Got back from Hakodate yesterday. It’s quite a distance from Sapporo, so a fair amount of determination is required if you really want to go there. I don’t personally see myself going out that way again for a long time. On our first day there, we went to Goryoukaku (5-sided fort) and had some good ramen out that way. Hakodate = shio-aji ramen, at least that’s what the tourism authority wants you to believe. Okay, if you were wondering, that distinction is not exactly only “salt flavor”. Keep in mind that even shoyu-aji and miso-aji ramen soup base is initially chicken and or pork based soup with those flavoring adjuncts added. Shio-aji essentially has just the soup base flavoring. In the evening, we went up the ropeway to Hakodateyama. It was a little late and dark, so I didn’t get to go down the road a bit to the old WWII military gun emplacements and magazine tunnels that I wanted to see. I did get a fair amount of otaku-related photography of the ropeway station and the churches and structures at the bottom, though. On the way back to the Hotel, we had dinner at the Hakodate Beer brewhall, along with sampler sets of their current beers, a weiss, an alt, an ale, and some bitter blond German-style brew whose name escapes me at the moment.
On Sunday, we caught the train out to Kikonai and caught the bus from there out to Matsumae. If I remember correctly, Matsumae is the oldest feudal-era settlement on Hokkaido. At least it is the only one where the temples and castle haven’t been knocked down to make way for something else. With all the other good potential anchorages along the Southwest part of Hokkaido (Hakodate for example), I have no idea why this of all places was chosen as the center of the Edo government’s foray into the North island. True to the tourist informaton, there are the most pre-Meiji structures clustered here. The original castle burnt down many decades ago, so the current one is a concrete replica that houses a museum. I got a bunch of photos of the historical quarter, but didn’t have time to explore the rural town area. Matsumae is definitely a “must-visit” destination. On recently-settled Hokkaido, this is the one place that is steeped in history. The historic town is like “mini-Nikko” or “mini-Nara” – you can see most of it in a day trip, but an overnight stay would allow you to get all of it in at a more leisurely pace.
We stayed overnight at Yunokawa-onsen in Hakodate after catching the bus and train back from Matsumae the day before. In the morning, we visited the monkeys at the tropical botanical garden (go figure), then went over to the historical town slope to search for cake before it was time to catch the train back to Sapporo. I got more otaku-related photography done as we searched for the cake shop. When we finally found it, they only had one of their special strawberry pies left. I got a Mont Blanc which was not disappointing at all. The old master was cool, but right at that borderline of being creepy. Let’s just say he really seemed to like little kids… I guess if he came up to mea nd asked me how old I was and invited me to play with his big, black Labrador, it would have been totally creepy. The cake and coffee was excellent, and the Lab was unbelieveably calm and friendly. If anyone can remember the Saint Bernard from Majou no Takkyubin, that’s the exact temperment. After cake, we wandered back down to the main street and caughtthe streetcar back to the station just in time to get some drinks and ekiben for the train ride back.
Not sure what we’ll do today (it’s still before breakfast now).
Oh, and BTW, Fabio,Velcro, and Root – that round thing on the pole we saw in the blizzard on the way to the ropeway is, “the oldest (surviving?) streetcar junction signal in Japan,” and not the, “oldest (surviving?) concrete utility pole in Japan.” That one is a block away, and is just a square concrete utility pole, still in use, amid other more recent metallic ones. I passed by it while looking for it but missed it because it was so ordinary. I was imagining something alone and all ruined – not something that was still in use. Sorry, I didn’t take a picture of it, but I did touch it, if that makes any difference. That one is not unlike all the weird stuff on Kauai with HVB signs (like “menehune ditch”) that you go all the way into the boondocks to find, and it really is nothing special.
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