Hotel Paco Hakodate

... positive spin on our detour; he says it will be one more day of Kobe steak. We are using internet cafes, but it is very difficult getting directions to one, because no one speaks English. They do try, however. We are in Otaru and it is raining off and on. We dont have pix yet. We will have to wait til next stop.

... rough waters. So far so good, anyway.

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’m going to join the knitting group.

I hope all is well with everyone back in the States.

Later,

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 ...

Hai Hakodate! Hakodate (pronounced Hack-o-dah-tay) is a lovely port on the island of Hokkaido in Japan. It is famous for seafood. Isn't it interesting though that this simple word 'seafood' can mean different things depending on your culture and upbringing. For Brad and I, looking forward to 'seafood' kind of (naively) meant "we'll have some prawns, calamari and hot chips next to the sea. Ok, throw in some crab legs and a wedge of lemon ...

... 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.

Nous avons passes nos derniers jours sur Hokkaido et le nord du Japon dans la baie d'Hakodate. Nous avons loge dans une petite auberge tenue par un couple de 60 ans qui tient le magasin de crabes au coin de la rue ! Saito-San a fait en sorte que nous nous sentions bien chez elle et nous a donne toutes les informations necessaires pour visiter sa ville. On voit qu'elle a l'habitude et surtout qu'elle aime faire decouvrir sa ville ! L'apres-midi de notre ...

... is a series of tunnel and doesn' really get you great views and the only other nice sea glimpses I got were on the express to Nagasaki, but that wound in and out of cities so it was less enjoyable. Here is endless blue waters, maybe distant mountains and sandy beaches (with lots of breakwaters...mor excessive land managment). And it was sunny, not a cloud in the sky (take that Japan meteorological agency). Arrived in warm (surprise), sunny Hakodate, a city sitting on ...

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 ...

apres 4 heures de train, dont 30 min danss un tunel de 58km sous l'ocean! je suis arriver a haakodate en hiver. Aceuilli par des flocons de neiges intensement soufles par le vent, le contraste avec les plus 30 degre d'okinawa il y a 5 jours est tres grand! Hakodate est la premiere grosse ville sur l'ile de hokaido. mais les hotels cheap sont rare, je me suis rive le nez a deux hotel fermer pour l ...

... Soudns of Japan." Course that became a running joke throughout the rest of the trip "oh just heard a train... must be one of the 100 sounds of Japan" :D I really liked the area surrounding the churches. The streets were all cobblestone and well, it was much more European than Japanese. I definitley realized while walking around there, that while I definitley love Japan, I was more of a European person (course given that I am a Canadian with English, Scottish and French background ...