Winter Break Part 3: Hakodate

(continued from part 2)

After leaving Taiwan and arriving in Tokyo again without a hitch, we met with my mother in the airport and took the train downtown to check into our hotel. It was during the New Year holiday, so everything was closed and the place looked abandoned.

The next day, we headed for Aomori. My mother and sister took the shinkansen (bullet train) in the afternoon, which took only a little more than 3 hours. However, Kristin and I aren't able to get JR East passes because we are foreign residents instead of tourists, so the bullet train was too costly. We opted to take a bus that left in the morning and arrived late in the evening that saved us about 75%. To kill time, we played chess on a magnetic travel board I bought at the 100 yen shop.

Yes, chess aficionados, we're terrible, but we kept ourselves busy.

After spending the night in Aomori, and eating a bunch of raw fish for breakfast (remember nokkedon?), we boarded a ferry boat to Hokkaido. They ferry boats in Japan are different from the ones on America because they don't actually provide seats. Instead, they give you big carpeted rooms with long tube-shaped pillows for you to rest your head on. People sit or lay on the floor and sleep, eat, read, and play with their children in these "playgrounds". In my opinion, it was much more comfortable than being forced to sit upright for a long period of time.

Four hours later, we arrived in Hakodate and took a taxi to our hotel. Then, we wandered around to look for some food to eat. We found a Hakodate specialty called Lucky Pierrot. It's a hamburger chain found only in Hakodate, and each store has a certain eccentric theme. This one had Santa decorations everywhere, and we later went to ones that obsessed over Mother Mary and a type of bizarre art.

Santa-themed Lucky Pierrot

Mother Mary-themed Lucky Pierrot. Not sure if glorifying burgers or just blasphemous...

Then, we took the Hakodate Ropeway up to the top of Mt. Hakodate to appreciate one of the best night views in Japan. We showed up right before it started snowing, so we barely had enough time to get a decent picture before everything blurred out.

While in Hakodate, we traveled around by Hakodate's iconic streetcars. We enjoyed the famous 海鮮丼 (kaisendon), or seafood bowls, filled with fish, fish eggs, squid, shellfish, and crab. There were also ample opportunities to try food colored black with squid ink.

One of the famous dishes here is called 踊り丼 (odoridon), which consists of a decapitated live squid sitting atop a seafood bowl. When the customer pours soy sauce over the brain-dead creature, its body still reacts to the stinging of the salt. It struggles about, toppling off the bowl onto the table, and the suckers still fight back while they are being eaten. This seemed way too gruesome an activity to participate in, so we stuck with the standard fare of completely dead seafood. Actually, I can't quite say that, since we ate shellfish 踊り焼き (odoriyaki), which is shellfish that "dances" while it's being grilled alive. Japanese food is pretty grim sometimes, ain't it?

Odoriyaki: clam on the left, scallop on the right.

We also had fun exploring the old foreign structures. We had a look around 五稜郭 (Goryoukaku Star Fort), and experienced the glory of the replica magistrate's office, or 奉行所 (bugyousho). We also went to the old trading district, including old European-style municipal buildings and red brick warehouses converted into shopping centers. Here, we had pseudo-western food at Hakodate Beer Hall, and also taste-tested the yummiest dried squid (saki-ika) we've ever had. I also found my little friend Ika-musume lurking in the senbei aisle.

View of Goryoukaku Tower from inside the fort.

Replica of the Bugyousho: newly built with that fresh-cut cedar scent!

The Old Public Ward - 区公会堂

Ika-musume squid crackers.

Finally, we finished off the trip with a bath in the local public hot spring called 谷地頭温泉 (Yachigashira Onsen). I particularly enjoyed the outdoor bath, or 露天風呂 (rotenburo), that was shaped like a star. Sitting in water that was too hot while my head and shoulders were being peppered by the falling snow was a unique and enjoyable experience. Sadly, neither Kristin nor Raina nor my mother even noticed that the outdoor bath was there. They even began denying its existence until I showed satellite imagery clearly displaying the five-sided roofs covering the rotenburo on both gender sections. Kristin went back in for a short dip for the experience, while my mom and sister didn't care enough to bother. A glorious opportunity wasted on these gaijin...

The next day, after some souvenir shopping, we got back on the ferry and returned to Aomori. The trip continues...