We arrived in Hakodate, and two of our bags were some of the first of the plane. Then we had the pleasure of waiting as almost everyone else’s bags came off the plane (wide body with free checked bags) and wondering if our third bag would make it. It did, win. 

We then stepped outside and didn’t instantly get drenched in sweat. It was pleasantly cool. It was a miracle after 6 nights in Okinawa, I thought I might never step outside without every pore in my body instantly turning into a faucet again. We then grabbed an Uber (which took awhile to arrive) and checked into our AirBnB.  Bunk beds. Yes, it had bunk beds, which then caused Rose to burst into tears when she discovered that she got the bottom bunk. After some consoling, the crying stopped, and we did bedtime.

The kids were kind enough to sleep in until almost 7am, but that didn’t prevent me from waking up at 5:45am. When they did come downstairs, we headed out to 7-11 to grab some snacks for breakfast and were pleasantly surprised to discover a bakery on the way home. We also discovered a grocery store, but it didn’t open until 9am. A lot in Japan opens late, Katy is not a fan that many coffee shops don’t open up until 10:30am, which kind of defeats the purpose of getting a coffee in the morning.

Hakodate has a volunteer guide program where a volunteer will guide you around for 4 hours for a $30 fee. Our guide, Chiharu, met us at 930am where we were staying. She says that she doesn’t do a lot of tours because she is not a fan of history, but she has grandkids and likes kiddos, so she picked up our tour since we had kiddos. The kids were an instant fan when the first thing that we did was ride the tram (right outside of our door is a stop) to a shrine at the edge of town. The big hit was the tiny zoo next to the shrine. Chiharu said that when she was a kid they had bears and lions, but now it is birds and farm animals. It was still a big hit with the kiddos. Then they discovered a “fair”, a tiny amusement park, and they did a ride before we moved on.

We moved on physically, but Rose did not move on emotionally. For the next hour, about ever 17.3 seconds she let us know that she wanted to go back to the fair, and she wanted to go back and see the pony. Hakodate (pronounced Hawk-oh-dah-tay) was one of the two ports opened up to foreigners in the 1800s. This resulted in a lot of foreign influenced buildings and an assortment of churches. The architecture is A LOT different than Okinawa. We then visited a couple of churches, Archer picked which ones we went in. We then went and ate lunch. Archer was disappointed he only got 6 pieces of salmon nigiri, so he had to follow it up with some ice cream. Rose had some ice cream too, but she decided to grace her shirt with about 19 drops of chocolate ice cream. Hakodate does have a lot of tourism, but western tourists are definitely in the minority. We then wandered around some of the old warehouses near the old port that have been converted into shops. One of them had a LEGO zone that had a ton of legos that were free to play with. Rose surprisingly was the one that really wanted to play in the LEGO zone, and Archer wanted to go shopping with Katy (because he saw a crystal shop).

We then took the cable car up to the mountain (read: hill) overlooking the town. A cloud started to form on the top of the mountain when we got there so we got a partial view. Apparently this is the spot to be to see the city from night. People were staking out prime spots 2+ hours before sunset. We didn’t wait for sunset.

Archer: Eat whatever you want when I’m done. That is what Archer said to us at dinner, when we ordered in 18 pieces of salmon nigiri for him. I believe he ate 13 pieces.

The next morning we went to the morning fish market. Archer said it was stinky. He refused to eat his breakfast salmon since it was too stinky, his loss.

The kids were being rather kid-like, so we thought the indoor kids museum was what was needed. It was.

Rose than started to get tired and overly inclined to scratch. It was determined it was best to split them up. Rose and I went to get some pancakes at a coffee shop for lunch. Turns out coffee shops are one of the very few places in Japan you can smoke, and it was 100% a locals place with a 60+ year old owner and a similar aged women drinking her coffee. Rose turned into a bear part of the way through her hot cocoa and pancakes and started doing assorted growls and grunts instead of using words. The women thought it was hysterical.

Rose promptly fell asleep 5 minutes after we left. I took her to get a beer, she slept.

She eventually woke up, and Archer and Katy joined us (they had been shopping), and we walked to the fair we had been at yesterday. We bought the kids each $15 all-you-can-ride passes. They had a blast.

We then walked home and did some takeout for dinner.

Archer cumulative salmon nigiri count: 47