Day #4: Hakodate

June 24th, Tuesday took us from Toyako to Hakodate. 

Art got up early and went for a hot spring dip in the onsen at 5:00 AM.  He said it was great since nobody wanted to get up that early and he had the onsen almost to himself.  I was curious about the onsen and wanted to try it, but was too shy to take off my clothes in front of a lot of strangers.  Mom absolutely, totally, completely, definitely refused to do so.

The big H is a symbol of the University of Hawaii.  This was the marker to show where we should bring our suitcases in the morning so it could be loaded onto our bus.

As you can see, the dining area was HUGE and set up to house tons of tourists.

The food was fine.

We visited Onuma Quasi National Park.  It is a famous volcanic lake.

We were given information about the formation of two lakes, etc. but what I enjoyed most was the melon soft serve.

I have no will power when it comes to ice cream.  Hard to believe that when I made my first trip to Japan 25 years ago, their ice cream was horrible.  It's fabulous now!

Lunch was another hot pot.  We're not crazy about hot pots because it's not great to cook your own food when you're on vacation, at least for us.

The broth was bland and it was served in a temporary building.

One of the biggest reasons for Mom wanting to come to Hokkaido was to buy konbu (seaweed).

We went to the Konbu Kan Museum and store where we bought LOTS and LOTS of seaweed for mom.

This was NOT the only place we bought seaweed either!

The diorama shows how seaweed is harvested and prepared.

The next stop was the Trappistine Convent which was the first monastery in Japan.  It was constructed in 1898 to house eight nuns who were sent by a French king.  There are still nuns living and working there.

We enjoyed another soft serve which we were told was the creamiest one around.  It was very good.

Outside the ice cream shop a tourist suddenly collapsed after suffering a seizure.  Our tour guide, Michael knew exactly what to do.

In a few moments, the poor fellow was fine and was able to walk away assisted by his girlfriend.

Here, you can see other members from our tour group offering their assistance.

We were then taken to another shopping area called the Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse. There were local arts and crafts here.  We wandered around, but didn't buy anything.

Our dinner at 6:00 was beautiful, but didn't quite measure up in taste according to Mom.  I was just glad it didn't require me to cook it.  We are not huge fans of hot pot cooking.

At 7:15 PM we left the hotel and drove by bus to the top of Mt. Hakodate.  There was quite a bit of walking uphill from the bus parking lot which really winded Mom.  However, it was worth the climb to the observation deck.  The setting sun and city lights were spectacular.  We rode a cable car down which gave us yet another beautiful view.  Dennis said he enjoyed this part of the tour best.

We would be heading to Noboribetsu on the following day.