Stuff I've Seen - Hakodate

The plan had been to check out Otaru, a smaller town near Sapporo, for a day or two, but for some reason hotels there were insanely expensive, and it was about 30 minutes by train from Sapporo, so I booked a hotel in Sapporo with the intention of catching the train out to Otaru. At that point however, I had a head cold and had slipped on some ice walking to the station in Asahikawa, and while I hadn't fallen over, I had sprained my ankle trying to recover my balance, so limping to my new hotel with a screaming headache I decided to just hang out in Sapporo for a bit before continuing on with the trip as planned.

The view from my new hotel included the observation wheel you may have seen in some shots from the JR tower.

The sign outside my hotel showing the temperature. It got to -10 at one point while I was here.

It was even more snowed in than the previous week.

The ski jump just after the finals.

Another 3d projection mapping.

The day after the festival they demolished the snow carvings.

 Back on with the plan. I wasn't that keen on another 8 hour day of train travel, so I decided that I would stop in at Hakodate on the way back. The halfway point of the trip (time wise, not distance wise)

The view from the train on the way there.

I can see the ocean! (kind of)

Eventually the snow cleared.

And I arrived in Hakodate.

It was even more snow covered than other towns.

This is a shopping mall.

And in the distance is Mt. Hakodate, the view from the observatory is apparently spectacular.

There is a smallish fish market near the station.

With tanks full of crabs.

And squid.
Here you can catch your own lunch,

Hello squiddy!

An octopus being bothered by a crab.

I headed to the trolley car that takes you to the top of the mountain.

but ended up not going up, since if you couldn't see the top from the bottom
there probably wasn't much to see from the top.