Day 26 & 27: Relaxing days in Hakodate

Day 26:

Hello dear ones, since there seems to be still interest in our trip, here is day 26 including our experiences. Our first real day in Hakodate began with us, quite well rested, conjuring up a Japanese breakfast. That meant there was rice, salad, miso soup and dry fish. We found the ingredients for this at our local supermarket the night before. The breakfast was very good and our cooking skills were definitely expanded. Well fortified, we walked to the steep coasts near our holiday home. It looked beautiful there again. There was a lot of lava rock sticking out of the water and cliffs to discover. First of all, we walked down a fairly remote path to the water. We climbed a few of the rocks there and wondered why we were the only ones here even though it was so beautiful. On the way up we realized why. Apparently the path we took is closed. Oops. Well, at least there was no trouble and we were able to take some cool pictures. After sitting on a bench for a while we walked a little further, got some ice cream and looked at the rest of the Kapp.

After looking around there enough, we decided to explore the city a little. So we quickly walked to the nearest tram station and from there took the train into the city. When we got there, we looked around for a while. In a shopping center we found a wonderful gift for Jules' family's cat. A little hat for cats in the shape of an octopus. From what I can tell he's really going to love this (that's ironic, he's going to hate it). After we strolled around for a while, we were able to find a small shopping arcade that seemed to only have souvenir shops. We spent quite a while there as it offered a lot to see. There were a variety of things to discover. Among other things, a shop full of music boxes, a shop with stuffed animals and all sorts of other knick-knacks. In total we probably spent another 2-3 hours there. When we felt hungry again towards the evening, we quickly looked for something and noticed that only 100m from our location there was a burger shop called “Lucky Pirrot”, which apparently only existed in Hakodate. And a total of 17 times. The burgers were okay, but what really impressed us was the soft ice cream. Here you can get a huge soft ice cream with toppings and everything for about three euros. Well fed, we strolled through the streets for a bit and then soon drove back to our holiday home.

After spending a while there, we went back to the local convenience store later in the evening and got ourselves an alcoholic drink, which we then headed home with. When we arrived back, we let the evening fade away a bit and then soon slipped into bed.

Day 27:

We don't really have much planned for this Sunday so it won't be so stressful. We had picked out a nice park in the area that was shaped like a star. We wanted to visit this.

We actually wanted to take the cable car up to Mt. Hakodate, but since this cost around €13 per person, we weren't quite sure whether we wanted to do that.

In the early afternoon we set off to go to the city center, as the park is about half an hour away from us by tram. Something very funny happened on the tram.

Since the train here is relatively small, ours was a bit crowded. In addition, the train often jerks back and forth, with people on the train always rocking back and forth or stumbling a bit. Even when you sit, you have to hold on. So Moritz had the problem that there was a man with a backpack standing in front of him who was carrying his backpack on his stomach (that's what you do here when the train is full). However, the man did not seem to have a good spatial understanding and so Moritz had his backpack on his face, on his lap or on his hand more than once. It looked really, really funny, but I don't think it was for Moritz. But I still make fun of it because it was just a funny situation. Other tourists sitting across from us also saw this and giggled too.

After we got off the train, we saw a small shopping center. So we went in. The shopping center actually only consisted of a large store - Muji - which is also available in Germany, but not as big as here in Japan.

In Germany it's just a stationery store where you can also get a few bathroom utensils, clothes or sweets. In Japan you can find everything there: furniture, pillows, suitcases, food, dishes, stationery, books, storage items and much more. There was even a small Muji shop on the lowest floor, where you could also find normal supermarket items. Bentos, teas or other everyday foods. We looked around here for a while and then when we wanted to leave, we discovered a Starbucks.

Actually, we're not particularly Starbucks fans, but since there was also matcha here (Moritz likes to drink that at the moment), Moritz invited me over for a nice coffee and we sat there and chatted a bit.

After about an hour late, we finally headed towards the park.

The park was actually quite nice. There was a river that encircles the entire star concept in which there were koi fish. There were also many trees that stretched almost horizontally and even had to be supported by pillars. Some of these trees even formed a small tunnel passage. It was very atmospheric. We also saw that in the middle of the star-shaped garden there was a kind of magistrate who could be visited.

We were lucky and it was still open for an hour, so we decided to go inside. A staff member asked me in Japanese if it was okay if she explained everything to us in Japanese and I even understood what she was trying to tell me. I then replied that we both understand English better. So she helped us buy our tickets in English. Another employee, who then validated our tickets, gave me a compliment, which I even understood. I was very happy that I made some progress with my broken Japanese and that I received a compliment from a Japanese woman. That must mean something!

The building was really beautiful and we learned that it had been faithfully recreated. There was once an old fortress, but it was destroyed. The neighboring building used the same materials and methods as those used in the 19th century.

It was also explained why the park was laid out in a star shape: it made more sense at the time to defend the fortress, as it was easier to place cannons, for example, and still have a better overview.

The house was really very atmospheric and we really liked it. After we were finished, we walked around the park a bit and then soon got hungry. So we went looking for food and thought that it must be relatively easy to find something to eat here, since there were so many places to eat here. After filtering out what would meet our needs and what wouldn't, we went into a restaurant and asked if they still had a table for two people. We were immediately turned away because you could only eat in the restaurant with a reservation. So we went to the next restaurant where we had the same problem. We walked around for a while and just couldn't find anything that was in our price range and where I would find something to eat. Absolutely great!!

We were pretty frustrated. After 40 minutes we just gave up hope and were both in a pretty bad mood. The restaurants we wanted to go to had really delicious food, which we were really looking forward to. We were now able to get rid of that. We decided to just get food from the convenience store again. That was pretty disappointing and I realized once again that food disappointment is really the worst kind of disappointment.

So we went back and tried out a new convenience store near here. Since we were already so excited about restaurant food and especially fries, we weren't particularly satisfied here. We were both starting to get a little fed up with convenience store food. If only there were at least potatoes, bread or other delicious familiar things here...

Moritz got some ramen and a hamburger and I also got a small bowl of cream with an egg roll and a bun with corn and cheese (I hope it was cheese). We ate the whole thing straight away at home.

I always have the problem here that everything made with bread is always made from white bread, which here tastes like milk rolls. So my dinner tasted like sweet roll with egg or sweet roll with corn and cheese. Delicious…

After we had eaten, Moritz washed up, we wrote and uploaded a post and then it was almost time to go to bed again. Writing the post took a particularly long time today because the website had problems and we had to do everything all over again. But no, it's fun... :D

Once again, thank you very much for reading and see you soon. Your Moritz and your Jule. :)