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.
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 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.
We also tried squid ink ice cream, which didn’t really taste like much of anything.
On Saturday we woke up dark and early before the sun in order to catch our Uber to LAX before 7am. We were flying southwest and had checked in the day before right at the buzzer, the instant we were allowed to, but still ended up in C group. When we finally lined up we […]
Our train arrived in Paris after sunset and we tried to use the “easy” subway system we experienced in London and Brussels but were quickly stymied by a glitchy machine that wouldn’t keep English selected past the initial screen. Kind of a problem for figuring out what to buy. Belgium even had a guy walking […]
We reached Brussels before sunset, perfect for checking out the Bourse Christmas Market. We’d picked the right lodging in some ways and the worst in others. The hotel was right next to the market and the hub of the city, but it was also somehow very loud at night with clanging and banging and strange […]