HOKKAIDO [A Travelogue] - limwhow & SereneXMM

[limwhow]

Day 4: Hakodate 涵馆市

Hakodate
This port city has also quite a long and interesting history.
It was established in the 15th century and for many years had been one of the battleground between the Japanese and the native Ainu people, seeing many an Ainu uprising until they were finally suppressed.
There was a famous Japanese merchant Takadaya who set up Hakodate as a trading port, which further boosted Hakodate's importance in the area.
During the Meiji period, as Hakodate opened itself up to foreign trading ships as a port, the Americans, French and Russians set up their consulates here and their influences could still be seen today in terms of architecture.

Itinerary
As we arrived in Hakodate just after lunch, we had little time for any other activities.
Thus our very short itinerary for the day was:

• Check into the Toyoko-Inn Hakodate Hotel
• Try to look for lunch any where near the hotel
• Take a leisurely stroll down the main thoroughfare of Hakodate to..
• ... hopefully arrive at the Cable Car Station at the foot of Hakodate-yama (Hakodate Hill)
• then take a Cable Car (called Ropeway in the Japanese terminology) to the top of the peak to enjoy the scenery before sunset.
• stay on at the peak to enjoy the night scene from atop the famous Hakodate-yama
• ... then sleep.

Sounded simple enough.
Until we actually tried to execute it....

 

[limwhow]

Day 4: Hakodate - Lunch and The Walk to Hakodate-yama 涵馆山

I still remember very well, before I even stepped foot on Japanese soil, I was wondering for months how a Japanese food stall selling typical Japanese ramen and food would look like.
My only impression of the food outlets was formed by all the Japanese shows I watched over the years, both as a young man, and later as an even younger man.

But the past three days had given me opportunities to see with my own eyes how the set up of various restaurants, but more interestingly, the small family-run ramen/sushi stalls looked like.

This one not far from our Toyoko-Inn Hakodate Hotel looked like this.

Erm... right after taking this photo, I turned and took a nasty slip and landed right on my buttock!
The ground was REALLY slippery with frozen ice! BOMBP..!!!!

And back to the subject matter - here inside the ramen store, it looked like this...

[Translation: "AhLiXMM, let's try their Gyoza and Char Siew Ramen here." said Grandmother.]

Almost like the Fiesta Sushi chain we had back home in Singapore.

As a port city, Hakodate had its fair share of old warehouses, many of which had been converted to eateries, pubs, bars, clubs and the likes.
A walk down the streets would bring us to a few of these, oozing with Nostalgia.

The weather was quite lovely - cold and wet.
The main difference which we all experienced here in Hakodate was, the snow was not too new, and the road was wet with melted ice.
And while we had absolutely no problem walking on the pavement in Otaru, here in Hakodate,
every one of us was struggling to keep ourselves in balance as the melted ice on the wet pavement was a walking hazard.

Here below was that typical scene of dirty old snow with icy pavement which we were 'skating' across... haha...

 

[limwhow]

Day 4 Evening: Struggling to Reach Hakodate-yama

The Problems with:

• Walking by Looking at Maps only
• Not having prior experience on the ground
• Not following guided tour

So far, I think my Garmin Oregon GPS has outdone itself, guiding me to almost 99% of my destination with uncanny accuracy.
But here in Hakodate, I have finally come face to face with the first major obstacle in my virgin tour guiding trip in Japan.

Studying the map in detail nights after nights during the planning stage back home in Singapore, I failed to realise that:

1. when we arrived at Hakodate, it would be cold and wet and extremely slippery. Extremely, extremely slippery.
2. once we cross the road Jiujigai, the terrain would take a steep rise up towards the Cable car station, known as Ropeway Station!

[The route above showed how we walked from our hotel at Toyoko-Inn to the Cable Car Ropeway Station just at the foot of Hakodate-yama]

Thus, it was really really one of the major shock when the scouting team in front shouted out to me and I looked up ahead,
and found to my horror that there was a stupid sloping road leading all the way up to nowhere.
And not only that, the Cable Car Ropeway Station was no where to be seen in the near vicinity!

Now, the picture below doesn't give the actual feel of the slope.
Neither does it demonstrate how slippery the actual pavement was as this was the initial up-slope.
More was to come. But by then I was in too shock a state to take photos.

In fact, I was cursing and swearing under my breath how stupid I was to have walked the family so far out here only to find an obstacle.
Now had it been just ourselves and the children, we would have not given it too much thought.
But here we had two old folks whom I needed to especially be careful with fall-precaution.

So how?
Every one's gaze was now towards me as I had to make the decision to go ahead or call it off. It was already getting really dark and cold.

"Look, this slope is not too bad lah... Yeah, the road is really slippery with ice all over.
But you all must walk slowly and make sure your front foot is stable before transferring weight over from the foot behind.
And also... try to hold on to the chain at the side of the road or whatever tree branches you can find..
OK? Let's go!"
... what useless advice from a totally inexperienced newbie tour guide.. Haha...
​

So off we went, the entire family.
And what happened after that?

The Grandfather had a spectacular fall right on top of the slope just as he was turning to the left!
BOMP!!! Right onto his buttock!

So stupid of me, right?
Luckily he was fine and broke no hip bones.

Finally, after sloshing left and right in the ice, we made our way to the top of the slope and arrived at the coach car park of the Ropeway station.

[Translation: "Aiyoh... Slippery yah!" squealed the sister.]

Well, the road on the car park was a wonderful mixture of engine oil, ice, slush, tyre dirt - a sure formula for more spectacular acrobatic feats.
Fortunately none came from this family troupe of brave acrobats.

Seeing all the tour coaches parked serenely at the side, and after thinking back at what we went through just now, for the very first time on this trip,
I seriously questioned the sanity of my bringing the family on Free and Easy.
Imagine the comfort and the ease the other tourists would have experience coming up on the tour coaches!

 

[limwhow]

Day 4 Evening: Up the Hakodate-yama!

Well, we made it.
Only to come face to face with a huge crowd of both foreign and local tourists queuing up to buy tickets up and down the peak.

As I was taking this photo of all of us in the queue, it occurred to me that although the time was only 4:30pm,
we had essentially missed the daylight hours already. And I was resigned to the fact that by the time we reach the peak,
the sky would be really dark and we would only catch the night view from the famous Hakodate-yama.
Well... at least we still had a night view. Right? Er... wrong (As will be demonstrated later.)

Here, the cable car that we managed to squeeze ourselves in was jammed-packed sardine style with loads and loads of visitors...

... and we literally had to fox-trot up a few flights of stairs with the crowd to come to the roof-top where the best vantage point was.
Where was the beautiful night scene? This was it. Among the crowd, we managed to find one tiny spot and squeezed ourselves in to shoot this miserably little souvenir shot of night-scene-from-atop-Hakodate-yama.
Happy already, right?

The Sudden Snow Up here...

Then came the unexpected.
Out of a sudden, the weather turned. And it began to snow heavily right up here at the peak of the yama.
Wow, so exciting it was... up here and having snow in your face and on your parka and every where.
I took this shot, again one of the few which I sincerely considered memorable to me as a record shot as it demonstrated the emotions of the family members
at that very moment.

(This was again one of the several occasions when I was glad that my humble camera had sufficient ISO capability to take these nonsense
without resorting to flash, although I did have my flash with me.
Taken with ISO 10,000 f/2.8 1/25 sec, EV -1.)

It was fun. Initially. Until every one of the visitors realised that the snow was getting heavier and it was really really cold up there...
that we found ourselves the only few crazy enough to tolerate the weather left still standing at the roof top.
Hmmmm.... there, we finally had the whole place to ourselves... almost to ourselves.

[The weather condition really darkened everything around us. Even with the light from the building, it was really dark.
This shot I had to really struggle. And I bumped up the ISO to 256,000 f/2.8 EV -1 to achieve some respectable shutter speed of 1/125 sec to intentionally freeze the snow flakes instead of having them appear as streaks.)
Hmmm... challenging condition not only to walk, but also to shoot.

 

[limwhow]

A very interesting and entertaining travelogue you have here. Will camp for more

Why thank you so much for your praises, watsup!
I am truly honoured by your giving me your confidence so much so that you want to camp here.
Both SereneXMM and I are still, no real photographers.
We are merely hobbyist record shooters.
But still, I think it is my pleasure as host to buy you all a drink here on line while you enjoy the warmth of your camping tents!

 

[limwhow]

Day 4 Night: OK, Enough of Hakodate-yama! Let's go down...!


'Twas a shame that we couldn't have a nice daylight view of the Hakodate cityscape from atop Hakodate-yama.
'Twas also a shame that the night view of Hakodate was more than partially obscured by the fog and snow.
But what we experienced up there that night was something special, I felt - heavy snow fall atop Hakodate.
Hmmm... something to remember forever, I am sure.

Ok, time to go!

This time round, we gingerly made our way down another sloping path on the other side.
The frozen ice mixed with fresh new snow on top was no less slippery.
A few times, the children had to do some emergency corrective actions to prevent themselves from falling flat on their bums.
... and they had the cheek to laugh out loud each time they had to do that!
These children ah... they are really free spirited creatures!

Here is another view of the road. Hmmm... I think this one portrayed the slope a little better...

Finally on flat ground...

Shopping at the Local Supermarket!

Now this was what I called fun.
You see, the good thing about being on our own was, we could decide when we wanted to eat and where and what we wanted to eat,
instead of being subjected to a rigid eating time.
Of course on the other side, we missed out the rich, luxurious food at EVERY meal that a guided tour would provide.

But here, the old folks were up to their no goods.
They led the whole team to the local supermarket and did their own marketing in preparation for the dinner and supper for the night.

[Translation-
Grandfather (jokingly): "Honey, let's buy this 10kg sack of top class Japanese rice back to the hotel to make porridge and have it with sushi and tempura!"
Grandson: "Haha... we must have made ourselves poor after having all the 1000yen ramen, such that we had to resort to buying food from the supermarket!"]

Well, the truth is.. when you are in Rome, do as the Romans do.
And when you are in Japan, shop and eat as the Japanese do!

Anyway just as an aside, we didn't spend too much at the supermarket despite buying quite a few packs of dried food, cup noodles, Cokes, and drinks and such.
And yes, we bought quite a few packs of prepared and ready-to-eat tempura, chicken drumsticks, sushi from the fresh counter too.
Only about S$100 plus.
Hey, that fed the whole family for the dinner and supper that night.
Quite a refreshing change from the usual luxury meal, wasn't it?!

 

[limwhow]

Some more... pastries and bread from the Pastry shop!

We spied a pastry shop across the road from the supermarket, and all of us skated slipperily over.

And the Grandfather and SereneXMM wasted no time in grabbing quite a few loaves of French Toasts and other pastries...
Look at the smile on their faces... they must have been hungry and terribly happy to see so much food!

The interesting thing about shopping in the supermarkets in Japan was, they expect the shoppers to bring their own carriers.
And if we were to ask for plastic carriers, we had to pay extra for them.
Good! They are good examples of those who cared for the environment.
So we contributed too - by loading up everything into our backpacks and harvest sacks.

So we finally walked the last 1.2 km back to our hotel.
But not before dropping by 7-Eleven to buy shoe-stoppers for every one at 525yen per set (around S$8).
Now, I must say that we had not had the need to purchase any of these when we first started in Sapporo,
despite hearing so much advice from tour companies and friends who advocated doing so.
But this evening after experiencing first-hand the extent to which the frozen pavements could be slippery,
and after suffering a couple of falls, we decided that it was high time to give these wonderful inventions a go.

Here they were... S$8 per pair.
Well worth their money in rubber and aluminum! Haha..

In fact, after we purchased and slipped on the Shoe-stoppers, walking for the remainder of the trip in Hokkaido became so much more stable.
We could really REALLY feel the difference and the confidence these stoppers gave us.

Our advice for all who are thinking of going during Winter:
Don't need to worry yourselves overly by buying the very expensive version back here in Singapore (prices range from $49 - $69 per pair).
When you are over there in Hokkaido, just pop into any 7-Eleven or Sunkus convenient stores and buy your pair at 525yen.

 

[limwhow]

Day 5: Hakodate - Nettai Shokubutse-En 热带植物园 (The Tropical Botanic Gardens)

Hakodate was such a big city, bigger than Otaru in many ways.
And one could easily spend days after days just staying in Hakodate and yet still couldn't finish exploring it.

During my reaserch, I have found one place that I kept coming back to and reading about.
I believed it was a place that not too many people would end up going. But I could be wrong about that.

What attracted me about the Tropical Botanic Gardens, 热带植物园，was that when visited during winter, one could see
a bunch of very lovely monkeys soaking in the hotspring (onsen) maintained at 43 degree celcius.
Apparently the monkeys loved this onsen thing and would ofen display adorable expressions while soaking in the hot water.

Now, this Tropical Botanic Gardens was a little out of the way.
And without a tour coach at my disposal, and after discussing with the reception lady at the hotel, I found that one of the best ways was to take a tram to YuNo Gawa 川の汤 Station, and walk about 2km from there.

Well, that one comes later.
Meanwhile, we woke up early in the morning to another snowy day in Hakodate.

The early risers: AhLi XMM and the Grandmother having a swell time testing how snow falling on palms felt like...

The elder sister 姐姐 said to me:

"Papa, you know the snow flakes really are like what they have always drawn in the cartoons.
They've got many spokes to them - 6 spokes. See, Papa, see...?"
​

Sure enough.
The observant and fascinated young lady was correct.

Here we were in the morning, after our usual Toyoko Inn Hakodate hotel breakfast, standing outside waiting to move off.
Right next to us was the famous Asaichi 朝市 (The Morning Market) that sold all kinds of fresh seafood, road side food stalls and Hakodate ice creams.
But this morning was special.
We needed to go off early to the Tropical Botanic Gardens first.
So the Morning Market would have to come later.

Following my GPS, we crossed a couple of streets to come to the tram station, the Hakodate Eki-mae (涵馆駅&#21069 Tram Station.
The tram ride to the sea-side station of YuNo Gawa (湯の&#24029 wasn't expensive.
It came up to about 300 yen per adult. As usual children were half price.
But what I wanted for the children was the chance to take a real-life tram for their first time.
This mode of transport wasn't exactly available every where and I thought since we have taken the bus, the subway and the JR Train in Hokkaido, we might as well complete the picture by doing the tram as well.

 

[Spikenap]

Wow.. i really enjoy your travelogue!!!!

 

[limwhow]

Wow.. i really enjoy your travelogue!!!!

Thank you so much, Spikenap!
It was really good to have you come on board my thread early in the morning.

 

[iBishop]

one of the best travelogue to date!
hope to see more great photos coming up.

 

[limwhow]

one of the best travelogue to date!
hope to see more great photos coming up.

Thank you so much once again, iBishop.
I won't dare say 'best' lah, sincerely.
But we are merely sharing our own experiences and the joys and difficulties that we encountered while on the trip.

 

[Virgo]

Can you please stop posting now, as I am now too tempted to start booking a plane ticket to Chitose Shi! :bsmilie:

 

[forbessg]

Very impressed by your guide and pictures. Planning to do like you do, FREE n EASY to Hokkaido.

May I know which model of Garmin Oregon GPS did u used and where to buy it ?

Thanks

 

[limwhow]

Can you please stop posting now, as I am now too tempted to start booking a plane ticket to Chitose Shi! :bsmilie:

Hahaha... HAHAHAHA...
Cannot leh, Virgo.... I haven't finished my story yet leh..
Some more tomorrow Saturday ClubSNAP out of action from 5am to 10pm for major software maintenance...
Like that how?

Very impressed by your guide and pictures. Planning to do like you do, FREE n EASY to Hokkaido.

May I know which model of Garmin Oregon GPS did u used and where to buy it ?

Thanks

Thank you for your praises, forbessg.
Yes, certainly do your Free and Easy.
But don't make the same mistakes as we did... haha..
I am using the Garmin Oregon 450 and I bought mine from Perfec Watch on the ground floor of Sim Lim Square.

 

[Virgo]

Hahaha... HAHAHAHA...
Cannot leh, Virgo.... I haven't finished my story yet leh..
Some more tomorrow Saturday ClubSNAP out of action from 5am to 10pm for major software maintenance...
Like that how?

Give it a break. Let me book my tickets first! :bsmilie:

Jokes aside...keep posting bro. Think I better start planning liao...:think:

 

[limwhow]

Day 5: Hakodate - Finding our way to the Nettai Shokubutse-En 热带植物园 (The Tropical Botanic Gardens)....

Taking the tram was the easy part.
From the Hakodate Eki-mae Tram Station near the hotel to the YuNo-Gawa Station took about half an hour.
Actually it was quite fun because we were travelling with the locals, and seeing everything with a fresh mindset.

And I am sure the children would be quietly taking in all these as part of their life experiences.
Hopefully in the future, when their time come, they would fall back upon all these experiences to embark on their own journey where I left off.

Some funny moments on the tram...
(This was a real scene).

[Translartion:
"Nah... you dropped your ticket..." offered the Grandfather.
"Don't know what you are talking about lah...!" said the other Grandfather.]
Hahaha....

So we alighted the tram at the last station, YuNo-Gawa (湯の&#24029 Station.

My Oregon 450 GPS pointed south, about 1 km plus to our destination, the Tropical Botanic Gardens.
It looked straight forward enough on the map.
But when it came to the actual terrain, my goodness... we had to negotiate a few small roads.
We literally found ourselves in the middle of a residential area.

How many metres?
I really don't know. When we zig-zag along these small little roads, the distance can really add up.
But one thing I knew.
Walking along the residential area opened up our eyes to the actual living conditions here locally.
And we were impressed by the beautifully landscaped houses.
The orderliness of the roads.
The typical look of Japanese wooden homes.

Here is a classic example of what we saw that morning, by SereneXMM on her Nex5.

 

[baggiolee]

very heart warming stuffs...feel like crying.

 

[hkingx]

nice trip u got there. =D nice and lovely photo too .

 

[limwhow]

It was truly exciting to be walking so far into the neighbourhood and yet find ourselves immersed in this very quiet and serene environment.
Nary a dog bark, nary a car screech... Nothing.
All peaceful and... wintry.
The quietness only broken by some mischievous Singaporean teenagers...

... teenagers doing what?
Doing what they do best lor... play with the road-side snow... again!

We walked and walked.
And walked, and walked.
I honestly didn't know where I was leading the whole family. Honestly didn't know.
It was times like this when the feeling of being lost came whelming.
Stupid GPS. Didn't know if it was correct or not.
Even the Grandfather also KB KB now...

I bargained with them:
"Ok Ok... look. There is a river here. The arrow on the GPS points just right there.
You all come and see... there, right? It says there.
So let's just walk along the river and see what we get when we hit the end of it 500m away..."
​

At some parts, the snow was really thick, making walking in them a little tough.
And it certainly appeared like we have walked into some backlane or what...

Looking back, my team members gave me the endorsement that I was looking for:
Two big fingers-down! HAHAHA...
I think they probably meant Thumbs-down instead... Hehehe...