Hakodate

The last city on our Hokkaido island tour was Hakodate. Like the cities before, we didn't really know much about this one as we arrived late morning into a sunny but breezy Hakodate.

Hakodate was really quite refreshing, the train station although small with only 3 platforms, was quite a modern structure, adjacent to a bus terminal, fancy flower beds and a market nearby. The way Hakodate is setup, it seems to have the capacity for plenty of traffic, but there were just hardly any cars about. In fact, away from the touristy areas it was really sleepy, but also Sunday!

We grabbed our bags and rolled down the street to our accommodation for tonight, the Gran Pallette Hotel. Hakodate, whilst as clean as any other Japanese city has a tram that travels the main avenues, which has resulted in lots of the roads cracking and breaking open, almost as if they never put any rails down for the trams and they just carve though the streets.

It took us a prompt 15mins of walking over cracks, crossing nobbies (you know the ones on the floor, to assist seeing impaired) and kerbs to arrive at the hotel. A very dog friendly hotel with a rooftop exercise area. We dropped our bags off, and with only one night in Hakodate, started exploring.

We bumbled along the tram line, took a few photos, getting a feel for the area then walked to the western shore to a redevelopment of the port area now replaced with stores and restaurants. We bought our mandatory magnet and then stopped for lunch at a local small ramen restaurant. There was so little English spoken that we made our orders using an ordering device.

After filling up with lunch we walked south to the Motomachi area, home to churches and government buildings. Intermingled with a confusing array of homes from all over the world. But honestly walking around seeing all the building styles, symmetry in places, cobbled streets, was just wonderful. Plenty of photos were taken, too many to show all.

In fact all the slopes have information signs, indicating their origins, interesting history and atop the post always a varied tit, Hakodate's city bird.

As the temperature started dropping, we walked over to the cable car to head up the hill to the peak of Mount Hakodate. Before we arrived it was the one thing we knew we had to do whilst visiting.

It was actually pretty cool. By cool, I mean the observation deck on the top floor, outside was bloody windy and cold. The experience for the good views was worth it though. We enjoyed some ice cream, and with the clouds coming in, we decided not to stay for the sunset and travelled back down the hill and back towards the hotel, taking in the colours on the buildings in the light of the setting sun.

Aafter deliberating which of the many restaurants we would walk to, we decided to just stay in, and relax with some 7/11 rice balls. No regrets. Except maybe the sake.

The next day we were due to fly back to Tokyo but a last minute brainstorm changed everything for us. Either travel to the airport an hour before the flight, sit in a cramped plane for an hour and then spend 90mins leaving the airport and travelling to the hotel....or take the 4hr Shinkansen, stretch our legs, watch the scenery pass by and not worry about cost because it's all covered by our JR Pass. Plus it would take us to the station next to the hotel with only two changes, one at each end of the journey.