And finally.....Hakodate

Our last night in Hokkaido was the 24th August. We left Sapporo early in the morning and headed to the nearby town of Otaru, famous amongst the native Japanese for the glassware made there. Otaru is famous amongst the foreign expat community in Japan for an entirely different reason - a lawsuit aimed at lifting the ban on non-Japanese from using some of the local onsens. Fortunately, one of those banned from the onsens (Debito Arudou) for not having the right ethnicity, took umbrage and won his anti-discrimination case. Despite such a victory, it is still not yet illegal to exclude customers from any premises in Japan based on race.

After our stop off at Otaru, the bus journey down to Hakodate was actually very nice. Lovely views from the road which followed the coastline south. We stopped off at a couple of places en-route and arrived at our hotel in Hakodate at approximately 5.30pm. Our hotel, the Bourou Noguchi, was very impressive indeed! A great blend of traditional and modern Japan. After arrival, we had to quickly eat dinner and then rush to join the bus once again to experience the night views from the top of Mount Hakodate. This rush meant we didn't have time to eat desert.

And the views from Mount Hakodate were certainly impressive - supposed to be amongst the three best night views in Japan, for which I wouldn't necessarily disagree. However, there were thousands of other people pushing, shoving, and shouting to get a glimpse of Hakodate below. The night view was certainly impressive, the experience depressing. I much preferred the experience of Mount Inasa in Nagasaki when we visited almost 4 years ago. Similar night view, but much more restrained and civilised. I wasn't at all unhappy to get back on the bus and return to our hotel.The room at the Borou Noguchi Hotel was one of the best I have stayed in. As can be seen from the picture, we had our very own hinoki (cypress) wooden bath on our balcony. Soaking in the bath was the usual pleasure and the Western style bedroom and Japanese style lounge were very tastefully done with little expense spared. However, the same problem existed as I experienced in Sapporo the previous evening. By the time we had returned from the night view and had an onsen, it was too late to explore the city of Hakodate (even if I did have the energy from the marathon day we had just experienced). So, similar to the night before, I was in bed asleep by 10.30pm.It was a terrible shame we were all so rushed. I spent approximately 8 hours in the Borou Noguchi Hotel, 6 of those hours were spent sleeping. It seemed to have defeated the purpose of staying in such a lovely place as we never had a proper chance to enjoy all the hotel had to offer. Shame.

Before our flight back to Tokyo the following day (25th August), we still had the chance to spend half a day wandering round Hakodate. I skipped breakfast in exchange for an extra 30 minutes in bed and then split from the rest of the tour and found a quiet watering hole to sit and have lunch with a couple of beers.

In summary, Hokkaido is certainly a fantastic place to visit and I was lucky to have a brief glimpse of what the island has to offer. I would recommend it to anyone. On the other hand, if you want to really understand and have a deeper appreciation of Hokkaido, it would perhaps be best to hire a car and explore at your own pace.