Hakodate, Japan - full of surprises

Our last morning in Sapporo couldn't have started more abysmally: As it turned out, the alarm clock in the room was set for 5:07 am. Of course, this woke us up, following a small heart attack since we had no idea what it was at first, and then couldn't fall asleep any more.

That morning, however, we were leaving Sapporo for Hakodate anyway, which is just a bit south of Sapporo, but a 3-hour train ride since it's a slow train that has to go stop in every little town on the way. Since we have been in Japan during off season, and very often we've been the only Western tourists where we are, we've had a very easy time getting tickets for the trains.

However, since Sapporo is such a hot destination, due to the famous snow festival, by the time we got to the ticket counter, there were no more seats available on the train, the next train had non-reserved seats only (read: Stand up for 3 hours), but there was room on the third. So, we got a very late start that day, having to wait at the train station for over 2.5 hours just to begin our 3-hour train ride.
 

While waiting at the Sapporo train station, we had this awesome cheese cake at Starbucks Coffee. It was so good!!

Needless to say, we arrived in Hakodate late enough that there wasn't really much for us to do that day anymore. Because of the winter and the snow, everything has been closing around 4:30 or so, so we just rested, which was important since we were exhausted from being awakened at 5:07.

Our hotel in Hakodate was awesome. They have a lot of free stuff: Free laundry (and soap), free hot springs (transportation included), and they have a free breakfast in the morning, which isn't very popular in Japan (and definitely not Western-style - usually this is just a regular meal with rice and noodles and meat), but they also have a really cool extra: From 21:30 to 23:00 (that's 9:30-11 pm for you non-military-time types), they serve free ramen!

For you Americans, ramen is not the 25-cent baggie thingies that college students live off of, it is a really wonderful noodle-soup-type dish that you are supposed to make noise sipping. Rony had no problem easing in to this tradition and happily slurped his soup (it's the right thing to do here, after all), but Talia couldn't do it. Physically. She tried, but it wouldn't happen. Perhaps it's a psychological barrier - she will get it checked out when she's back home.

Anyway, we went downstairs for this dinner and went to bed.

The following morning, we got an early start and set out to see one of the main attractions in Hakodate - the Goryokaku tower and star-shaped fort. We started out in the tower and went to the top, along with many others. The view is spectacular. Even the most gorgeous pictures we took cannot begin to explain how beautiful it all was. Since the whole country, practically, is covered in snow, and especially the north, the whiteness of everything was just awe-inspiring. Of course, Talia isn't used to these amounts of snow (or any, for that matter), so she just kept ooohing and aahing about everything.

The fort as seen from the tower. See the small dots in the snow? Those are people!

What's special about the tower is that you can see the entire star-shaped fort below. Usually it's surrounded by water, but in our case it was snow. Still, it was beautiful.

When we went back down to the first floor, we were surprised to see a long line at a gelato (ice cream) stand. We approached to see what the fuss was about and OMIGOODNESS you have never seen such beautiful colors - and odd ice cream choices. Of course, we had to have some, even if it was -4 C (25 F) degrees outside. It was delicious! We got a few different flavors so we could taste as many as possible.

Some of the flavors they had: black sesame seeds, purple sweet potatoes, pumpkin and milk

Rony tasting the purple sweet potatoes: "OMG! It's good!"

After our delicious ice cream, we went outside to walk around the fort. The city is beautiful, as is the fort. As we walked around and saw different parts of the fort, including the magistrate building, which was cool, but apparently just a copy built a couple of years ago and finally opened last year, we suddenly heard really weird chanting.

The magistrate office rebuilt and reopened last July

At this point, we were on top of a hill looking over a large part of the fort, so we started running toward the noise to see what the noise was. And OMIGOODNESS was that run worth it! Apparently there was a group of 10 or 12 young guys, barely passed their teenage years, who were NAKED but for a mawashi (like the sumo diapers). As a reminder, it was -4 (25) degrees outside!!

What? How? Who are they?!?

So we had to run to take as many pictures as possible, because - let's face it - who would believe us without the pics? Rony ran after them (Talia walked slower because she's not used to walking on ice), and took as many pics as possible of this weird phenomenon. A few of the guys were carrying a gurney with what appeared to be a large ice statue of some sort that would couldn't figure out yet.

What the hell is that?!?!?

At first, we thought they were going to interrupt the ceremony that was going on below, including a marching band (that played a lot better than Talia's high school's marching band, no offense), but then we saw that, in fact, they were part of the ceremony!

The guys continued with their chanting (and everyone present continued snapping 100 photos per minute of the spectacle), and place the ice sculpture - which turned out to be the head of a dragon - on top of the body. They continued to chant, and suddenly people started throwing buckets of water at them! And they were still naked! And it was still snowing outside and freezing and OMIGOODNESS Talia almost froze to death just watching them.

But we couldn't stop laughing and watching in awe. Of course, we had no clue what was going on, and the only people who spoke English were other tourists who, also, had no idea what was going on. Luckily, we received somewhat of an explanation while writing this blog post. Apparently, these guys volunteer for this ceremony and it is supposed to show that they have guts, or something along those lines. We tried to find an explanation online, but couldn't. Oh, well. It was hilarious anyway, and we had fun.


As we were leaving, we heard a lot of noise (again) coming from the street. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a few men on top of a big van, not unlike the Chabbad van, but these guys weren't dancing in the middle of the street, but trying to bring upon social change. We are clearly fluent in Japanese. Actually, there was a guy there handing out fliers and (of course) tissue paper (our 10th packs, more or less, since we've arrived in Japan), and we were able to make out what it was about because of their awesome use of cartoon characters.

Vote for us!

The first cartoon shows a guy stamping a time card at 18:00 when it's 21:00, under it you can see a injured guy asking for sick leave and below a mother asking to go take her children earlier, but the boss says no. At least that's our interpretation :)

 The next stop was Suehiro-cho, which is an area of old waterfront warehouses that were turned into mini shopping malls where they sold all kinds of random stuff, from souvenirs and toys to chocolates and light fixtures - in short, pichifkes ("bric-a-brac" in English... and French). They also had the same ice scream shop as we had eaten in the tower! But enough was enough. :-)

Old warehouse turned to shopping mall

Nearby was the Russian Orthodox Church, which is one of the famous landmarks in Hakodate. They require that you remove your shoes when entering, which is funny since it's a Christian religious institution, but, we guess, when in Japan...

Russian Orthodox Church

 The last stop was the view from Mount Hakodate. When we arrived at the train station the day before, we went through the tourist information office to see if there was anything we didn't know about that was worth going to see. They gave us a map, of course, and then a coupon for the ropeway up to the mountain for the view, which was a $1.20 discount, more or less.

A note about tourist information in Japan - always go, even if you know what you are going to do in the town/city. They often have information that you can't find online, like for random festivals, and we have gotten many coupons and presents from several of them! You can't beat free stuff. :-)

There is a store with drinks and food at the top and the bottom of the mountain, in case you wanted to know. There's also a small movie theater at the top where every 15 minutes they show the history of Hakodate, and a great indoor and outdoor lookout. The view from the mountain is spectacular, of course, so this was a fun part of the visit.

Hakodate from Mt. Hakodate view point

 The next day, we crossed back to the main island to Morioka and a few other snow festivals, but that's for the next post. :-)

Pics from Hakodate:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=618393&id=906005363&l=ebd7786831

Tokyo, Japan: Nikko, Sumo tournament, Mori Tower

Saturday we woke up early to go to Nikko as we planned. We also had to check out from our hostel and store our bags for the day. But as we got attached to the staff there, we took some time to say goodbye to everyone, and we missed the 8:00 train. But it wasn't that bad, since we caught the next one and finally got to Nikko.

The ride takes 2.5 hours, but it was not boring at all: The view from the train was great. We passed many small towns and villages and it was interesting to see what they all looked like. The houses look very nice and everything looks so clean. And when we got close to Nikko, we started to see snow on the houses, the fields, and everywhere around. It was so cool. We haven't seen snow for years!

We didn't have much time to be in Nikko because Talia's friend, Shanainai, was coming in the evening from the States to spend a week with us and visit Japan, so we could stay only till 15:00. We decided to focus on Nikko's main attractions, the temples. There are also a lake and waterfall that are supposed to be great, but maybe we will do them next time.

The temples are displayed all around downtown and it's like a walking trail to find them all. We bought a 5-temple-in-one pass which cost about 1000 Yen, and after a very tasteful pizza from a cafe in front of the train station, we started our tour.

We started with Rinno-ji which was under renovation when we were there. There were a lot of tourists there, Japanese and Russian, so it was very crowded and we couldn't understand the guides' explanations, but it was a nice start.

We then saw Tosho-gu with its famous 3 monkeys: "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."

Seeing the temples in the snow was quite amazing. It had a sense of peace and beauty that we enjoyed as much as the temples themselves.

 

We don't want to start an extensive description of all temples we saw there, but it definitely was a great idea to come to Nikko and enjoy a walk outside the big city.

Shinkyo sacred bridge in Nikko

We went back to Tokyo in the evening to meet Shainai in our new hostel.

We decided to "celebrate" Shanainai's arrival and enjoyed a good dinner out.

The next day, the main attraction was the sumo tournament finals that started in the afternoon. We decided to go back to Senjo-ji for a short stroll and show this crowded and cheerful place to our friend. The place was even more crowded than when we were there a few days before. Of course - it was Sunday. Talia played the tour guide as though she had known the place for ages.

One of many funny signs you can see on the streets of Tokyo

We then went to the sumo tournament, which was 3 subway stations from there. This was a great experience that everyone should do at least once. The combat itself is not very long and the ceremony before the fight is longer than the fight itself, but there are dozens of them during the day and each is exciting and surprising. And as the day advances, the more important the fights become and the more cheerful the crowd is.

Sumo entering ceremony

Getting ready to fight

Fight!

At the end, the winner got lots of trophies. A lot! It didn't stop, so we decided that we should leave and go on to Roppongi Hills and view Tokyo from above.

The winner

We went to the 52nd floor of the Mori Tower and saw Tokyo at night. The ticket to get there was a bit expensive (1500 Yen - about $17) but it included an exposition by a Japanese artist at the museum there. Talia was a bit scared of the display there. The theme was ghosts, life and death and in between.

View from Mori tower

We finally got to our hostel exhausted. We planned on going to Tsukiji market at 5 AM in the morning, but we were too tired so we postponed it to the next day, before going to Kyoto.

You can go over to the videos page to watch a video from the Sumo tournament.

Pics from Nikko and Tokyo:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=607350&id=906005363&l=f7ebb6de16