15 Days in Kanagawa & Hokkaido – Day 12 – Mt. Hakodate

And finally, our last stop for Day 12: going up Mt. Hakodate for what’s regarded as one of Japan’s top three night views of its cities. Nicknamed “Glimmering Jewellery Box”, it sure looks it. The view from this mountain surpasses

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15 Days in Kanagawa & Hokkaido – Day 12 – Goryokaku Tower

Up the 107 m tall Goryokaku Tower next – the only easily accessible way to see the five-point star-shaped former fort of Goryokaku. The park seems ordinary on the ground, but viewed from above, it takes on a completely different

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15 Days in Kanagawa & Hokkaido – Day 11 – Makomanai Cemetery

Whoops. Why were we visiting a cemetery…? Well, for starters, this was the only other place of interest to us in the area, so we included the place – ostensibly as an ‘optional’ place to visit after Takino Suzuran Hillside

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15 Days in Kanagawa & Hokkaido – Day 11 – Takino Suzuran Hillside Park Snow World

There were two large revisions we made to our Japan Dec 2019 itinerary in the months of planning from July onwards. Firstly, we decided not to do a round city-by-city loop from Tokyo and opted instead to spend a substantial

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15 Days in Kanagawa & Hokkaido – Day 10 – Moerenuma Park

While Nakajima Park was always on our itinerary for Day 10 morning, Moerenuma Park wasn’t anywhere on our itinerary initially. The park isn’t in Sapporo Central but on the outskirts, though accessible by Bus 76 from Kitasanjuyojo Station, with the

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15 Days in Kanagawa & Hokkaido – Day 09 – Otaru Canal and Sakaimachi Street

We left the Otaru Aquarium after the penguin walk in time to catch the 11:45AM-ish bus ride back into Otaru Central, stopping by the Victoria Station steakhouse for lunch. After that, it was a leisurely walk – in snowfall but

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15 Days in Kanagawa & Hokkaido – Day 09 – Otaru Aquarium

Sankaku Market done; the next place on the itinerary was Otaru Aquarium where we’d spend the rest of the morning. We swung back to the bus terminal, looked for station counter 3, and boarded bus 11. The Otaru Aquarium Pass

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15 Days in Kanagawa & Hokkaido – Day 09 – Otaru Sankaku Market

Day 09 is our day trip to Otaru. The forecast for Day 09 the day before reported that there would be a good chance of snowfall in Sapporo. As it turned out, snowfall started probably late at night, so that

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