Visiting Hakodate City - Hokkaido, Japan (part 3)

On this day we visited Onuma Quasi National Park. The park is 20 Kilometers north of Hakodate city. To get there we'll take a "One-Man" train. One-Man trains are trains that go out to isolated locations where the train stations are unattended. The train operator collects your fare before you get off the train.

So, the first step is to go to the Hakodate JR Train Station. Lucky for us the station is next to our hotel.

I asked Emi to pose next to our train. The train operator seemed surprised to see her.

Okay, this is better.

Now we're all comfy and cozy inside the train. By the way, it's a beautiful day to visit the park.

The train ride was about an hour long; we stopped at many stations along the way. This is the front of Ōnuma-Kōen Train Station. It's a short walk from here to Onuma Park.

We have arrived at the Park

Onuma Park is a beautiful nature park with several walking courses. There are lots of small islands joined by nice arched bridges.

In the park there are group tour boats and individual rental boats.

After walking around the park for awhile we walked to the Moo Town Cafe.

Per the internet: Yamakawa Bokujyo Moo Town Cafe Factory, is a small ranch producing milk and beef meat. Their roast beef sandwich as well Philly steak sandwich are highly recommended. But please try a plain glass of cold milk. It is amazing! Without any additives it tastes sweet and nothing like milk you can buy in a supermarket. It is such a delicatessen!

We ordered a roast beef sandwich and a Philly cheese steak sandwich and split them between us. I've had Philly cheese steak sandwiches in Philadelphia and they were nowhere near as good as the one we had in the Moo Town Cafe. 

After lunch Emi posed in front of the Cafe.

A rice field across the street from the Moo Town Cafe. By the way, this place is in the middle of nowhere.

We walked past this dairy on our way to the train station.

After departing the Moo Town Cafe, we walked another 15 minutes or so to reach the Onuma train station. This station is one stop prior to the Onumakoen station that we originally arrived at. We have been walking a lot today. I'm tired but I can't admit that in front of Emi. Sometimes one has to act like they're tougher than they really are for the good of the team. Press on regardless!

The problem with these train stations in isolated areas is that the trains don't run very often. Sometimes they only run a few times a day. Out on the train platform this station looks big but we're the only people here. We checked the schedule and our train should be here in 20 minutes. The fact that nobody else is here makes us feel a little uneasy. Emi reads a book while I take pictures.

An express train passes through without stopping; only local trains stop here. The express train looks nice; I wish I was on it.

Exactly on time our one-man train arrives at the station... hallelujah!
A cold beer is going to taste so good when we get back to our hotel room!

That night for dinner we picked up yakitori bentos from this small shop.

It's our last day in Hakodate. Here we are checking out of the hotel. Our flight to Tokyo isn't until 8:00 pm at night so there's still time to do more sightseeing.

We have plenty of time so we rode the ropeway to the top of Mt. Hakodate!

The view of Hakodate City from the top of Mt. Hakodate

The observation deck on top of Mt. Hakodate

This shirt makes me look fat! 

On our way back down, passing by the upward bound ropeway car.

Back down to the Hakodate waterfront.

The view from Green Island.

This is the nearest street car stop to Green Island. We'll take this street car to get to the Hakodate Tropical Botanical Garden.

Welcome to the Hakodate Tropical Botanical Garden! The admission is 300 yen for adults. This is the last place we visited before catching a local bus to Hakodate Airport.

Time to go home.

This is the end of our Hakodate adventure. We had a wonderful time. Hakodate is a fantastic city! We were worried that staying in one place for six days would be too long. Six days was easy here because there are so many interesting places to visit and such fun things to do. I love Hakodate!

All the best,

Mike

Visiting Hakodate City - Hokkaido, Japan (part 2)

 This is part 2 of our Hakodate adventure. After a wonderful day of sightseeing we decided to go out and see what the nightlife was like near our hotel.

At our age the nightlife starts while it's still light outside.

The izakaya district is very close to our hotel.

The hardest thing about going out is picking a place to go into. It seems like there are well over 100 izakaya's to choose from.

We finally made our choice.

Kanpai! (Cheers!). We had good food and plenty to drink but we decided that one night out like this was enough. For the next few nights we'll eat and drink in our hotel room.

Next day: Today we're going to visit the Goryokaku Tower, Goryokaku Park and the Hakodate Museum of Art.

The first step of todays adventure starts with a ride on a streetcar.

We get of the street car at the Goryokaku-koen-mae tram stop and from there it's a short walk to Goryokaku Tower. This tower is no joke! it's huge. It's 107 meters (351 feet) tall. The Official Tower Website

It's an amazing view from the observation deck.

Looking down at Goryokaku Park.

A view of the harbor.

The observation deck has a lot of information about Goryokaku Fortress

We are not alone on the observation deck.

Looking down on the tour bus parking lot. It's a good thing that we came here early, the parking lot is filling up with buses very quickly.

After visiting the tower we went to the Hakodate Museum of Art. The MOA was across the street from the tower. Photography is prohibited inside the Museum so I have no pictures. Howerver, one can check out their website "here".

After the MOA we walked to Goryokaku-koen. Emi took a tour of the historical Hakodate Magistrates office (pictured here) and I walked around the park which is the former sight of the fortress.

There's a nice view of the tower from the park.

After spending about an hour at the park we ate a late lunch at a nice Chinese restaurant and then we returned to our hotel location for some free-time walking around and some shopping for food and drinks for consuming in our room. 

Next day: It's raining! That's not good because today's the day we're going to take a ferry from Hakodate, Hokkaido to Aomori Prefecture, Honshu. The purpose of the trip is to visit Oma Point, the northern most point of Honshu Island.

The view from our hotel window. It's raining but according to the weather report port it should stop in time for our ferry trip. There is a special bus that will take us from the bus terminal (the big parking area in the picture) to the Hakodate Ferry Terminal.

Fast forward: We have arrived at the Ferry Terminal and Emi is buying our round-trip tickets.  Tsugarukaikyo Ferry Global website

This is the Ferry that will take us to Oma in Aomori. It's still raining.

After all the trucks, cars and motorcycles are loaded onto the ferry we are allowed to walk onboard. We enter the ferry using the same loading ramp as the motor vehicles use.

We are underway and it looks a bit scary! 

And, after a couple of hours we arrive safely at Oma Ferry terminal in Aomori.

Inside the Oma ferry terminal. Emi poses with a fish.

Motorcycles drive out of the ferry's bow ramp and we start our walk from the terminal to Oma point.  

It's supposed to be about a 3 kilometer walk from the terminal to the point. Should be no problem if we don't get lost (guess what). It's not raining but it sure looks like it wants to.

Walking through the fishing port village. It looks deserted. We don't see any people.

The waterfront scenery is nice... nice and dark that is.

Passing by the main fishery.

We have come to a fork in the road. One way is the right way and the other is the wrong way. Think carefully, check and recheck google maps on our cell phones. The correct way is the left fork... we took the right fork.

After walking for what seemed like forever we finally happened upon a gas station and the station attendant very politely told us we were heading in the wrong direction. He got us headed in the right direction and eventually we saw a sign pointing us to Omazaki (Oma Point).    

We have arrived at the northern most point on Honshu Island! This is a view of a lighthouse on a small island just off the coast.

Proof that we really made it to Oma Point.  Now all we have to do is walk back to the ferry terminal and catch the ferry before it departs. 

On the way back to the ferry it started to rain. We had folding umbrellas with us but the rain was so heavy that the umbrellas we almost useless. We were lucky to find a store on the way to the ferry landing that sold us obento's for our lunch. We made it back to the ferry terminal intime to catch our scheduled ferry. 

We are underway and heading back to Hakodate! My shoes and socks are soaking wet, but that's okay, we're on our way and we are happy for that!

Land Ho! I can see Hakodate in the distance.

Now we're back in front of the Hakodate Ferry Terminal waiting for our bus back to town.

Here comes the bus! Here comes the bus! We're so excited... I need a drink!

The view from our bus as we depart the ferry terminal area and head back to our hotel.

That's the end of part 2. Part 3 is coming soon!

Sneak preview: Tomorrow we're going to visit Onuma Koen. I hope my shoes are dry by then!

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Mike