Day 9

Day 9 (May 15) Hakodate ryokan:

An early train ride for 3 hours took us to Hakodate, the sister city for Halifax. Every year they get a Christmas tree from us, probably from Lunenburg. Before we left Halifax Karen scored 50 HRM pins from the mayors office, so we gaev them out a lot during our trip here (basically to anyone who was friendly... and there are a lot of friendly people!).
We then took a quick bus ride to the ryokan we stayed at called Yumakawa. It's famous in this city and is found on most tourist maps. Our rooms come with breakfast and dinner for 2 nights.
The room is a traditional Japanese ryokan with tatami mat floors and small bathroom. There was no bed in the room when we arrived. The staff come in while you are out and re-arrange the room to accommodate futon beds (we put extra mats on ours to make them more padded).
We then checked out the fort Goryo-kaku. It's a star shaped fort very similar to Halifax's citadel hill fort. We went up in the observation tower that over-looked the fort. What a view! There was even a glass floor that you could look right down to the street.
For lunch we went to a small noodle shop and Mel and I had a great feed of curry and rice while Karen & Hidemi had egg/chicken on rice (translated to parents and children on rice!).
Dinner that night was served in the Johnson's room, the rest of them had a seafood spread, while mine was not (meat and veggies for me). It was an excellent opportunity to try food that we would never get anywhere else. Most was good, some not so much... it' probably an acquired taste to eat a fish whole. Not my cup-o-tea, but cool to experience none the less.
After dinner we took a taxi up to mount Hakodate. It was dark out so we got to see the whole city lit up. It was breathtaking. Even more surprising was our cab driver, who after taking us to the mountain observatory, took us for a small city tour. We didn't expect this. It was fantastic to see the city at night with our own local guide. Did I mention how nice people are here? He got a pin :-)
After the night sight-seeing we settled in for an evening of beer tasting. Mel and I have made a point of buying all different types and brands of beer to sample. We've probably already tasted over a dozen, more than Mel had in his 2 years here... what can I say... I like my biru (beer).
Karen and Hidemi went to the onsen (natural hot spring bath) while I read for a bit and passed out of fatigue (and maybe a bit too much beer sampling).