Hakodate Kokusai Hotel

Sunday, we finally went ashore to Hakodate, Japan. It felt so good to be firmly on terra firma. We did a bit of sightseeing and shopping. It was a very clean Japanese town. Hope all is well at home. Also, due to the typhoon, we will not be going to Tokyo. Instead we will spend the extra time in Kobe. Cub has put ...

... rough waters. So far so good, anyway.<br><br>Cub has gone to all the historical and geological seminars, and I have gone to the spa seminars about weight loss and nutrition. Today, I&#8217;m going to join the knitting group.<br><br>I hope all is well with everyone back in the States.<br><br>Later,<br><br>Elaine and Cub

Our train chugged in to Hakodate around noon. The sky was overcast and the weather was chilly. The only thing on our schedule was a castle where the samurai had their fabled last stand. After we went there and tramped all through the mud trying to find something interesting in the castle, we were stumped. And then it started raining. We retreated to the gift shop where we hid out waiting for the rain to stop before we tried to run to the bus stop. It did not ...

... wanted to see some Cherry Blossoms and landscaped gardens. We decided to navigate the local bus system and go to Goryoukaku (Go-roo-kah-koo) Park. Brad's Japanese is really coming along too. He used it today asking a random local waiting with us if he had the right change for the bus: Brad (points to sign): Goryoukaku? Local man: Hai (yes) Brad (holds out 230 Yen): Good yen for bus? Local Man (checks the yen): Hai. (switches to ...

... sea lions, pinguin and walrus shows beside many fish we've never seen before ! Finally we reached our final destination of north Japan: Hakodate, big city in the south of Hokkaido where we could go on top of Mount Hakodate to have a view of the city by night (very crowded place indeed). We wanted to see cherry blossom for a last time in Matsumae, unfortunately only 1/10th of the 10.000 trees were blossoming, the rest would come later.

... prendre les photos. Les Chinois n'ont pas la meme politesse que les Japonais ! Bref, rien de tel pour nous remettre de nos emotions qu'un bon repas dans un Sushiya. Nous avons de nouveau deguste des Sushis delicieux en testant cette fois des nouveautes : oursin, crabe, anguille (cuite), oeufs de saumon, calamar et tantacule de pieuvre. Mais notre sushi prefere restera le maquereau. Le lendemain nous nous sommes rendus a Mastumae ou on comptait voir ...

... snow capped mountains I was hoping to see on the journey. And this different than most of Japan because you always see houses and buildings, and development even in the areas of natural beauty; it's the price you pay for civilization, I suppose. Arrived in Aomori at 10 and caughts a tranfers to Hakodate 3 minutes later. Another 2 hours of travel until this whole train day is over. The ride as 2 parts: bucolic Aomori prefecture and then 20 minutes of darkness in the tunnel ...

I travelled through the world]s longest under water tunnel to get to Hokkaido. The scenery was awesome on the journey here. I only had one day in Hakodate but it was a pretty good town from what I saw.. There is a lovely waterfront area with a fleet of squid boats lined up. The squid boats have rows ...

... etait celui ou il y a tous les anciens batiments et aussi l'eglise russe. ensuite je me suis prommener dans le vieux port. hakodate est une ville qui vit de la peche, surtout le calmar et le crabe. ensuite, a la tomber du jour, j'ai pris un autobus touristique pour monter jusqu'au sommet d'une petite montagne et avoir un tres beau point de vue sur la ville qui est construite sur une petite peninsule.

... to $6.80 for a pair of large sweet crab legs, with most plates around $3. A novel feature was the green tea bags tucked into a little drawer with a hot water spigot at each table. This is our first stay at a Toyoko Inn, a very successful chain of no-frills "business" hotels popular with businessmen and budget travelers. We have booked stays in a number of Toyoko Inns, so I was hoping to discover that we would not be sleeping in a slightly ...