April 16 - Hakodate, Japan

 Hakodate is the 3rd largest city in Japan, and I would agree that it is big.  The cruise terminal is in a very industrial port.  Our tour today was Hakodate Highlights.  Normally those are lots of time in a bus, but this one was different.  Our first stop was to have a walking tour for 90 minutes in the older section of town, the Motomachi Area, where there were several churches of various denominations - Protestant, Russian Orthodox, Catholic, and a Shinto Shrine, for example.  It's a hilly area so it was not an easy go, but our guide, Ecko, stopped frequently.  

A welcome salute

And it changed colors

I have never seen an umbrella dryer before, but this was in the terminal.

A Protestant Church

A Shrine (I think).  It was built of cement and survived a big fire in the area.  It also has 3 fish tail decorations hanging from the roof that are to protect it from fire.  They seem to have worked.  (Or maybe it was the cement.) The sand used in the cement had to be washed first because it was unclean from people walking on it.

I liked the white tulip tree on the right, the nice lamp pole in the middle and the beautifully manicured pine tree on the left in front of this pretty house.

This is a color tile like the manhole cover above it.

I saw another woman taking a picture of this one with the squid so I'm not the only manhole cover aficionado.

The Google translation says "Be careful of the crows, they're hunting for your food."  I think they mean the one on the pole in the background who wasn't happy about the sign and kept shrieking while we were there.

This beautiful former government building is built in a combination of Western and Japanese style.  It is now a concert hall.

Next we rode a "ropeway" (which brought to mind interesting pictures), but it was actually a cable car up to the high point of the city for some nice views.  It was a bit gray and overcast, but it was still pretty.

The tram held our group of 32 and took just about 3 minutes to get to the top.

There were several ship's tours up there and it got a bit confusing.  Our poor guide rounded us up and counted twice, but even so, 2 of us managed to miss the tram down.  Fortunately, they made the next one.  I told her about our guide who did the high-five counting thing and she seemed to like that idea.

Our last stop was a the local Morning Market right near the ship which was for FISH!  What a surprise.  Anyway, she told us we could just explore on our own and make our way back to the ship if we wanted to.  Phil and Carol again were on our bus (funny how often we select the same tour as our friends) so we wandered a bit and then headed to the Food Court to eat like the locals.  We each had tempura shrimp (2 pieces) on rice with a beer for about $9 each.  And we all agreed it was delicious.

A little different than our food courts.

This sign sounded like back home.

But this was on the back and, while it says the same thing, it's a bit more Japanese in tone.

The plastic models of the food offered inside are not terribly appetizing, but they get the point across and are handy for non-Japanese speakers.

We spent the afternoon lounging.  It was a bit chilly today, but I was outside on the balcony for a while with the blanket and my jacket on reading the paper.  The workers were hard at it painting the lifeboat lifts again.

These were from the welcome ceremony yesterday in Miyako

Trivia today was a disaster.  We only had Jan/Tom, Sarah and us since Phil and Carol had other plans.  We got 3/15, a new low.  Who even knew there was an English pope, let alone his name?? (Adrian)

There was a lecture by Jeana Rogers called "The Samurai and How They Shaped Modern Japan".  Her delivery was a bit bland (she was reading it and at times it seemed like she was addressing a high school class), but her information was good.  Even though the Samurai are long gone, their code of honor, duty and courtesy still prevails in Japan.

Jand and Tom ordered dinner in, so it was just 5 of us for dinner.  We ate in our usual area and it was really good again.