Hakodate and Tohoku: Day 1

Back on the road again.  This time I'm starting at the southernmost tip (Hakodate) of the northernmost island (Hokkaido).

Farewell, Aomori.  I'll see you again on Friday...

     
The night bus brought me from Tokyo to Aomori (11 hours), and from there I island-hopped by ferry across the Tsugaru Straight (another 4 hours). The journey 530 miles (850km) due-north also took me from sweatshirt weather to slightly above freezing.

I went out on deck to take a few shots of the bay before heading back in to nap in my comfortable seat.

     
I'd slept fairly well on the bus owing to the fact that I'd had a row all to myself, but was still groggy on the ferry.  For the ferry I'd bought a "view seat" ticket--meaning I had a seat facing a window looking out directly ahead of the ferry--but the seats were also recliners and all customers were provided with blankets, so before long I was asleep again.

Hakodate is somewhere off in the distance, between the two stretches of land on the horizon.

       
After a visit to the Hakodate tourist information office, I arrived at my hotel, set down my stuff, checked my email and then headed right back out to explore. About a 10-minute walk from my hotel are the historical Kanemori Red Brick Warehouses, now turned into a major tourist destination for dining and shopping.

    
I hadn't had lunch because of my travel schedule and by 4:30 I was beyond ready to eat, so my first task was finding dinner.  I was ahead of the regular dinner crowd, and with the exception of two chatty ladies in the corner, I had the whole restaurant to myself.  It was a delicious, relaxing meal:

Hot oolong tea and charcoal-grilled veggies

Potato waffles topped with bacon and a soft-boiled egg

     
The man at the tourist information office had told me that near the warehouses there is a tree-lighting ceremony with fireworks at 6pm every night between November 28th and Christmas, so after I'd eaten I wandered through the streets and gift shops for a bit to kill time.

What's so special about this, you wonder? Why, it's Japan's first concrete utility pole!

     

Christmas drawings made by local first graders, on display in one of the warehouses

It offers so much more than just bathroom air-freshening...We probably could have used a truck-load of these at my last job.

      
At 6pm, I joined the crowd at the pier. Tonight was special: a man on stage proposed to his girlfriend at the start of the ceremony. His proposal started with an elaborate speech telling her how much he appreciated the dinners she cooked for him and all of the times that she waited for him after tennis practice. She politely accepted his request to make a happy life together, in true Japanese form.

As soon as the girlfriend got the ring, the host (in a Santa uniform) thrust a microphone into her face and asked her what she thought of the proposal. "I'm very surprised," she said.

      
Next, they began the countdown to the tree lighting and fireworks. For me, the show-stopper was the fact that immediately after a marriage proposal the whole thing took place to the song "Last Christmas" by Wham! Japanese people *love* that song but don't know what the lyrics mean, so I was the only one laughing at their comedic timing. But the tree and fireworks were still beautiful:

In an annual tradition, the tree itself comes from Halifax,
Nova Scotia, which is one of Hakodate's twin cities.

A 60-second fireworks display accompanied the tree lighting

     
The celebrations complete (until they do it all over again tomorrow night), I took a walk around until my hands were too cold to take any more pictures.  I stopped at Starbucks for a latte and headed back to the hotel...

At the top of one of the city's many San Francisco-esque slopes, looking down toward the bay

       
Tomorrow might include some monkeys bathing in hot spring water.  Stay tuned...