Hakodate and Tohoku: Day 3

Today was a little less rushed--not quite so many things to squeeze in--so it's a shorter post tonight.

     
It was a fairly gloomy day in Hakodate.  I decided to start things off with a trip to the local Trappist convent but I had a 30 minute wait for my bus, so I browsed through a souvenir shop before heading over to the terminal.

What type of meat would you like in your canned curry?
There's ezoshika (a type of deer from Hokkaido), sea lion, or bear...

          
The bus ride to the outskirts of the city took 45 minutes.

       
I shouldn't have been surprised by how little there was to see at the convent. The nuns are famous for their "Trappist" cookies, which are available by the truckload in the gift shop, but naturally, nuns are not the type to draw a lot of attention to themselves.

      
Ten minutes of walking around the grounds and you've pretty much seen everything, but this far away from the city center the buses run only once an hour, so I dawdled. Bought myself a new bookmark in the gift shop, spent a little time at the visitors' center outside the convent, and took a stroll through a very cold, very empty park on my way back to the bus stop.

Time for lunch! Today I went to Hakodate's local fast food chain "Lucky Pierrot", a hamburger shop known for gaudy decorations and a different theme at each location. In continuation of my religious-themed tour, I suppose, I went to the angel-themed shop.

      
I highly recommend the french fries, but am less enthusiastic about the burgers themselves...

By the time lunch was over, the grey day was getting even greyer, so I knew the remaining daylight was limited.  I decided to head toward the Motomachi district, where many of the old Western-style buildings are.

First, the Former British Consulate. I was a disappointed with how little was on display inside the rooms, but since I was the only person walking through the house I had some fun in the last room:

What facial expression is supposed to go with that body language? Also, the man to the right looks
like a 19th-century cross between Waldo (of "Where's Waldo?") and Ned Flanders...

             
After the Consulate, I walked the slope a couple of blocks to the Hakodate City Museum of Northern Peoples. One of the things I wish I had done sooner was learn more about the Ainu people (the indigenous people of the island of Hokkaido).  On my trip to Sapporo last year I hadn't been able to get to the Ainu museum, so I made a point to put this one on my list.

Neither the building or the collection is very big, but this museum does a great job and I am so appreciative of the amount of English-language materials available: at the ticket counter they handed me a pamphlet, an exhibition guide, and a 36-page booklet on the history, language, religion, and daily life of the Ainu--all in English, and all included in the JPY300 ($3) admission price!

They also allowed non-flash photography inside all the rooms:

The textiles were my favorite part; these are 19th-century Ainu coats and shoes.

     
After leaving the museum, I headed back to my hotel for a break. Tuesday through Thursday my hotel offers dinner included in the price of your stay, so I took advantage of that before going out for an evening walk by the waterfront and a "nightcap".

My nightcap was made of ice cream. :)

      
On the way back to my hotel, I stopped at a shop that I'd been eyeing for the past two days. Nothing like a little chocolate fondant and apple pie to finish off the night. The picture does it no justice- that was the richest chocolate I've ever had.

And tomorrow...back on the ferry!

Hakodate and Tohoku: Day 2

Started my morning with some of cantaloupe juice made from Hokkaido's famous Yūbari melons.

       
Last night I'd planned out the day, and this morning I dashed out of the hotel and down the street to the bus stop only to have the driver shut the door and drive off when I was close enough to look him in the eye! (Other bus and tram drivers all day today have been picking up everyone, so I won't let this first one spoil my impression of the whole bunch, at least.)

I suddenly had an extra 45 minutes on my hands until the next bus was scheduled, so I walked back to the lot next to my hotel to see Hakodate's famous Asaichi morning market, offering all kinds of sea food as well as fresh produce.

      
It's a big tourist attraction, which is kind of funny because overseas tourists can't leave the country with anything fresh or frozen, but I guess most people were there to eat prepared foods.

Haggling over large crabs

The packaged food section. At the market you could get sashimi or have your seafood steamed or grilled,
but if you wanted to take it home you could also buy it dried, frozen, canned, or otherwise preserved.

       
I turned down a few offers for barbecued squid (!) and eventually made my way back to the bus stop. My first destination was the local botanical garden which also has Japanese macaques bathing in hot springs. Truthfully, it wasn't quite as nice as my January trip to Jigokudani-yaenkoen in Nagano, but I got a few laughs out of these monkeys anyways.

    
The ticket window also sells monkey biscuits that visitors can throw into their enclosure, and those monkeys have learned to put on a show when they're hungry.  One of them clapped his hands to get attention, and another spun around in circles. Although I prefer to save my money for fish food, it was fun to watch other people toss them treats.

The greenhouse was a bit small, but I admired their collection of cacti and some of the other exotic plants. There was also a lovely view of the sea out behind the building.

This cactus wins the prize for "most unfortunate name".

Hibiscus

Looking out at the Tsugaru Straight, behind the greenhouse

        
Next, I headed to another part of town to see the former Goryōkaku fort, a star-shaped 19th-century fortress.  I'll admit that I don't know much about the history of this city, but the museum inside the tower overlooking the fort has an interesting overview of the site's past, along with miniature models of important events.

Another view of the Straight as well as western Hakodate from the observation tower

     
Lunch was next on the agenda. Ramen is a must-eat when visiting Hokkaido--especially Hakodate's shio (salt) ramen--but the eatery where I stopped also had spicy curry ramen and I went for that instead.

     
I followed up the ramen with some pear-flavored annin-dofu (a white, jellied dessert), and then had to walk off some of those calories!

I went to the nearby Hakodate Museum of Art, where my buss pass got me a discount on admission to a *fantastic* Hideki Seto retrospective. He's a local artist I'd never heard of--unfortunately I can't even find much about him online either--but his art was amazing! Huge canvases of near-mural-size proportions. Lots of coastal-themed semi-Surrealist paintings, super-saturated color schemes, and mesmerizing details, right down to the grain of wood on the panel of a door or painstakingly painted stalks of rice. (Here's an article in Japanese...) I wanted to buy postcards of so many of the paintings I saw, but they only had printed postcards of one of his pictures available in the gift shop.

The next destination on my list is best seen after dark, so I took a late-afternoon break in my hotel room before going out again. A little before 5pm, I headed up the slope and over to the ropeway entrance at the base of Mt. Hakodate.

The narrowest point of the peninsula--with all the bright lights--is the city center.
It would take about 15 minutes to walk from one side to the other.

    
The view from the top of the mountain is one of the best in the country, and I've even heard that some consider it to be among the best in the world. Luckily I went on a clear night, which made for some beautiful photos.

     
I also timed my visit to coincide with the nightly 6pm fireworks for the tree lighting...and I think they turned out pretty well:

The tree itself (from yesterday's post) is that spot of bright, white light along the waterfront, to the right of the fireworks.

       
With frozen fingers, I made my way back down the ropeway.  Stopped near the Christmas tree to pick up a hot soy latte and a sandwich before returning to my room.

The tree is lit with LED lights that change from green to red to blue to white...

      
Now, to plan for tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for me: I'm hoping tomorrow's forecast of showers is wrong!

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...