2 November 2016
Fight for your right for a view
The slow train from Sapporo to Hakodate
Now I am in Hakodate. Each time I arrive in a new place I feel it is important to herald my arrival through a bold declaration.
The journey to here was on a diesel train! Such ancient technology, amazing. It went slowly, but it went along the coast, baiting the mighty ocean to provide a train ride ending tsunami.
None occurred.
But there was a view to be had, nearly the whole way, very few tunnels, and very few view obstruction barriers for the prevention of view appreciation society of Japan.
Still however, there were other kinds of barriers to a view. The other passengers. My carriage had lots of other passengers, all of whom boarded and shut the block out blinds immediately.
Behind me was a middle aged woman. She had no control of my blind from where she was sitting, this drove her insane. Her first tactic was to raise and lower her blind repeatedly, thinking perhaps I dont understand you are meant to stare at nothing for 4 hours.
Tactic 2 was to push the back of my seat, I glared at her.
Then I got up to put rubbish in the bin, of course when I came back, my blind was down. I looked at her again and raised my blind. She then went and got the conductor. He came, looked at me, said nothing, and left.
So it has taken 3 weeks, but finally, after such an epic struggle, I was allowed to look at Japanese scenery. I feel this is a grand achievement in Japan / Non Japan bi lateral relations. Now we can agree on the South China Sea whaling rights.
The journey was long, but since I was afforded a view, enjoyable, but slow, and also long.
We stopped maybe 10 times in the 4 hours, and there were many mountains to see out the window. I think driving around Hokkaido would be great.
Unfortunately, I know that most of those mountains are closed to humans due to volcanic activity, but periodically they do reopen. Just not either of the good ones I saw today.
Still in Sapporo, I needed to get some steps so paced around at 7am. This is the local taxi car park area shrine demon.
Taxi car park has a small shrine and garden.
Finally some blue sky, and colored leaves. If I was still in Sapporo today I would be up a mountain for sure!
The inside of my train. Other people! Angry woman behind me had not boarded at this stage.
Mountain view #1, I know this one is closed to the public as I planned to climb this a few days ago but could not.
The seaside towns are very much all about commercial fishing. There are no nice beaches. Where there is sand its full of rubbish and nets and buoys.
The entire ocean has these barriers, which are either for tsunamis or to prevent erosion or maybe to reduce the amount of rubbish that washes up onto the sand, or maybe all three!
Mountain view #2, I believe you can climb these, but they are far from the train.
Mountain view #3a, very good mountain to climb, not as high as it looks, very convenient for the train, huge volcanic crater, been closed for years!
Mountain view #3b, please reopen one day! The entire lakes region around this mountain had the best leaf color I have seen anywhere. It might be my destination tomorrow... weather depending.
My diesel train. Looks more modern than it sounded, it actually sounded like he was changing gears with a clutch pedal.
This is my hotel, Route Inn Hakodate, as you can see it is large. Too early to check in, so time for a quick walk down to the docks.
Small mountain view, every photo you see of Hakodate is taken from up there. The top has what is almost a theme park. I might run up there this evening. It really does not look far.
Obviously, there is a cable car for the lazy.
My room, it is tiny...
But it does have a great view.
I can keep a close eye on the trains coming and going, and the mountains in the distance.