Day 21 - Hakodate
Trip Start
Nov 03, 2005
1
21
29
Trip End
Dec 07, 2005
Hakodate, Japan
Friday, November 25, 2005
Mike's hangover was worse than usual, and he was in a particularly bad mood. Yet as soon as we got outside, Mike started dancing (yes, dancing. I have the videos to prove it) with his umbrella in the rain - and I thought I had the guy all worked out.
After that dumbfounding moment, we went to book the train tickets for our journey from Sapporo to Osaka. Initially we had planned to stay in Tokyo for 5 nights, but confronted with the possibility of having to share a room with 5 others in a dormitory (I booked the accommodation a bit late), we came to a rather spontaneous agreement that Osaka (namely Hotel Taiyo) would be our base of operations again. Of course we'd daytrip it to Tokyo now and then (about 3hrs by Shinkansen). UPDATE: If you really need to spend a lot of time in Tokyo, then I do NOT recommend you do this. However, I wouldn't have done it differently since Tokyo didn't really appeal to me as much as Osaka did.
So there we were, trying to book tickets for the journey from Sapporo to Osaka. In the past, the JR staff had been more than welcome to help us out, however the guys at the desk that day were not too happy. We weren't holding up the queue or being demanding. It just might have been the fact that we were booking 4 trains, over 1700km, 13.5hrs travel time and over ¥33000 worth. - an incredible abuse of the rail pass (worth ¥55000 itself).
After that we split ways. Dave and I went to check out the famous pentagonal fort, Goryokaku. The Western style fort was initially constructed as a precautionary measure when the Hakodate port was first opened up for foreign trading. The 5-sided design meant that defenders could surround the enemy and attack from all sides.
Not much of the actual fort was left, although the double set of 3m walls that ran along the unusual shaped perimeter were quite interesting. There was also a museum. Sorry to say, there were no English signs and the English pamphlet was so crudely translated that it just confused the heck out of me.
Apparently (you can blame Mike if I'm wrong) towards the end of the Meiji civil war, the last samurai retreated to the fort and held it for 7 days before finally being defeated by the imperialists.
There was a tower that overlooked the fort, but Dave and I felt we'd spent enough of our money at that attraction. (Mike on the other hand, went up the tower later that day. He was unable to convince us that it was worth it though).
Dave and I found out that people wear masks on the street, not to avoid the polluted air, but because they have a sickness and don't want to spread to people. How thoughtful.
After a quick curry pick-me-up, Dave and I took a walk up Mt.Hakodate. The weather was great, despite rain being forecasted. Although Mt.Hakodate wasn't very high (300 odd metres), the skies were clear and we could see a fantastic panoramic of the city and the port. Quite impressive, but I got the feeling that Hakodate would be even more spectacular in the warmer months. Upon the very top, the air was a good 5° cooler and windier. The kind of weather that freezes the snot within your nostrils.
After all that walking and the significant loss of body heat, we headed towards an onsen. We passed through the scenic city park (where Dave had a bit of fun playing in a giant unused fountain) to get to the local public hot springs, famous for their rust coloured waters.
A bit cheaper than the last onsen (¥370), this onsen mainly catered to the oldies and families with really young kids. Once inside I grabbed a free spot at the showers and started cleaning myself with the soap provided. The next thing I knew, this man was staring at me incredulously, muttering something about how he only left his soap for a minute and then came back to find me using it. I apologised profusely, bowing deeply like I'd seen in the movies, saying HONTO NI GOMEN NASAI (I'm truly sorry). He just snatched his soap and things from me and stomped off.
Feeling rather stupid and ashamed, I was trying to wash my hair the best I could with the remaining soap on my body when he returned and offered his shampoo to me. I gratefully accepted and told him I was from Australia which invoked a NARUHODO (Oh, I see) and a smile. It turned out that Dave did exactly the same thing, stealing someone's soap, except that his victim was not as forgiving as mine.
After a head frying soak in the 49°C bath and a dip in the relatively small outdoor pool, we were feeling more faint than relaxed. At one point I was so hot, I had to get out and run to the shower only to find that it only dispensed hot water. By the time I located the only cold tap in the change rooms, I gave up and watched sumo wrestling on the TV with the rest of the onsen dropouts. I got to see the famous Bulgarian guy (who had come quite far in the tournament) finally get beaten.
We headed back to Hotel Kikuya to find Mike eating chips again. Sounded like his day at the Onuma national park was good. Most of the trees had lost their Autumn foliage and the trails weren't very long, however the views of a snow-capped Komagatake-san (yet another volcano) were impressive. For some reason the domestic tourists were buying ice cream, despite it being 7°C (WTF?). Then again, one of our own travellers was famed for doing climatically incorrect things, so I don't know why we were so surprised.
Mike headed back to Hakodate for internet and lunch before checking out Goryokaku (we weren't there to tell him it was a waste of money and to just buy a postcard).
After shocking the locals by wearing just a T-shirt amidst the cold (the guy who was surprised to see people eating ice cream just before. Odd), he went back to the hotel to thaw out in a hot bath, which was like sitting in a mine cart (the bathroom was somewhat cramped).
Mike and Dave tried Japanese KFC (which sold pies!) to find that it was better than back home (gee, there's a lot of things that are 'better than back home'. Come on Australia - you need to pick up your act and improve fast food at the very least).
Dave told us about his experience ordering food for himself at KFC. As he was having a bit of trouble understanding the girl at the counter's Japanese, she offered to speak English, switching to a comparitively loud and brash American drawl - complete with 'would you like fries with that?'. Dave was not too impressed and admitted he'd rather deal with the language difficulties if it meant sticking to the more polite and cuter sounding Japanese.
That night Mike and I had a long discussion about Japanese grammar and common phrases. This went on well past Dave's bedtime (he went to bed early since he was in a bit of a stink that day due to our change in Tokyo plans). I was in the middle of explaining some particle to Mike when Dave said "lets get some sleep guys, we've got an early day tomorrow" - we just ignored him. I think it was in spite to get him back for the night before when we had to wait until he'd finished his AV watching before we could get any sleep.
It was one of the times I actually took sides with one of my travelling companions - mainly because I wanted to improve my Japanese grammar.
