Mia-tachi no tabi - Day 6 - Flight of the Hayabusa!

One thing I have failed to mention yet that cannot be forgotten: the Suica card. It is basically like a debit card for train fare, but it has been expanded to be used to for vending machines, shops, and restaurants. We each got one the first day after traveling around for a bit and it was so much nicer than having to get tickets for each leg! When entering and exiting the ticket gates you just have to tap the card on the pad and the correct amount is deducted. It is beautiful. But today we activated our JR passes, which are also awesome, but we have to show them to a real person at one specific entrance. I miss the Suica card a little.

Today we journey to Hakodate on the southern part of Hokkaido. We left the hotel before the first shuttle, so we had to walk to the station. Fortunately, it is all downhill. We got there with plenty of time to spare. Unfortunately, we discovered that the train we wanted was by reservation only. So we missed that one. Fortunately, there was another one a half hour later. So we got a reservation and hopped on that train. The train is Shinkansen Hayabusa, which I think is the fastest train in Japan. It runs at 200 mph. It is also green, which adds to its coolness. It will take us from the center of Honshu to the northern tip in a mere 3 hours. An unfortunate side effect is the frequent popping feeling in your ears.

Insert-here-pic-that-I-took-that-disappeared-from-my-camera. I am not too happy with my phone this trip. Here is one I grabbed from Google:

That is actually almost exactly like my picture, but it isn't, because mine disappeared into the nether.

The bathroom on the train is better than some of the station bathrooms. It has a bidet. And - a changing board. For babies? No. For you to stand on when you change clothes so you don't have to stand on the bathroom floor with your bare feet when you change. It also has a little sink in the bathroom and then another sink with soap and a dryer outside.

Our second train was a regular express train, but it is cool because it went through a tunnel under the OCEAN! Which sounds a lot cooler than reality. The reality was a tunnel like any other. I think they should have made it out of glass so we had a view, but it would probably be too dark anyway...

We made it into Hakodate in the afternoon, checked into our hotel, where we each have our own tinnsy room:

And then made for Goryukaku, a Japanese Western style fort. Or at least the ruins, which have mostly been turned into a lovely park.

Afterwards we found food at a place where no one spoke English and the waiter spoke quick even though it was obvious we had no idea what he was asking. I figured out enough to get through our order, which was complicated for some reason. We just got yakitori, gyoza, and wine for my mom. The yakitori was an experience, since we got the sampler platter, which came with sticks of chicken & leeks, hearts, skin, a chicken wing, and a few other unidentifiable things. 

(I forgot to get a picture, so here is a crummy pic of the menu!)

The gyoza was good, as it always was. The wine proved to be trouble, since first the waiter assumed we all wanted wine and so brought a full bottle and three glasses, and second because it turned out that the not really good and mostly uneaten little appetizer thing he brought were supposed to be eaten with the wine and were not included with anything. 

Meaning it was a little over $3 for each of us for something didn't order and didn't want. Fortunately, I was able to convey my displeasure and confusion and the other waiter gave me a cash refund for that entire charge. I think we might have also been charged for water or something. It was kind of interesting to get resolved and with the refund I left perfectly happy. But we will not make that same mistake again.

We found more cool sewage covers:

The evening ended on a present note with a ride on the tram up Mt. Hakodate for an excellent view of the city at night: