Friday, July 22, 2016
After a delightfully restful day at sea (with a trivia win for team Carter+Cyril!), we made it to the city of Hakodate, located on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido. Hakodate has frequently been voted as Japan's most beautiful city, and with only 270,000 or so residents, it definitely felt a little more laid back and a little less bustling than some of the other cities that we had visited. Below is a picture of the old British Consulate building.
Our first stop was to the Morning Market. Similar to the one we visited in South Korea, this mostly consisted of street vendors selling unidentifiable types of food, or live/very-recently-dead seafood. While the spectacle is wildly interesting, it was also a little frustrating, since it's not as if we can really take live crabs back to the ship, and, let me be real - sushi by the side of the road doesn't actually appeal to me all that much. I'm good with just a few more steps between ocean and table.
Anyway, after an hour of the Morning Market, our 71-year-old tour guide took us on what he described as a "leisurely walk" through the historic district of Hakodate. May I only have as much energy as he does when I get to 71. There were parts of the tour where he was literally running (which only caused us to get back to the bus 30 minutes ahead of schedule. Points of interest included a statue of Commodore Perry, a Russian Orthodox Church, a Buddhist Temple, a Roman Catholic Church, and an authentic British rose garden (because of course?). It was a very pretty area, and I for one really enjoyed the decorative manhole covers in the streets.
The highlight of Hakodate is the view from Mt. Hakodate, which towers over the city. To get to the top of the mountain, we took a 3-minute tram, similar to the one we took in Juneau last year. The view was not oversold. It was AMAZING. And very misty, which made me glad that we hadn't opted for the night view.
After a delightfully restful day at sea (with a trivia win for team Carter+Cyril!), we made it to the city of Hakodate, located on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido. Hakodate has frequently been voted as Japan's most beautiful city, and with only 270,000 or so residents, it definitely felt a little more laid back and a little less bustling than some of the other cities that we had visited. Below is a picture of the old British Consulate building.
Our first stop was to the Morning Market. Similar to the one we visited in South Korea, this mostly consisted of street vendors selling unidentifiable types of food, or live/very-recently-dead seafood. While the spectacle is wildly interesting, it was also a little frustrating, since it's not as if we can really take live crabs back to the ship, and, let me be real - sushi by the side of the road doesn't actually appeal to me all that much. I'm good with just a few more steps between ocean and table.
Anyway, after an hour of the Morning Market, our 71-year-old tour guide took us on what he described as a "leisurely walk" through the historic district of Hakodate. May I only have as much energy as he does when I get to 71. There were parts of the tour where he was literally running (which only caused us to get back to the bus 30 minutes ahead of schedule. Points of interest included a statue of Commodore Perry, a Russian Orthodox Church, a Buddhist Temple, a Roman Catholic Church, and an authentic British rose garden (because of course?). It was a very pretty area, and I for one really enjoyed the decorative manhole covers in the streets.
The highlight of Hakodate is the view from Mt. Hakodate, which towers over the city. To get to the top of the mountain, we took a 3-minute tram, similar to the one we took in Juneau last year. The view was not oversold. It was AMAZING. And very misty, which made me glad that we hadn't opted for the night view.
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