We were woken up in Tōya by the massive rolling wave of Angela. Futons make that entirely too difficult, but I suppose it is one of the hazards of sleeping on them… no cover against the roiling violence of a sister. After beating her into submission with a hail of pillows, we got ready to move out and went downstairs to have breakfast at the Ryokan and then left for the bus station. Once there, we spent some time locating the correct bus back to the Tōya train station… train schedules are quite a bit easier to read than bus schedules; but eventually Angela and I came up with the same time from two independent sources of information, so we were pretty confident it was correct… and thankfully it turned out to be, as the bus that we caught got us to the station 8 minutes before our scheduled departure. It turned out to be lots of time; but still is a little closer than we wanted to cut it.
We took the train to Hakodate, which was a very nice trip along the coastline of Hokkaido. Once there we checked into a nearby hotel (we knew the next morning was going to earlier than usual, due to the trip to Sendai, so we wanted a hotel close to the train station) and immediately headed for the pentagonal fort that had been the Tokugawa loyalists last stand against the Meiji troops. Along the way, we chose a restaurant that we thought the guidebook was directing us to, but we’re really not sure… because we still don’t know the name of the place that we ate. It was a little bit off of the main road, but noticeable because it had an aquarium of live squid out front (no pictures of that, sorry). In any case, the restaurant was great service and food!
Dad had a beer and a grilled fish that he and Ma were able to subdue with joint co-operation.
Angela had squid. No doubt one from the tank outside, the poor little cutey.
The fort was just down the road, and we headed there forthwith after lunch. There isn’t much left of it, but it looks to have been quite impressive at one point in time. You can rarely see the original stone-working, but what there is looks very well done.
The moat surrounding the outer perimeter of the fort — viewed from above, this forms the pentagonal shape.
Some of the original stonework, partially obscured by trees. The fort would be much more impressive in the spring, I believe, because 4,000 sakura (cherry blossom) trees have been planted around the fort and its area, which would be very impressive to see during full bloom. One time I’ll hit Japan at the right time to see it… next time. 
Mom and Dad under some of the foliage that currently lords over the fort.
We wandered through the fort a bit more, and then we saw the cannons. They were remnants of the original fort and looked interesting; and we only had to wait a little while for the area to clear so that we could take this picture.
There was no sign saying we couldn’t. I swear.
After the fort we were somewhat at a loss where to go… the only other thing on our list of things to do in Hakodate was the nightview, and it wasn’t yet late enough to warrant going up the tram to the top of Hakodate-yama to see it. Luckily we ran across a sign for “the cape”… and we were off! After a street-car ride and about 1.5 km of walking we ended up at the end of the cape, which turned out to be quite the scenic spot. There are a variety of photos in the album; I will just choose a few of them here…
Angela and Mom out on the rocks at the end of the cape.
The cape, with a lowering sun behind it. The sun was setting the whole time, which leads to my favourite picture of the bunch…
The sun setting behind the isle of Hakodate, across the Tsugaru straights. I wanted to wait around for the sun to actually set, but it was still up in the sky enough that we had some time to burn, so we decided to head for the top of Hakodate-yama and try to see the sunset up there. We headed out, and we actually managed to see a shrine dedicated to the fallen retainers of the Tokugawa and a Buddhist temple and Shinto shrine along the way. Hakodate is one of those cities where you cannot round a corner without running into something historic.
We made it to the tram and to the top of Hakodate mountain before the sun had finished setting, but unfortunately by that time the horizon had clouded up, so I don’t have any fantastic pictures to add of that. :( The nightview of Hakodate from Hakodate-yama was certainly magnificent, though!
The city of Hakodate, bracketed by the Tsugaru straights on either side.
After checking out the night view we headed back down the tram and back into the city proper, heading back towards our hotel… but then we were struck by a religious epiphany as we contemplated supper.
The Church of Beer. Normally I am not one to be very religious; but if there is one thing that would make me so… Angela can still feel its warmth deep in her soul. It’s actually a micro-brewery inside, and we ended up sampling multiple different beers, but the ones that really stick in my mind were Green Apple Beer (it was OK) and Grapefruit Beer (it was good). Why oh why don’t they bottle these things for export?
It was getting late, however, and we knew it would be a long travel day tomorrow for the trip from Hakodate right through to Sendai, so we headed back to the hotel and went to bed.
