Day 5 - Hakodate and Morioka

Can't believe I got suckered in by the red line marketing, but I wanted to see what corn blend tea meant

Wait, marketing is great, this is actually really interesting kind of like drinking cream of corn without the creaminess just refreshing corn taste?

This map has a different north than the previous one, is this a joke to them

I'm eating here later, it's called lucky pierrot, some burger chain that originated here and it's supposed to be really interesting

All these dumb warehouses are closed, going to come back later

I'll be back "a cluster of warehouses"

Taking a streetcar to Goryoukaku atm

I can't get over how much I enjoy sipping this corn tea

Cool view

There's some school groups here for a field trip or something

I'm feeling an early lunch burger at Lucky Pierrot

Chinese chicken (their specialty) and lucky egg burger (no 2)

They were pretty good but based on the picture and the price I thought they were smaller so this was more food than I anticipated

Now I'll walk into th pentagonal park from before

Peek

Some shots inside the park

I'm Goryoukaku'd out, back to downtown where things should be open now

Outside view of tram, a part of me now wonders what their dispatch software is like

The amount of Japanese people that pay with cash is unreal when there's tap on and off cards that work throughout the country... Especially when you have to pay when getting off which slows things down

Teddy bear store at the Meijikan

Another music box store, I'm checking big I like a song here enough

Had a sample Japanese cheesecake bite at Petite Merveille and it beats Tetsu's Angel Cake for me

Now the other famous sweets here, Snaffle's Pastry

Strawberry was a bit too sweet, but the original cheese was just right, it seemed another variant of the Japanese cheesecake

Everytime someone moves out of the way because I was walking on the right I have failed as a human being

That's the view point I'll go to closer to sunset

Yeah, that's why I came here

I got asked if I want the English or the Japanese brochure here, I've PEAKED

Scrolls depicting the ainu, one per month

Hmm poor bear

Neat explanation about names in Hokkaido

This is almost profound

Some traditional ainu clothing

Hm the amount of text in both languages 🤔🤔 also good thing southern people don't decorate their clothes

Also, Google randomly offers to translate while I take pictures sometimes and it's not bad

Now a brief visit to the former British consulate, back when Hakodate was THE point of contact

Soon

SO MANY QUESTIONABLE THINGS HAPPENING

No comment.

Neat floor map

Alright I'm about to pass this on my way to the ropeway, I'm copping a second best melon pan ice cream sandwich, I don't want sweet but when will I ever come back

I got the LORE

The world's best melon pan ice cream was started by the old master near Kyoto and this branch wasn't made by the top disciple... The top disciple's store is in Kanazawa

To be honest getting that lore was the main reason I even got the sandwich, I needed to know, also I he shopkeeper actually spent like 11 month in Toronto 8 years ago on a working holiday

Here's the lad when he went to get the melonpan, also again note the recurring leitmotif of crows being dangerous

Ropeway soon

How many times have I walked up and down hills this trip

We here

This can is kind of cool actually

On the way up

It's PACKED

Alright it's real pretty though

Pretty happy a phone selfie camera did this good a job with foreground and background given the lighting

A couple more normal pics after it got darker (yeah they're basically the same, getting other angles was rough)

On my way down now

And down

Ok back on the train to Shin-Hakodate station, from there I'll take the Shinkansen for the first time this trip to Morioka

Something about Japan is that they've commercialized souvenirs and the custom of giving some in a very targeted way, every major station will sell ready to go regional souvenirs (usually food) ready to go

I feel like I need to buy a suitcase or duffel fairly soon, snacks are adding up

This is my overflow bag and my backpack is pretty much filled to the brim too

As I'm walking towards the station after I left the train, I saw a Japanese businessman eating some ekiben while flipping the pages on some and with an open can of Sapporo, picture perfect Japanese businessman stereotype

I've almost thrown things out into these hand dryers like three times because they're the only trash can like looking thing in most bathrooms

Waiting for shinkansen to arrive

We waiting, ETA 9:45pm, in roughly 2 hours

Bonus video of the arrival

We're off

Train naps 🙏

Onwards to hotel

Tiny room but it'll do since all I need is a bed, it's luxurious compared to the capsule really

Lmao there is no escape

They're explaining the NUANCES of the sentence because it's hard to translate apparently