This was the journey for the day.
Once checked out and on the train for Otaru I was bored. The journey was pretty unremarkable until the train came out of a tunnel and suddenly there was a beautiful view of the sea. It was blue, wide and still like an enormous flat sheet of glass stretching out from under the train.
Otaru’s train station is at the top of a gently sloping hill, which leads down to the sea. I bought some snacks from a convenience store and proceeded down to where I assumed there would be a bench and a view.
Neither of those things were present, factories and carparks took their place. That was disappointment number one.
I found a bench and ate my lunch next to one of the canals that Otaru is famous for. Here is a picture.
What you can’t see is how short these canals are - disappointment number two.
Here is the canal as viewed through some ornamental railings.
Further along were some old warehouses and a bank, but they weren’t that interesting.
By then I had decided go back to Sapporo, but stop along the way at one of the stations nearer to the sea.
On the way back to the station this restaurant and its interesting use for boat halves distracted me.
There was a 99yen shop outside the station that I hadn’t noticed. I know this might sound silly with us living in an age of guidebooks and GPS but I bought a compass. Well you know, you might have a map but you still don’t know which direction to go in. The compass I bought had the slight downside of using the Japanese symbols for its directions, so I was always a bit suspicious of which one was North.
Interestingly in the centre of the compass were twelve symbols that denote animals in the Chinese New Year. Each animal carries a directional meaning to it so that you can say, “Proceed rat for two kilometres and then veer snake. Our house is on the left.”
I got back on the train and then off again at a place right by the sea. I am not going to mention its name because it looks like this
And you should never go there.
Ever.
There was nothing there.
The only signs of life were some bikes.
It wasn’t possible to get down to the sea as it was fenced off. I stood on some rocks next to the fence and heard frantic scuttling.
Such was my introduction to sea cockroaches. The sea didn’t seem so beautiful anymore; I escaped on the next train.
The coach to Hakodate felt quite luxurious. Each row had only three individual seats with a lot of legroom. There was even entertainment in the form of Animal Planet and a documentary about the Oryx: this endangered chap.
It took five hours to get to Hakodate, the outskirts of which were all factories and gloom. The coach stopped amongst the factories and the name of the stop was suspiciously like the one I needed but I thought, “Well even if I am meant to get off here I still don’t want to.”I got off outside the train station and went inside to the Tourist Information Office. An oldish man furnished me with a map and even drew an X where my hotel was; just 10 minutes walk up the road.
The road was a strange one. There was a female voice coming from everywhere, which made it very hard to place. Eventually I worked out that it was from a speaker system rigged all around the town. Most towns in Japan have these speaker systems; they act as a public address system for emergencies. In Hakodate though the locals have to put up with hearing songs, adverts and the woman talking as they go about their business.
I got to my hotel but I didn’t have enough cash to pay for my stay. The male and female team behind the desk looked rather unimpressed. I asked them if they took credit cards, they shook their heads and this time I was unimpressed.
One of the most technologically advanced countries in the world and yet they don’t do credit cards and their washing machines don’t heat the water. A minute later I was walking to 7/11 to use the ATM.
I returned to the hotel with cash in hand, the male and female team were smiling now.
I got another twinge of excitement as I opened the door of my home for the next two nights. The view was better than my last one, or maybe it was just that the street it looked out on to was more interesting. If I opened my window I could listen in to Hakodate FM.
A few hours later I walked around the darkened streets. I found a massive 99 yen shop and also the sea. There was a narrow back road running parallel to the sea and a large karate club. I sat on the low wall and ate some food until it started to get cold.
Back in my hotel room I watched some Japanese television and then went to sleep. I had a free breakfast to look forward to the next day.
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