So Long Seicomart
Tonight is our last night in Hakodate, which means that it's also our last night on Hokkaido. It's been an interesting month full of sweet bean buns, interesting people and of course - rain.
First a special thanks to Zack for getting us from Sapporo to Hakodate with everything else in between without ever getting lost or even really inconvenienced in any way. While I'm still not one for planning things, I suppose it can be useful at times.
We've been in Hakodate for a couple of nights and while there's not too much going on here it is definitely a pleasant place to wander around. The morning fish market along the water front was a great place to find food, which in our case was yet another giant bowl of ramen topped with incredibly fresh grilled squid.
Wow, my tan is horrible. It looks like I'm wearing latex gloves. My sock tan is even worse and I can't even really do anything about it. I tried biking for a day with my sleeves rolled up and that just resulted in sun burned shoulders. Zack claims that such a tan is a bike tourist's badge of honor, which is certainly believable as it would fit in perfectly with the rest of cycling fashion - look ridiculous at all times.
Anyways, after picking up some spare parts for the bikes I spent a few hours wandering around the city. The downtown area of Hakodate is quite nice, the old fishing warehouses having been converted into touristy shops and restaurants. Nothing too surprising, but a nice way to spend the afternoon.
I met up with Zack for dinner to preemptively celebrate my birthday. Lured by something even better than Otaru's 1 litre beers - 1.8 litre beers - we spent some time at Hakodate's micro brewery. The 1.8 litre beers ended up just being normal pitchers, which was a little disappointing but we managed somehow.
After dinner we aimlessly wandered around the area until we happened across an unassuming handwritten sign for an upstairs bar that looked inviting enough. Inside we found ourselves in a tiny, dimly lit, but very comfortable looking space with only the bartender behind the bar and a couple quietly talking in the corner.
We decided to sit at the bar and continued our celebrations for a couple of hours while talking with the bartender and the owner who appeared at some point. While talking we were offered a free pizza which we happily accepted, and while that was generous enough already, as the evening was coming to an end the conversation turned to the mountain that looms over Hakodate, at which point the owner offered to drive us up to see the view from the top - another offer we couldn't refuse.
So, somehow without ever even exchanging names we found ourselves at the top of Hakodateyama overlooking an incredible night time view of the city with our two new friends. Truly worth seeing if you ever find yourself in Japan. While we did take pictures, they really wouldn't do it justice.
We left the mountain top as the fog started to roll in and twisted our way back down the road that snakes up the side of the mountain. We did our best to express our gratitude as we said our goodbyes and headed back to the hostel for the night.
It was a part of Hakodate we would have never seen had it not been for the kindness and generosity of these two strangers for which we are more grateful than I feel we were able to adequately express through Japanese, and so even though they'll never read this, thank you!
If you're ever in Hakodate, spend some time tracking the place down and relay our best wishes.
With that, I'm off to sleep. The next update will likely be from somewhere in northern Honshu, but not for a few days at least. Hard to believe it's already been a month.