April 13th: Hakodate

Hakodate was our next port stop on Saturday and we'd reserved an excursion for the day.

We would be leaving the island of Honshu and moving on to the northern island of Hokkaido.

We could see the snow capped mountains in the distance.

But first, there was breakfast to enjoy at the Santa Fe restaurant.

That fruit dish had a pineapple platter.

Our packable down coats were perfect for Hokkaido's colder temperatures.. We boarded our comfortable tour bus.

Art had bought excursions that would be all in Japanese so he didn't understand a thing. I understood maybe 50% of what was being said. Mom was loving it all!

Our first stop was the Goryokaku Tower where we could view the Goryokaku fortress.

Goryōkaku (五稜郭) is a star fort in the Japanese city of Hakodate on the island of Hokkaido. It was the main fortress of the short-lived Republic of Ezo.

Goryōkaku was designed in 1855 by Takeda Ayasaburō. His plan was based on the work of the French architect Vauban. It is shaped like a five-pointed star. This allowed for greater numbers of gun emplacements on its walls than a traditional Japanese fortress, and reduced the number of blind spots where a cannon could not fire.

The fort was built by the Tokugawa shogunate to protect the Tsugaru Strait against a possible invasion by the Russian fleet.  Goryōkaku is famous as the site of the last battle of the Boshin War.  --Wikipedia

 I mentioned before that mom loves history. She took a lot of time to read all the displays.

After coming down from the Goryokaku Tower we headed out to the Morning Market.

Mom loves seaweed and seafood. There was a lot of it at these markets.

The owner here said he would give mom a "great deal." He offered her an extra package for the price of three.

Yes, we bought it.

There were so many interesting things to see.

I loved how they spelled piece.

The photo at the bottom explained that you could catch your own squid for lunch.

We had a fabulous fresh seafood lunch at this restaurant. We also met another Japanese mother and daughter who were on the tour. They LOVED talking to mom. The daughter said she had been to Hawaii five times and loved coming to the islands.

Our next stop was the Hakodate ropeway. We boarded an aerial tram to the top of Mt. Hakodate which is 1,100 ft. high for a panoramic view of Port Hakodate.

We then walked to Motomachi which the tour guide said was like San Francisco. We passed a statue of Commodore Matthew Perry. He was a key figure in forcing Japan to open its ports to American trade.

We boarded the tour bus again and went to the Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse. And yes, we had another soft serve! Art and I tried the sesame soft serve. Mom played it safe with green tea. The sesame was ... well... OK.

We'd been told that everyone needed to be back on ship by 6:30, or else!

Our tour bus got us back at 6:15. It was close.

Dinner that evening had some interesting selections like San Francisco Cioppino, Frosty Mango and Pear soup, key lime pie, tonkatsu, warm chocolate fudge cookie with ice cream, etc.

It was a lovely day and we were ready for bed.