Japan trip - Day 2: Exploring Hakodate

20 January 2015

I spent the whole of the second day at the conference (of course!).  The kids and their father went to explore Hakodate town, the fish market and the port after they had their breakfast.

Snow 'mountain' near Hakodate port

We met briefly during lunch break, and then the kids went up to pray and rest.  Right after the first day of the conference was over, we rushed to Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse, as it would be closed by 7 pm.  It is basically a shopping mall that sells a lot of items, mainly souvenirs.  Achik taxed us there, as usual.

When the warehouse was closed, we headed to Mount Hakodate.  The night view from Mount Hakodate was rated three stars by The Michelin Green Guide Japan whatever it is.  Again, finding the exact locations of the two places was challenging.  We asked around, communicated like chicken and duck, and finally managed to reach both places :)

Journeys up to and down from Mount Hakodate were via cable cars (they called it ropeway).  Travelling time from the base station (Sanroku station) to the top station (Sancho station) took less than five minutes.  It was freezing cold of course.  We didn't linger there for the sake of the kids.  We had been out for quite a long time already for the night.

At Jujigai trem stop.

View from the top of Mount Hakodate.

At the base station, just before leaving.

Japan trip - Day 1: Travelling north to Hakodate

19 January 2015

We flied Malaysia Airlines MH88 and arrived at Narita Airport (terminal two) at 7.15 am as scheduled.  Achik was fast asleep when we landed.  Everybody was in good mood, despite feeling sleepy.  Right after settling the immigration matters, which didn't take long at all, we went to collect our luggage and then headed straight to the Japan Rail Ticketing office, which was at one level below.  Few things started to seem familiar to me from Nagoya visit in 2009.

 

The first thing to do was to exchange our JR exchange order slips to JR passes.  The exchange order slips were purchased at the Japan Travel Bureau (JTB) in Amoda building, right next to the Imbi plaza and opposite Berjaya Times square, before the trip.  The queue at the Japan Rail Ticketing Office was quite long.  Everybody was using JR pass I guessed, as it could save a lot of money on train tickets, depending on your journey.

 

Exchanged.  JR passes for me, Abah, Along and Angah.
Achik travels for free as she was below 6 years old.

Our destination on that day was Hakodate, which is located in the Hokkaido prefecture of Japan.  Upon completing exchange process and obtaining our JR passes, we were given three tickets each for the following journeys:

 

1. Narita Airport terminal 2 station to Tokyo station (approx. 1 hour via Narita Express train)
2. Tokyo station to Shin Aomori station (approx. 1.5 hours via Shinkansen)
3. Shin Aomori station to Hakodate station (approx. 2 hours via local train)

The whole journey, including transit time, took us about eight hours!  We departed from Narita Airport at 8.48 am and arrived Hakodate Station at 5.02 pm.  As the Hayabusa Shinkansen moved towards north from Tokyo to Shin Aomori, we started to see snow right before the Sendai station, which was to the kids delight :)

Amongst the first sights of snow, taken from the fast moving shinkansen

If asked, whether it is easy to get lost in catching the trains, finding the right platforms and et cetera, my answer would be yes.  Because we were not used to the train system, and we had the kids and luggage with us, and we had to catch the exact trains that were reserved for us, which departure times were printed on the tickets.  However, the stations staff were very helpful too.  But language was a barrier.  What we did whenever we were clueless was, showed one of the tickets to the staff and asked for platform number.  They would show the direction to the platform.  They at least knew the basic vocabulary such as one two three and left and right.  Good enough :D

During approx. 1 hour and 20 minutes transit at Shin Aomori station.
The snow was already thick there.

Kikonai, the stop just before Hakodate station.
This train didn't stop at all stations along the route.

Welcoming 2015 with new hope

Yes.  With the hope that this blog is able to have at least one entry each month :)  It has been a long time, and it's good enough that I didn't forget the password.

Few things that I missed to update in 2014 are our trips to Singapore and the northern states up until Padang Besar.  And also about Along and his achievement in the UPSR.  Oh yes.  I must be very busy helping him with the preparation that I almost entirely forgot that I have a blog.

Few more things to look forward to in 2015 are Along entering secondary school, Achik entering kindergarten and trip to Japan.

May Allah bless us all always, aamin.