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 wa...

2 weeks ago I went on vacation to Aomori and Hakodate. Aomori is the prefecture and city on the northern tip of Honshu (Japan's main island) and Hakodate is the city on the southern tip of Hokkaido (japans most northern island). For this first installment, I will discuss Aomori. (http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/regional/aomori/index.html) Upon arriving in Aomori via Bullet Train, I noticed it was quite different from the rest of Japan. It actually reminded me on Northam (in West Austral...