Day 3, Wakinosawa to Hakodate, August 29

Saying goodbye to Wakinosawa from the Car Ferry to Kanita

I caught the car ferry to Kanita after Wakinosawa. I had an hour and a half to kill before the limited express came which took us from one local stop to the other from Honshu to Hokkaido. That meant going under the Tsuguru straits, of course. I was pleasantly surprised to find a series of walks and an overgrown shrine, up some steps and just opposite the ferry port. I didn't have time to really explore, and it was humid with cicadas madly buzzing, but I saw the usual litany of headless statues and torii.

I got into Hakodate at about four pm. It's a really lovely city and very easy to get around. As the Japanese didn't start ousting the Ainu until the end of the nineteenth century, a lot of modern transport and so on had been invented, and the city is laid out in a gridlike pattern.

I went to Cape Tachimachi first, which was stunning and a beautiful place to catch the sunset. Whilst there I saw a small family of three balancing perilously on one of the crags jutting out from the cliffs, seeming to throw the ashes of a loved one into the ocean. Again, I'll write more about that later.


I went to see the night view of Hakodate, for which it is famed, but I thought it had prettier attractions and ate in the famous ramen alley. I had yakisoba (fried noodles), and ika gyoza (squid pot stickers) which was no better or worse than usual yakisoba and pork gyoza. The next morning, though, I went to the Asaichi morning fish market, and ate a wonderful bowl of seafood ramen with a shio (salt) base. Hakodate is famous for its seafood ramen and this little joint with its clientele of early morning night workers certainly lived up to that reputation. Yum. With a very satisfied tum I wandered over to the station to catch the train up to just beyond Sapporo.

*More is to be added to this later. Just getting a few thoughts down while I remember them.

Aomori-Shimokita-Wakinosawa, Day 2, August 28

Osorezan, or Mount Osore is known as Mt. Dread or Mt. Fear. It is in the middle of the Shimokita Penisula in Northern Tohoku. Not the most urban nor accessible place in the world. From Shimokita, three or four buses a day run up to Bodai ji, the temple which takes care of all the souls who are waiting to go to hell or to cross over to the other side. I have to look up more information on this, as it is obviously a place where people go to remember their dead, and also to help them on their journeys in the afterlife. There will, I hope, be a good blog dedicated to this.

After Osorezan, I went back to Shimokita and took a two or three hour bus journey to Wakinosawa. I really want to take a ferry ride up the coastline as it is meant to be quite amazing, but poor weather meant I took an early ferry to Kanita the next day, to continue to Hokkaido instead (the ferry along the coast wasn't running). Not to worry. Wakinosawa was still incredibly beautiful, and the youth hostel where I stayed was peaceful and served the most delicious dinner. According to Wikipedia, Wakinsowa had 2005 people in 2003.

I loved this vase and the flower arrangement with the one perfectly fallen petal (well, two). That wasn't part of the arrangement, but I liked it enough to attempt to draw it.

*More will be added to this post, time permitting, some time in the future.