Day 21: Last Night in Hokkaido
Today has been our last full day in Hokkaido and in Japan. I will also be completing my round-the-world trip by taking Air Canada back to Boston via Tokyo and Toronto tomorrow. It is a mixed feeling to say the least, part of me really have enough traveling from places to places and ready to be home and take a really good rest in my own bed, but then part of me still wished to keep going, not particularly ready for work next Monday neither. I wonder, where else can I go in the middle of Pacific Ocean before I complete the circle around the world, maybe a weekend getaway trip to Australia or Hawaii before heading back?! How about that? That would be nice for sure, but I doubt my boss would be happy about that.
Anyway, we took a 8:30am train from Sapporo to Hakodate in the morning, it was a 3.5 hours train, another long distance ride. I did not mind the long ride at all, that would be the time I could catch up with my blog, or just enjoy the views outside the windows. Unlike the US, not only the trains are fast here, you can actually see beautiful things from the windows during the ride. South of Sapporo heading to Hakodate, our train passed by the seashore on the left, and some a few snow-capped mountains on the right. We glided through the middle, like a dragon. It's good feng shui I think.
We did not originally plan to go to Hakodate, Bryan suggested and we decided to do it on our last day, we did not have any solid plan anyway. I intentionally left this last day open, so we could just wind down in Sapporo, or we could choose to visit another city with our train pass. The night view of Hakodate is said to be one of the best night views in Japan. So without hestitation, I was like, sure, let's do it. We arrived Hakodate at noon, took a quick lunch by the train station. My tan-tan ramen was absolutely delish! After lunch, we took the local tram to Goryokaku Park, which looked like a star from above. There was an observation tower by the edge of the park. Up there, there were nice views of the entire city too.
After Goryokaku Park, we went to Suehiro-cho at the foot of Mt. Hakodate. With the many downhill slopes, it offered some nice views of the port. The ropeway station was only a few minutes away, we took the cable car up Mt. Hakodate around 4pm. As we were lining up to the cable car, there was a sign saying the night view beginning around 4:30pm-ish and it said the visibility tonight was very good. There were many Chinese tour groups up on the top, but I think we picked the perfect night and perfect time to see this view. It was a perfect conclusion to our Hokkaido trip too, with such a signature sight. We were up there just when it started to get dark, the color of the sky changed so rapidly. We documented the whole change of lights with our camera, phones and mental pictures. After I must have taken a hundred plus photos or equivalent to 30 mins or so, we had enough of the view and took the ropeway back down to look for dinner.
We had a 6:14pm train back to Sapporo, so we just had some quick bites (a bowl of ramen for me and a small rice bowl for Bryan) by the train station just to keep us hanging, and then when we arrived back in Sapporo, we had another more substantial dinner in the underground food mall. In the restaurant, my observant eyes caught another table where a group of older Japanese men and women just finished their meals and was about to leave. It was interesting to look at how they interact with their little motions on their faces, the bows, standing up to put on a jacket or the way they say things to each other. I did not understand a word they say obviously, but I could feel their emotions. I just like that kind of moments when I withdrew myself and just observed people. I think that's one of the things I love most when I am traveling. Oh well, need to start planning my next trip already.
See the other photos from Day 21 here.