I had to get up early because of the distance I would travel today. I had sort of put the destination today as a wait and see how it goes sort of place and was as much expecting to ride a long time, get lunch and turn right back around as anything else. When I got dressed and started my way outside I discovered it was pouring out. First day I didn't open the curtain to check. I figured it was just a given. So I had to run back upstairs and change into long pants and get my umbrella. Wasn't too thrilled with the idea but it really was coming down hard. My destination was Hakodate which is almost 4 hours away from Sapporo and is the third largest city on Hokkaido. It is famous for being the first port to open up to foreigners after the period of isolation ended. Before I left I got my ticket for the 7:30 train and went to Doutour to have some cheese toast and coffee before a quick run into a Kiosk to buy a snack for the ride. My hopes were that as I rode west and south I would find my way out of the rain and basically that is exactly what happened. Along the ride I ate some chocolate mushroom things made by Meiji candy. I had similar things on previous trips and they were reasonably ok. Along the way I got a glimpse of Lake Onuma which is probably someplace I should have visited though it is not likely at this point as it very far from Sapporo and tomorrow is my last full day in Hokkaido. Plus it really is a short visit from what I have read, no matter how nice it looks. It would have been best coupled together with Hakodate but I arrived in the city at 11:15.
First course of action was to find the tourist office which I did and found there was a guy there who probably grew up in Hawaii helping some Aussies. Since he really spoke English I waited for him and got the lowdown on what to do. I knew there was western style fort to visit but apparently there is a shopping district made from the old red brick warehouses near the waterfront. There are also many western style buildings and a few western churches out that way. The fort was going to take a trolley car ride to get to so I figured I would hit the local area stuff first then make my way out to the fort. On the way to the touristy things I stumbled upon the Hakodate Beer brewery and restaurant and of course since it was basically lunchtime I had to go in. I had their 4 beer sampler: Weiss, Alt, Ale and Kolsch. Plus I had an order of savory spare ribs which were done with a sesame soy based sauce and were perfectly fall off the bone cooked. The guy that came in after me and sat near me ordered the same thing I think because of how good mine looked. I should have gotten the edamame he got to go along but I wasn't really thinking. After settling up I worked my way into the red brick warehouses and wandered around that area for a few minutes. I decided I was in search of ice cream and found a place called Lucky Pierrot where I got soft serve sundae in a waffle cone basically. It had cheesecake and a berry sauce on it and was really quite good. I did choose to sit down and eat it because I could tell it would be messy otherwise.
From there I worked my way uphill and into the old buildings area. I found the former British consulate building and the old Hakodate Public Hall which was really western looking. I would say it looked like an old south building really. I then worked my way over to seeing the churches. There was a Russian Orthodox church, an ugly Episcopal church and a stout looking Roman Catholic church. I kept seeing signs for a Greek Orthodox church but I never did find it. I am not sure where it was or if it really existed. It is not on the map I got from the tourist office.
Next up was the cable car ride up to the top of Mount Hakodate. Yes, 3 cable car rides in 4 days in Hokkaido. This one again was a large car and full of people so that it wasn't really all that treacherous feeling. Plus it was only a 3-5 minute ride. The car really did move fast. At the observatory there were several good views of the city that were basically spoiled by the haze that hung over it a little but still it was nice to be up there. By the way it continued to be insanely humid and around 30C all day as has been typical for the obviously cooler than Tokyo region of Hokkaido. Yeah, right... Anyway, the observatory was not really all that large so I spent a few minutes gathering as many good pictures as I could before taking the ride back down and heading on my way to see a couple of Japanese style shrines and temples also in the region. The shrine has a graveyard for the new government army hidden in the back which I did manage to discover. Different from other graveyards around here in that it had old stone monuments that were obviously permanent. The shrine was Gokoku Shrine and the temple was the Hakodate Higashihonganji Temple.
When I was done with the temple it was on to the fort but that meant walking back to the train station and then getting on a trolley car which was probably about a 20 minute ride. The trolley was a bit difficult to make sure I was on the correct one at first but it turns out I did it right and was able to get off at the Goryokaku Koen Mae stop. The fort is the Goryokaku Fort and is about 3/4 of a kilometer away from the trolley stop. It was not hard to follow the signs and get my way there. First thing I noticed was the Goryokaku Tower. The tower is of course tall and has an observatory right next to the fort. I figured it would be the best way to see the fort as a whole so I went in, paid up and rode up. The tower does give a nice view of the city from a different direction than the mountain but unfortunately it is a touch too close for good pictures of the fort in my opinion. Any picture really has to come with window frames in the view. In any event I took what pictures I could and then headed my way back down. Oh yes, one more glass floor location to walk on in this tower too. Yes I did it.
Getting out of the tower I went into the fort and found they had a reconstruction of the old Hakodate Magistrates Offices in the center. Apparently before the battle of Hakkodate which I am going to have to research better at some point, the informational signs were sort of confusing and I am not that familiar with the history already, the magistrate's office was there but after the battle it was torn down symbolically. The fort was built in around 1858 or so and was used for a bit over 10 years before it was dismantled. The magistrate's office was built inside it to protect it from attack. I guess in the long haul the fort didn't work that well. I believe it was lost in 1871 or so. The building was fairly cool but no pictures were allowed inside so you'll have to take my word on it. After touring that I decided to clamber around the ramparts of the fort and pretty much covered the entire circumference minus an area that looked closed. On one side I found a stage set on the fort side of the moat with a giant grandstand on the opposite side. I suspect they have concerts or plays or the like there. It looked fairly cool.
After the ramparts I decided it had gotten pretty late and I should head back to the train station. I got on the next available trolley car heading back which behind me filled in as though it was a bus in India. There was basically no room to breath in it and it got really swelteringly hot. I had to stick it out though. Figuring out which was my stop was a bit of a nightmare too because it was so noisy but I did manage to get my way to getting off the trolley at the right stop and heading straight into the train station where I reserved a seat for my ride home. Unfortunately it was 5:30 which meant I missed the 5:11 and had to wait until the 6:24. I had intended to get dinner at Sapporo but I had an hour to kill and would be getting there at 10pm so instead I found a restaurant on the second floor of the train station and ate there. I would have liked maybe to order something different but the menu had like 2 pictures in it and one of them was pork katsu with rice. I chose that and I had a Sapporo classic. It turned out to be very good food anyway. I was happy with that. When I finished and settled up I moved back downstairs and bought a Dars bar and a can of cold black coffee for the ride and got to the platform. It was early but the train was already set up to go so I got on board and waited it out. It left on time and was basically uneventful. I ate the candy bar and drank the coffee along the way. We passed by Onuma around sunset and that looked really nice again. I don't try to take pictures from moving trains because they are gone before you can click the button unfortunately. I would have liked a picture of how it looked. After a bit I sort of nodded off and was in and out of dozing for the ride until Minami-Chitose which is about 20 minutes before Sapporo Station. From there I woke myself back up and waited out the rest of the ride. We got back at just about 10pm and I exited the station and got back to the room as quickly as I could which turned out to be 10:20 including having to wait for traffic lights and the elevator time. Not too bad I thought. From there it was posting the pictures and writing this.
The pictures from today are found here.
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