{"id":31572,"date":"2019-12-23T18:42:09","date_gmt":"2019-12-23T10:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=31572"},"modified":"2026-03-14T14:03:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T06:03:54","slug":"15-days-in-kanagawa-hokkaido-day-12-goryokaku-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2019\/12\/23\/15-days-in-kanagawa-hokkaido-day-12-goryokaku-park\/","title":{"rendered":"15 Days in Kanagawa & Hokkaido \u2013 Day 12 – Goryokaku Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 12 and we\u2019re headed to the last leg of our trip – the port city of Hakodate. Our original plan was to spend a night in this city, but now that we\u2019d added an additional night, we have quite a bit more time to cover the city. Hakodate is particularly famous for a couple of sights, all of which we\u2019ll be covering this leg and more: Goryokaku, Mt. Hakodate, and the Motomachi area.<\/p>\n

Goryokaku<\/strong> is the site of a massive military citadel built in the early 19th century to guard against the threat of western invaders. Its very<\/strong><\/em> distinctive feature is its shape – that of a five-point star, with an additional large triangular-shaped fortification pointed directly at the port side where invading western ships were expected to arrive. The fort has since been converted into a park in modern times, and is one of the best places in Hokkaido to view cherry blossoms. The star-shaped feature isn\u2019t observable on the ground – we\u2019d have to go up Goryokaku Tower for that – but one can tell that the design was very much intended to protect against invading troops, with its surrounding moat, walls, and vantage 90-degree corners with natural defensive placements.<\/p>\n

As Goryokaku was just down the road and about 20 minutes away, we reached the place easily by one of several buses plying the route.<\/p>\n

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There are two bridges leading into the park: one west, and the other east. This one is the bridge on the west side and faces back into the city; the back door if you like!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Ice was slippery. We had to learn very quickly how to walk on ice this trip.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Hard to tell from this picture, but this tree still had some berries left hanging on its branches.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Numerous walls providing defensive positions against invaders.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The central part of the citadel, and the former Hakodate Magistrate\u2019s Office.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Snowfall against some remaining greenery making for a pretty picture.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The Tower in the near distance.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The snow layer wasn\u2019t too heavy at less than an inch deep.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This tunnel-like structure should be an area for visitors to view flower blossoms.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Partially frozen lake.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Continued in the next post when we went up Goryokaku Tower<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 12 and we\u2019re headed to the last leg of our trip – the port city of Hakodate. Our original plan was to spend a night in this city, but now that we\u2019d added an additional night, we have quite<\/p>\n

Read More 15 Days in Kanagawa & Hokkaido \u2013 Day 12 – Goryokaku Park<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[662,608,667],"class_list":["post-31572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traveling","tag-kanagawa-hokkaido-japan-2019","tag-sony-a7-iii","tag-tamron-28-75mm-f2-8-di-iii-rxd","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/blog-2019-japan-kanagawa-hokkaido-day-12-A7_06151-hakodate-Goryokaku-park-and-tower.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38425,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31572\/revisions\/38425"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}