Hakodate: Shi-Fu-Do heaven.

So its been almost a week since we last posted, because the first part of the week had no net, then the last part we have been having huge days and the social media motivation levels are not so high after getting back to the base each night. SO instead of writing a massive post which includes the last week, we are going to do a bunch of individual ones for each spot, so we can dump down the thoughts and pics of each spot.

We left you all last in Sapporo about to head to Hakodate, on the southern coast of Hokkaido. After managing to get ourselves on the right Shinkansen (aka Bullets Trains for the uncultured bogans ;)) for the 2 hr trip to Hakodate. Firstly, to put it simply - these things ROCK! Its like travelling business class on a plane, except much smoother and less hassle at either end. Unfortunately for us we didnt reserve a seat beforehand in so the first 45mins was spent jammed in the luggage bay of one of the 2 unreserved cars (each train has about 10 cars, 2 or 3 of which are unreserved) which were packed. After that some peeps got off so we got to really relax in the comfort of the huge chairs - deluxe action. Needless to say all trips since then have been reserved :)

Anyway, into Hakodate and off to find out accomodation - within 50m of the train station there is the local seafood market, and after ditching our big bags we went exploring. For those who dont know, Boos Boos HATES seafood, so this town was going to prove to be difficult to find anything for her to eat that didnt have a bevy of seafood in it... ah well - Doodles definitely made up for it.

These seafood markets are amazing, and are just packed with fresh seafood straight from the coast, which starts about 50m away in the bay. The local specialty is squid and King crab - and seriously - these things are MASSIVE. They are very much unlike the sand or mud crabs back is Aus, with most of the meat being in the legs and having smaller pincers. And these are very big - this one below wasnt the biggest, but still would have been 1m tip to tip if you stretched out the legs:


Needless to say this had to be sampled, so the guy ripped off a leg of one, and cooked it right there on a bbq. Add some soy sauce - heaven.


We jumped on a tram to one of the local hot springs, which was pretty awesome, though this one must have been where all the oldies hang out, cos there was some serious sag action happening, and we were glad it was steamy.

We took a wander out to the eastern most tip of the bay, where you could look west to Russia and east to the pacific... well if you had a good enough imagination, but you get the point. There was some pretty amazing headstones and monuments in the cemetery on the walk up, each with its own little junctures for incense.


That evening we headed up the cable car to Mt. Hakodate, which is a national park and sits on the southern most tip of the peninsula on which the city is built. We had heard the sunset and night views of the city were pretty awesome, so after donning the snowboarding clothes (learnt that lesson in Sapporo) jumped on the cable to the top.

Unfortunately, as you can see from the pics, the weather didnt really play ball and it was pretty cloudy, so the "sunset" was pretty shocking. The night views were pretty awesome, and after getting some snaps, we got out of there to avoid the masses of crowds who seemed to come from nowhere as it got dark.

Hakodate East Bay

"Sunset" and Western Bay

Hakodate Nights.

We didn't have a lot of time in Hakodate, as we had previously booked a 7am Shinkansen to Tazawako the next day before we got stuck in Sapporo the extra night. Doodles got up at 5am to hit the market for some early morning crabby goodness, but unfortunately their bbq's weren't fired up yet to cook the goods... next time!

Onto the train - under the 30km sea tunnel from Hokkaido to Honshu, and up into the mountains to Tazawako we went...