To Hakodate faster than a speeding bullet

Yesterday I left Tokyo behind me, not only physically but mentally too. I now find myself in Hokkaido the Northenmost island of the 4 main Japanese islands. Hokkaido is a world away from the frantic pace and over-crowdedness of Tokyo; it's significantly colder has a much slower pace and of course just looks and feels different.

Travelling half the length of the country in record speed was made possible thanks to the "shinkansen", Japan's "bullet trains". These fallic shaped, shiney beauties can penetrate the length of the country so smoothly, you just don't feel that your bombing it at 300 km/hr.


Until this morning I was in the port city of Hakodate which, like Yokahama, was one of the Japanese cities that prospered and expanded greatly when Japan opened its doors to international trade at the end of the 1800s. Consequently parts of it had somewhat of a European feel to them, including the city trams and some of the buildings from the era.

I stayed at the "Hakodate Youth Guesthouse", where I was only one of two guests, but that didn't prevent the land lady from pointing out the long list of rules, including a curfew at 22:00 (she crossed out the 23:00 as she was going through the list - I guess her date got cancelled or somthing) and that bathing is only allowed between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Slippers had to be worn in the building, and different pairs where provided for the bathroom. I was just thinking, i could break most of these rules and nobody would even notice; the Japanese certainly like their rules.

Anyway, all I needed was a few hours to see the main sights around the city, the highlight of which was definately the beatiful view of the city by night from a near by hill. It was definately worth the stop-over.