Climbing Mount Hakodate
Trip Start
Jun 18, 2010
1
5
10
Trip End
Jul 01, 2010
Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Blog Entry for 2010 June 22
Summary: Today I spent the day seeing Hakodate (Hack Oh Da Tay). I slept at the Nice Day Inn in Hakodate. It is a budget hotel with three rooms. Bunk Beds. I paid $30/night. It's not nearly as nice as the large hotels in the area. I'd guess they are 2 to 3 hundred $/night. I will stay at a better place later on in my trip so I will have something to compare this to. The Hostess was Mrs. Saito. She was very friendly and helpful. They had 3 rooms and there were other guests besides me. A fellow from scandanavia was franticlly searcing on the tiny (B/W) TV in the common area for world cup. An older woman (I think from Canada) stayed up chatting with Mrs Saito in Japanese, when I returned from the Onsen (public bath) which was 9 blocks away.
Try not to be judgemental
I will try to be unbiased in my comments. I've read through some of my earlier comments and I should probably appologise for my attitude, which on occaision seems a bit negative. I'm writing this while I'm on the train going from Hakodate to Hachinohe on the 23rd. I realize now that I was pretty tired and hungry when I first arrived. I think the Jet Lag was getting to me too. I've heard that to avoid Jet Lag you should not eat on the Plane. Also they say that to hasten your recovery, you can reset your biological clock by staying up for 24 hours. This may have contribued to me being tired and hungry when I arrived in Tokyo. I was also too busy working to write down where I was staying on my first night in Tokyo. Thus, I got lost when I tried to get there. All I knew was that I had to head east from Minowa station on Meiji Street about 6 blocks to the 7-11 and then turn right until I saw the hotel. Alas, I went west instead of east and had walked about 45 minutes before I realized my mistake. Fortunately I stopped at a police station and although they spoke no english. They showed me on a map where I was. I asked where the Minowa station was and they looked at me (like I was crazy). It was way off the map. Then I took a taxi back to the station (my first good idea) but I went east on the wrong street. The street I was walking along was divided and it split where I couldn't see it and before long I was heading east on the wrong street. When I reached 10 blocks, I headed back. Then I tried it again. Just before I reached the 7-11 I saw a european looking backpacker walking along. It occured to me that I might be close. The next fellow looked very european and also had on a backpack. I asked him if he knew of a hotel nearby. His english was broken but he did ask where I was from. I told him Canada and he asked "Parle vous francais?" I answered "no" trying to think of some french words. I asked him where he was from. "Swiss" he said. We experienced this in South Africa once. We met a swiss traveller and they spoke to us (Mary Lou only) in french. I think they were very glad to have some one to talk to (in any language). This fellow and I didn't talk much. "Follow me" he said. We were there within a minute. It was a bout a hundred feed away. If I had been looking around, instead of trying to find someone to ask directions of, I would have seen it. I'll try not to obsess about the past. It's water under the bridge. I had only slept from midnight till 4 so I was not in really good shape to begin my trip. I got my JR Pass and ticket to the north. Sitting on the train gave me the time I needed to get my wits about me too. I dozed (slept) some on the train to Hachinohe. It was raining outside, but my spirits picked up ever so slightly.
Climb mount Hakodate
I lanched out on a mission to climb Mount Hakodate. I wanted to update my blog and send a message to my Wife and kids but I found a bit of difficulty using the computer in the loby. It took 100 Y coins but I only had two of them. I had lots of paper money but was reluctant to wait in line to convert money to coins. The keyboard had a switch to change between english and japanese. I could not find a few keys, no matter how long I searched. I only had 20 minutes of time anyway. I barely pecked. an "I'm alive" e-mail off to Mary Lou, by the time my coins ran out. My difficulty also lay in the popup messages that google presents possibly saying 'you are about to switch to a secure connection (ssl)" and the famous "some content might not be encrypted. Do you want to see it anyway. You have one chance to click the "don't show me this message again" check box. But everything was in japanese so I missed it. An american lady sitting next to me was similarly stymied so I showed her how you can click on the "Y" button a hundred times, and the screen will finally display.
