Still early enough in the trip that we’re still fighting jet-lag, but this morning I managed to easily sleep in ’till 6:00AM! Huge victory! (Turns out that Matt managed 9:15 so he totally won). Anyway, being up with little to do, Robert and I went out for an early breakfast of pastries as an unusual change from cold raw fish
Somewhere in the Sapporo tunnels we found a fantastic bakery, everything totally fresh!We had a cat-butt, a cinnamon bun, a green thing, two big coffees, twelve bucks!!Some historical building we spotted on the way to the well-known botanical gardens
The gardens, as they always are in Japan, are well-tended and fascinating. But not necessarily safe!!
Watch out for mischief!!!lol I finally did try one of these things (from a vending machine with–unbelievably!!–a recycling bin right next to it!) It was pretty good, sort of like a Gatorade without sugar. We wound up drinking a bunch of these throughout the tripAn exotic potted specimen: a dandilionThere was a nice little museum there, full of historic Hokkaido objectsAnd a giant flying squirrel!And a bear, sadly we never eat one of these 😀
Fun fact: Robert got pooped on by birds twice in this park! Maybe it’s good luck or something? Anyway, we met up with Matthew and headed to an interesting lunch place Robert had discovered. Unfortunately it was closed, so we went back into the tunnels and picked out a lunch place pretty much at random
Lunch was kind of meh but there was beer!!Last view of our Sapporo hotel… lol we joked that they were trolling the Americans by giving us room nine-elevenRobert and I always manage to turn our small room into a slovenly dorm room 😀We checked out of the hotel and hiked back to the train stationWow they have Red Bull trucks here!Underground in the train station, trying to find our trackThis is it, and there’s our train! The bullet trains don’t connect to the island, so we are stuck with normal slow trains, the ride to Hakodate will take four hours….Big overall map: you can see Sapporo at the top, four hours later we’re in Hakodate (where the blue dot is). Tomorrow, we’ll finally be able to take a bullet-train through the world’s longest tunnel to Aomori!It’s a slower train but still pretty niceWe bought train beers in a Lawson Station: Sapporo Classico, which is only available on Hokkaido. Another milestone: Matt’s first train beer!!Check out that blown-out volcano, it’s the spitting image of Mt VesuviusMade it finally! Hakodate is “known for their squid,” which is pretty much the reason why we are here 😀Here’s the view from our hotel of one nightAnd we’re headed out on a mission: squid!!These matter-of-fact signs were honestly a little scary, an everyday reminder that tsunamis are totally a real thing hereSquid restaurant sighted!! You can see the pics of squids on the walls, an excellent sign 😀This is the first thing you see when you enter the restaurant: behind the counter is a huge tank full of live squids which the chefs catch with little nets when they’re ordered
The place was kind of full and they weren’t sure they could seat the three of us, but the head matron briskly ordered a couple of the customers to move over two seats to free up some room. It was kind of embarrassing to have them move over mid-meal, but it was kind of the vibe of the place (I hope). Anyway the couple who moved seemed a little put out at first but became friendly as the meal progressed. On Hokkaido we American’s still stand out as novelties, so they give us some slack, and in any case we had not ordered them to move.
Not really sure what the gelatinous starter was but the taste was excellentThe place mat continued the squid theme hahaAnd we’re off!!!Disturbingly, the squids were still moving feebly….Salmon, medium-fat tuna, high-fat tuna, the sashimi was fantasticThe “ram skewer” was delicious (and not moving)There was also a cooked fish, for a change, which Robert nearly devoured all by himselfHere’s us on the way outGood-bye squidies!!That’s our hotel in the distance, conveniently right next to the train stationWe walked past the Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Sculpture The hotel had a kind of fancy gatewayInside, they were happy to see us!We closed out the adventuresome travel day with a couple of new Japanese whiskies at the hotel barYikes!!
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