictures taken that day:

Feel like shaking the trees and making all the snow drops!

Hokkaido University main road. Pretty all year round :)

Always call this sight 'ice cream' ^___^

All white and cold, but pretty, so it's fine. :) The best moment is just after heavy snowfall. The fresh snow is so fluffy and powdery! That's why Hokkaido is famous as the powder heaven. This article from totaltravel Yahoo!7 mentioned that the snow flakes just keep on falling on Hokkaido, and Niseko, Japan's premiere ski resort is "one of the most snowed-on resorts on earth."

And what else can be better to light up the market in this snowy season?

Japan's New Pepsi White, of course! ^^

Pepsi White has 雪みかん flavor (the direct translation is "snow orange") written on the label. This cola with refreshing mandarin orange flavor and snow-colored liquid was officially launced in December 11, 2012. I spotted it on December 12, 2012, which means I'm quite early I guess? ^^

According to the official website of SUNTORY, Japan's pepsi distributor, six designs of snowmen are used for the label design. The package itself was meant to express the joy of winter. I was not sure how many designs they have earlier, so I checked them one-by-one at the store, hehe ^^ I bought 7 in the end (...), because I bought 6 with 6 different designs for souvenirs, and 1 for me to try. :)

I found the smell of orange is more obvious than the taste, though. I still think the pepsi salty watermelon is the best and the most unique. I bought really a lot during summer. not for me to drink, of course, because I'm not a fan of carbonated drinks for drinking purpose, hehe. I will have to give them away soon as the expiry date is getting closer. Too bad they are not in the market anymore...

Pepsi White and Pepsi Salty Watermelon from Japan

If you are also interested to see other limited edition drinks,

don't forget to check my posts about:

1. Japan's Pepsi Franky Cola which is another latest special edition Pepsi based on famous Japanese shounen manga series, One Piece (ワンピース)

2. Japan's summer edition Pepsi Black Lemon with all-black Pepsi logo, a bit of lemon flavor and 50% less sugar content
3. Japan's summer edition Pepsi Salty Watermelon, my favourite among all ^__^, released last year to celebrate the enjoyment of summer.

4. Some new Fanta flavors!

5. Coke Zero 007 Skyfall Special Edition

Japan earthquake yesterday and snowy day today

It's so colddd today !! It's snowing so heavily in Sapporo since morning. Luckily the wind doesn't seem strong.. well, at least it wasn't strong when I went out for a while during lunch time.

By the way, there was a big earthquake in Japan yesterday. The news is all over the world by now, I guess coz I received a lot of messages asking about the condition here. Don't worry ! Everything is fine here, just a bit shaky :) Thank you for asking, guys ! According to the report of Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), the magnitude was 7.3. Tsunami warning was launched, but it was cancelled 2 hours after observations.

If you ask me how the feeling during an earthquake is, well, since Hokkaido is a relatively safer place in Japan against earthquake, I have never experienced the real destructive earthquake movement around me, thanks God. However, I have experienced many shaky moments during my stay in Japan, and the most common sensation was that I felt like standing on top of thin flexible paper, and suddenly the floor didn't seem sturdy anymore. It's quite scary to feel the floor shaking flexibly actually, but in fact we should feel safer because that's part of anti-seismic building design technology.

In regards to the earthquake happened yesterday, I myself was in UNIQLO store at Tanukikoji checking for some stuffs for winter. When it happened, I heard the racks were shaking against each other and I could hear the sound of plastic bumping against each other with constant rhythm coming from those heat tech items wrapped in plastic. I started to look around to check if it was just my imaginations, and among some people around me who seemed not to notice anything (yet), I saw this girl who also did the same thing as I did haha ! We looked at each other for few seconds before we realized that it's real, then took our phones, and began texting. hehe. It's important to be sensitive for this kind of things, c'mon !!

Actually after the Great Japan Earthquake in 2011, I find myself to be more aware towards earthquake movements. I tend to be able to detect even the slight ones. In some cases, other people didn't even feel it. Well, i take it as a blessing... it's definitely a useful survival skill ! don't you agree with me ? ^^

I just hope the earthquake that happened yesterday wasn't the beginning of another series of big earthquakes like what happened before. I really hope that there will be no disaster happen in the near future. It is even harder to deal with it during this cold weather (and snowy, in some areas).

Btw it was the first time for me to go out wearing wool coat during heavy snow ! I had to use umbrella to prevent the snow from sticking all over my coat and winter hat, coz they are not waterproof, of course. I usually prefer to wear down jacket during winter (and autumn or early spring, as well) because they are generally waterproof (well, not really waterproof like ski suit, but it works for snow and light rain) and able to block wind better. Wool coats tend to have no hood although I have seen few having it. However, it's quite warm and gave different feeling, though. Not fluffy and big... and the most important is ... I felt slimmer. =P haha!

Today I ended up staying at home alone doing laundry, changing bed sheet, eating, browsing internet, and... playing with bebi donut, my super cute winter white sapphire hamster ^_^

Here are some pics of her  =P :

more food ?

my food bowl, my heaven ^^ 

Will post another special entry for her next time !

White snowy days in Sapporo

pure white winter scenery in sapporo

pure white winter scenery in sapporo

The post is a bit late actually coz the snow has been falling for weeks here.

In case you are not familiar with the city, Sapporo is the capital of Hokkaido and Japan's fifth largest city. It is also Japan's one of the youngest major cities, and we can see that the city layout is neatly following a grid system, making it very easy for us to understand the map.

Hokkaido is the northest biggest island of Japan. Sapporo itself, is blessed with around 6 months snowy days per year and relatively cool temperature even during summer. However, this year the snow came a big late, though. It starts to snow like crazy from time to time, but there were still times when it stopped snowing and the temperature rised a bit, causing the ice uncovered by fresh snow, becoming slippery, and then melting a bit, making the road extremely wet and dirty.

Anyway, although i hate cold weather, i enjoy playing with snow from time to time. ^^ Some of the pictures were taken on the day of the first snow this year, and some on the day of the first (snow) stormy day here. The city was immediately covered by ard 40-50cm of snow in just few hours !

building castle wall =P

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