obsessed with japan - hida folk village, kyoto, hakodate, sapporo, tokyo - 3

##Welcome to Hokkaido...
the journey continued from Kyoto

I believe very few tourist would do the same like us. We took Shinkansen from Kyoto all the way up to Hokkaido. This was really challenging. It's really advisable that you book the Shinkansen tickets in advance if you are using JR Ticket because it is the privilege you have, and you should use it. There was no direct Shinkansen to Hokkaido, so we had to change at Tokyo, and had our brunch at the train station while we were waiting for Hokkaido Shinkansen.

Mt.Fuji from Shinkansan

The reason we planned to stay two nights in Hakodate was because if we were going directly to Sapporo, we had to spend the whole day on the train. We didn't want to do it, we would have wasted one day, and it was the right decision.

We had to take a local train from Shinkansen station to get to Hakodate station. It was so cold.

We reached Hakodate around 2.00 in the afternoon. Aa soon as we had checked-in at the hotel, and put the luggages in our room, headed out for lunch. There were not a lot of options because we went to the morning market and only a couple of shops still left opened.

art right outside of Hakodate station, Hokkaido

heavy snow beside the bus interchange

quiet morning market

a store front

a store menu - quite a variety of seafoods

my lunch set at the morning market

After our lunch, we set off to Mt.Harkodate. We got there around 6.00pm, but I am not sure whether it was the good timing or not because it was very crowded. If you are not traveling with a kid, I would like to suggest to go there a little bit later because it was less crowded at the time we left. There was a cable car shuttling to the summit. The view up there was spectacular, but it was freezing because of the wind, and we struggled a bit to get decent photos also because of the crowd.

way up to the summit

cable car station

spectacular view of Hakodate from Mt.Harkodate

I would like to share an another tip. There's a door near the toilet at level two. People don't really notice that place and you can take your time to take photo there. But, I had to rush.

Hakodate taken from unpopular spot

The bus was very crowded on the way back because bus frequency was very less during night time. We were very lucky to be the first in the line to get on to the bus. It was very packed with passengers and the worst was almost everyone was heading back to the bus interchange, so it will be very troublesome if you can't get a seat.

The next morning, we went to the morning market early. It was freezing, freezing, freezing because the market was right beside the sea. There were a lot of sea food shops there, and you can choose and dine in. Of course the food there were really fresh and delicious, but a bit pricey.

Hakodate morning market

Hakodate morning market

Hakodate morning market

a big crab in front of the shop

the big crab

But our breakfast, we had at a shop just outside the market 😬. Because the price were sky high and beyond our reach, we decided to go to this nice little shop run by a small family.

Here's the address of the shop and Google Map link -

くいしんぼう函館
8-24 Wakamatsuchō, Hakodate, Hokkaido 040-0063, Japan
+81 138-24-2211
https://goo.gl/maps/6984eaBjQXrF7EqDA

One more attraction in Hakodate is The strar illumination of Goryokaku. Basically, it's a park that has a shape of star. There was a tower just beside the park to enjoy the view high above the ground. The thing was we got off at the wrong stop, so we had to walk through the snow. Even though walking through the snow was quite struggling, it was nice experience if you know how to enjoy yourself 😊

cherry in snow - imagine how it would be like during blossom season

a sweet spot

the tower under gloomy weather reminds me of Skynet base in Terminator Salvation

Lake covered by snow

And then we went up to the tower. It's not free by the way. I don't exactly remember whether it was $9 or $19 a person. Anyway, I kinda felt like it was a bit too much because there was nothing apart from taking pictures. If you are really curious and believe that you really want to experience this view, please go ahead.

Goryokaku park from the tower

Hakodate from the tower

By the time we reached back to Hakodate Bus Interchange, it's already been very dark. Dinner? No, not seafood this time. We had Ramen, Pork Ramen.

Lucky that we had warm Ramen for dinner because the way back to the hotel was really tough. I was sure that I had enough snow...