Adventures in Japan

The Big Three Oh: On a Date in Hakodate

It doesn't matter that we didn't get to eat any scallops (other than in ice cream form)yesterday, we got our fill today. Starting with breakfast. Today's breakfast viking may well be the best all you can eat breakfast we have had in this country. It had scallops, for goodness sakes! How can you have a bad day when it starts with scallops?

We like scallops.

Carla doesn't like boats. She is not a fan of most transportation choices that aren't her behind the wheel of a car she doesn't hate. But she especially doesn't like boats, in that she doesn't like what boat rides do to her stomach.

Which is why we did not ride the ferry between the main island and the North island of Japan. We took a train. A train that goes... under the sea. Take it from me: not all that exciting. Just black, black and more black out the windows for around an hour.

We arrived in Hakodate with enough time to drop our stuff at our hotel and catch the last little bit of the daily market. The guide books say it goes until noon. The books, as ever, lie. I don't know if that market ever closes. It may be busiest in the wee hours of the morning, but it ain't ever dull.

Massive crabs everywhere. Tiny squids. All sorts of wet everything. Everywhere. Most of it still moving, having not met with the business end of a claw hammer yet.

But, even with all this seafood undulating around us, the place did not smell bad. It smelled downright delicious in parts. Like the part where we lunched. Just a little place: a couple seats and a counter. And a grill outside. And a tank next to it. You order two scallops, they reach into the tank, pull 'em out and grill 'em up for you right then and there. With a little assist from a blow torch.

You know what scallops are? Butter of the sea. You know what goes good with 'butter of the sea'? Real butter. Real butter covering corn and potatoes. With local beer to wash it all down. Hokaido (the North island we're now on) is known for a few things in Japan: seafood, milk and milk products, corn and potatoes. It think we are going to like it here.

After lunch we hopped on a tram to the museum of Nothern people. Hokkaido has been home to humans long before it was known as Hokkaido. Since long before it was a part of Japan. The folks who lived here are known as Ainu. I didn't really learn much about the Ainu from the museum devoted to them. They fished a lot. They ate a lot of gross, fish related food. Most art does not depict them in a favourable light (the women are only slightly less hairy than the men, and they all have claws where their nails should be).

But their fashion sense was interesting. Native American meets Chinese meets African.

A small meander afterwards found us at a row of red brick buildings. Red brick buildings that used to be factories and warehouses and such are now shops and restaurants. We bought some stuff and enjoyed the walking around and the looking at wares.

Nearby, there is a hamburger restaurant.


Part of a Hokkaido wide chain of restaurants. We decided to give it a try. In honour of the G8 summit that is going on soonish in Hokkaido, they were offering a Summit burger. Carla ordered that. It looked interesting. The burger I ordered also looked interesting. And big. It was named the FuTo burger.

Japanese people love abbreviating things. But they don't do it the way North Americans do. Americans either reduced things to their first letter (USA! USA!) or get rid of all the vowels at the very least (mtn, st, etc,ntdsttsfmrc). You can't do that in Japan, all they have is vowels (that ain't true, but close enough to it), so they just ditch parts of words. That is how Pocket Monster became Pokemon. Sexual Harassment became Sekuhara. And foot tall (Fuuto Toru) became futo.


I ate a burger that was a foot tall. I knew something was up when they rang bells as they brought me my order. I finished it all, I'll have you know. That worries me. I'm getting fat. And old. Regina is going to kill me.

What was in the foot tall burger? A couple meat patties, a potato croquet, an egg, a lot of cheese and some veggies. Carla's burger looked way better: bits of chicken and shrimp.

But something in it may have upset her tummy, it was bothering her for the rest of the day. As did my foot, yet again. Another day, another new pain. My ankle has a cricity-crunchy thing going on inside it now. And it pops every three or four steps.

Which is why we got the transit day pass instead of just walking everywhere. That and one of the places we wanted to go to was the top of a mountain. Much easier to do in a bus than on foot. The view from the top of the mountain was superb. The view from the cafe at top of the mountain was even better: less wet and with more warm caffeine.

The weather today was a bit nutty. Rain had been forecasted for the whole day. It spat some big drops right around when we ate lunch and then it stopped. No more rain for the rest of the day. But the wind never let up. The wind blew away almost all the clouds and let the blue sky beam and sthe sun shine down. The only clouds that remained circled around the summit of the mountain.


Sitting at the summit, in the middle of the clouds was pretty cool. And pretty pretty. One minute you can see nothing but grey and the next lays the whole city out before you. Again and again. Never getting boring. But we had to leave eventually, the tourists were starting to overrun the place.


Great start to the last leg of our journey.