Summer holiday 2009: Day 1

Again this year, we had a week long summer holiday from the 9th to the 16th of August. Because I cannot take a day off easily, we usually go somewhere as a family. Last year, we went to Kirobe & Tateyama area. I wrote an article here and many of you said that you were “envious!” and “I would like to visit Japan as it is full of natural beauty.” Thank you very much for your support. This year, it was a longer holiday than usual, so we decided to visit Hokkaido. However, Hokkaido is vast and if you decide to go everywhere, we would just be moving from place to place. So we decided to go to the south eastern area of the big island from Hakodate, Toyako (lake), Niseko and back to Hakodate. We chose a rental car as the main means of transport and planned a 5 night 6 day trip in total.

To Hakodate, we used the Shinkansen (bullet train). It is not too far from my place to Tokyo Railway Station, only 2 stops away and 4 minutes ride on a train. So if we want to be at Tokyo Station 15 minutes before the Shinkansen’s departure time, if we catch the 6:33 train from here it should give us enough time, assuming it would take 10 minutes to move from the platform to platform; but my wife is not really good about getting up early in the morning and sometimes things do not work as I plan. I decided to lie to her and told my whole family that we had to catch the 6:26 train (1 earlier one). You know, all the seats in this Shinkansen are all reserved and there was no unreserved ones, so if we miss the train, it will be taken as cancellation. We had to be there in time for it.

The day finally arrived. Without breakfast, we washed our faces, got dressed and only had to carry our own bags already packed. However, my wife took so long checking if all the doors & windows were locked, getting our rubbish out, etc., we missed the 6:26 train. We only just made it onto 6:35 train. (This was my emergency plan and it worked! If we had to catch the next train, we would have to run in the Tokyo Station within 5 minutes and it would be very, very close!)

The sky in Tokyo was covered with thick cloud when we left. According to the weather forecast, it would be raining in Tokyo soon and the weather in our destination, Hakodate would also be cloudy. Hoping it would get better in Hakodate, we got on the Shinkansen. The ETA was 13:14, it was a 6 hour ride. But because we did not go to bed till late the night before because of packing our bags and we left early in the morning, we all slept most of the journey and did not notice the length of the trip too much.
Although around Sendai on the way, it was raining but as we moved up from Aomori, the weather had improved, we sometimes saw the sun between the clouds. When we got to Hakodate, it was cloudy: suitable conditions for sightseeing. The temperature was around 25 degree Celsius and it was comfortable with low humidity unlike Tokyo.

After arriving at Hakodate, thinking it would be quite late in the afternoon, we had booked a tour bus which goes around the main tourist attractions in the area; so we got on the bus. The course was a 3 hour one, from Hakodate Goryokaku Tower, Trappistinu Monastery, Hijikata/Takuboku Memorial Hall, then to the hotel. Hakodate was the last battle field in the Edo Era. At the end of the era, giving in to the requests for diplomacy from other countries, the feudal government stopped its isolation period for the first time and opened a port there. The main attractions of the trip were these historical buildings and a female bus guide, mid 20s, gave us a good explanation of the history of each place, we enjoyed this quick tour of the city. They then took us to the Onsen (hot spring) hotel we had already booked. It was in the “Yunokawa” hot springs resort area.



This Onsen is famous for its “red water”. The colour of the water of the bath on the top floor is a soil colour and we went there to hop in it. We went to the outdoor bath with red water watching squid-fishing vessels in the bay of Tsugaru Straits. It was indescribably luxurious. I felt relieved that we got to Hakodate safely. Thinking about driving a rental car the next day, I went to bed reasonably early.


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