Being the very conscientious, super kiasu, gancheong spider that I am, I did a whole lot of reading up on the best time to view autumn leaves in Hokkaido before booking the trip. And the literature all said that best time is late September to mid-October. But because of our work schedules, we couldn’t make it any earlier than the second week of Oct so all the way on the flight there, I fretted about having missed Autumn completely and imagined arriving at the airport only to see the trees almost bear *sob*. Turned out to be the complete opposite. The trees were as GREEN as green could be. They were as green as …. I don’t know … green eggs and ham! It looked nothing like Autumn. So the first few days had me staring out of the car window and muttering dark, murderous thoughts of all the idiots who told me winter was coming early to Hokkaido. Then we chanced upon this tree in the Matsumae Park. It stood there quietly in all its splendid glory – its leaves a palette of red, yellow and green. We stood there for a good five minutes, just staring at it, dumbstruck by how beautiful it was. It was a sign that Autumn was finally here and over the next few days, we watched in awe as nature finally shed its colours of summer and the landscape transformed into a carpet of rich, orange hues.
Bullfrogs Symposium 