Summer holiday 2009: Day 5

After driving a total of 600km drive within three days to yesterday, we were a bit tired so decided on an easy sightseeing day in Hakodate. Thinking about the location, we booked a city hotel near the Hakodate railway station as it has easy access to most places.

After a buffet style breakfast, we checked the morning market in front of the station. Here, we saw people selling fish and other seafood, fruit & vegetables, dried food, confectioneries, etc. About 450 stall holders were crushed together from early morning and yelling to tourists in brisk voices. I felt like eating Sushi there but I was still full from my breakfast, so we were just walking around, enjoying the atmosphere.

Straight from there, a walk along the port took us to the waterfront warehouses, one of the famous tourist attractions. The red brick warehouses were making the port attractive. They are now used as bars & restaurants and a shopping mall. Shops of different sizes were attracting the tourists. Among the shops, there was a musical box museum and my daughter spent a great time making her own music box.

After wandering around the shops, it was almost lunch time. We decided to go to the original “Lucky Pierrot” hamburger shop to try their hamburgers. The “Lucky Pierrot” has 14 shops in Hakodate. They boast that all the ingredients are from Hokkaido. They do not stock their food: they cook it after each order. They are famous as a place you can get hot-from-the-oven hamburgers. I had a “Chinese chicken burger”, the most popular on the menu. It was very nice with the combination of slightly sweet fried chicken and thick bun.

Hakodate is also well-known for slopes. From the centre of the city, they had about 18 slopes towards Mt Hakodate. To do some exercise after lunch, we walked up the famous “Hachiman-saka” which was used in a TV ad. At the top, there was a high school. It was supposed to be a great panorama overseeing the whole port but it was raining all morning, it was blurry unfortunately.

Within a short walk from there, we saw the Old Public Hall of Hakodate Ward, the Old British Consulate building and other historic buildings of Meiji era. We were impressed with their great architectural skills.
After sightseeing of the port area, we went back to the railway station. Luckily it was time for a bus leaving for Mt Hakodate. Because the rain had stopped, we decided to jump on the bus and headed toward the mountain. It is a small mountain with a height of only 334m but is famous for its breathtaking night view which is said to be one of the three best in the world with Naples in Italy and Hong Kong.

When we got there, the sun had not yet set and it was too early to see the night views but with the evening sun peeking through the cloud, we enjoyed the fantastic scenery of the city illuminated by the setting sun.

As the sun went down, the city was lit up; there appeared beautiful scenery right in front of us. You know, I was expecting much because a night view is not anything new for us who live in a big city watching it every night. However, I was taken aback with the unimaginable beauty and the scale of the view. Unknown to us, it was the anniversary day called “Night View Day” and to celebrate 150 years after their opening of the port after the period of national isolation of Edo era, there was an event in which fireworks were set off from 15 different places around the city. This made our visit there more exciting. We felt really lucky with this whole trip. Thank you, Hokkaido!

Starting from Hakodate, everything in our trip was 100% satisfaction. A summer trip in Hokkaido, it is a bit far from Tokyo but I would recommend it to everyone.



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