by Sorry for the long delay since my last post. Don’t worry, I didn’t catch the COVID. What’s kept me away from this website is that I moved to a new residence and the whole processed of searching for a new home and moving has kept me bogged down for the last few weeks. Now that the moving process is finally over, it’s time to get back to sharing photos and stories from last year’s trip. I’ll pick up today with where I left off last time.
At Sendai Station I boarded a shinkansen (bullet train) that sped north to the island of Hokkaido where I’d begin the next leg of my journey across Japan and Korea. My destination was the city of Hakodate, which is towards the southern tip of the island. For reference I’ve included the above Google Maps screenshot of Hokkaido. The shinkansen line currently terminates a few miles outside of Hakodate at Shin-Hakodate Hokuto Station and from there I took a local train to Hakodate Station. Even before you arrive at Shin-Hakodate Hokuto Station you can see Mt Hakodate in the distance and as the local train drew closer to town the mountain grew steadily bigger outside the window.
I decided to walk all the way from Hakodate Station to my AirBnB in the Motomachi District at the foot of Mt Hakodate, and once I dropped off my stuff there I had about a bit over an hour to burn before I would take the ropeway up Mt Hakodate to the mountain’s observation deck. Since I didn’t want to stray too far from the mountain I spent my time wandering around the southern part of the harbor area by the old red brick warehouses. Hakodate was one of the first ports to be opened to the outside world when Japan’s period of isolation came to an end and the warehouses used to store goods from the various international ships that sailed into the harbor. These days the area has been redeveloped into a modern commercial zone with shops and restaurants. As I was walking around I also came across a wedding chapel that I somehow walked right past in 2017 without noticing.
While there I also got a quick meal from the Lucky Pierrot at Marina Suehiro. I’m going to do a separate post on Lucky Pierrot in the future since it’s probably Hakodate’s premier burger chain and I always get at least one or two meals from them whenever I’m in town.
Soon it was time to head to the ropeway station. Mt Hakodate beckoned, and I would answer.
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