On Tuesday morning the family assembled for a long three train journey to Hokkaido.
At our first destination, Hakodate, we visited the cape just as the sun started to set behind Mt. Hakodate.
I disappeared to take this picture as the cabs waited for us. I could hear Sam yelling for me, but she couldn’t see me. A few minutes later the rest of the Fam realized what the view looked like on the western side of the cape and ran over as I was hurrying back.
We had dinner at a fancy local restaurant with lots of great food (but few customers) then took a cab (because the ropeway was closed for renovation) to the Mt. Hakodate Observatory on top of the mountain.
The wind rushed around the top swiftly enough to discourage the Fam from staying too long. They went back to the cabs and back to the hotel while I stayed and tried to get some stabilized shots. As throngs of teenagers arrived on buses and rattled the rails my gorrilapod was affixed to I realized that long exposures weren’t going to happen here and took the public bus back to the hotel.
The first instinct for teenagers in Japan when reaching the observatory is to yell as if they’ve been stabbed in the back. I wonder if they’re conversely silent at sporting events and think WE’RE the weird ones.
The next morning, before catching our train to Noboribetsu, we walked to the Hakodate Asaichi for breakfast, focusing on super fresh crab and the most delicious salmon/tuna in the world.
Mmmm, that’s good salmon.Buy here! My fresh unmodified product is different than the other twenty fresh crab sellers on the same block that buy from the same fishermen! (note the eye-rolling daughter inside that can’t wait to get out of this little redneck town and do something in the big city, not gonna be the latest fish monger in a long line of… actually I have no idea if they’re related and might I might be projecting a bit…never mind!)
We also tried squid ink ice cream, which didn’t really taste like much of anything.
Like all middle-aged folk, I only half expected flying cars to arrive by now, but I fully expected electric cars to be available by now. In 2016 our household had to purchase new cars (plural because working from home permanently wasn’t a thing yet) and at that time the only all-electric (now called BEV) option […]
I don’t blog much anymore. Partially because of self-induced covid precautions drastically narrowing the field of potential topics and partially because in today’s internet-of-things landscape blogging feels like throwing a stone into an ocean on another planet. The current consumption mode seems to be doomscrolling through three second copy and paste clips on Tiktok while […]
In the Before Times, a visit from my parents would begin a minor adventure. However, during a despite-what-Swanson-heirs-say ongoing pandemic, one must find enthusiasm for outdoor eats and indoor treats. In April the Biden administration had extended the mask mandate beyond the timeline of the trip, so I had fewer worries about a plane full […]
