Vacation to Aomori/Hakodate pt 2

Part 2 - Hakodate

Published on August 4, 2007 By avonhill In Vacations

Well for part two of my vacation, I went to Southern Hokkaido, to the city of Hakodate. Hakodate is a really nice city, it is fairly historic (one of the first ports to open at the end of the Edo era) and well serviced by public transport. The train system in Hokkaido is actually Trams! Adds to the historic flavour. I stayed in a fairly upmarket hotel (all the others were full), and they staff looked pissed off to be renting a room to a dirty backpacker like me. So of course I made sure to walk into all the fancy business hotels there in peak season with my dirtiest scummiest clothes available

. I went to the historic district and had a look around, the buildings there are well preserved early Meiji era buildings, such as the old British embassy and several churches. It is well worth seeing them. Another place of note is fort Goryokaku, one of Japans only European style forts, built in 1860 something. Quite interesting to look at, it is also of historical significance because of a major battle that happened there at the end of the Boshin Wars (Meiji restoration wars). It was the last battle of the Boshin Wars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boshin_War). All in all, you can see everything Hakodate has to offer in a full day, however it is good to stay for the night, to see one of the top three night views in the world (the others being Hong Kong and Naples). See pictures below of Hakodate, the night view and fort Goryokaku.

After Hakodate, I went to Matsu Mae, a city at the very southern tip of Hokkaido to see Hokkaido's only castle. It was a waste of time basically. The castle is tiny and does not have a park, the buses run only a few times a day and it is expensive to go to. The less said about Matsu Mae, the better. I was originally planning to go when my father came in November, and boy am I glad I didn't. I would feel terrible for wasting one of his days here. But enough about this, here are the pictures of Hakodate.

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