Hokkaido Island, Japan

On Sunday and Monday, the ship made stops at two other Japanese ports, Hakodate and Kushiro, both located on Hokkaido Island.

Hakodate is located on the southern part of Hokkaido Island, and is Hokkaido’s third largest city with a population of just under 300,000 residents. It has a provincial charm to it, and one can supposedly see stunning views from the summit of Mount Hokodate, although it was raining and we did not make the trip. Instead, we visited the Hakodate Morning Market, an open-air fresh seafood market with easily over 400 tightly-packed storefronts selling the daily catch. Most memorable were the two- foot giant crabs pictured at right.

The Morning Market is located within the recently developed “Red Brick Warehouse” waterfront region, where old warehouses of red brick have been remodeled to house bars and restaurants. We found a number of shops selling very unique glassware and wood carvings, and came “home” (or back to the ship, but we call it home these days) excited about our purchases.

On Monday, we arrived further north at the port of Kushiro. Kushiro is the main port of Hakkaido and the island’s only ice-free trading port. It is also a major base for fishermen, and had its own version of the seafood market at the Fisherman’s Wharf called MOO. The downtown area was honestly not that exciting, but we did find a great little local sushi restaurant where we struggled to order as no one spoke any English (but they did play a Frank Sinatra CD for us). Afterward, we strolled the shops and took this photo in front of Japan’s version of the dollar stores known in the U.S., here called the “100 Yen Shop.”

We departed the port of Kushiro seeing this beautiful sunset, and are now on very choppy seas en route to Russia, arriving Thursday.