Hakodate (函館)

A few weeks ago I went to Hakodate (函館), south of Hokkaidou (北海道).

I went there with some of my lab colleagues in order to attend a Japanese conference on Embedded Systems, called SIGEMB (情報処理学会 組込みシステム研究会).

The day we arrived, we noticed that the temperature was not as cool as we expected. In fact it was almost as hot as in Nagoya. Many people go to Hokkaidou during Summer holidays to escape from the excessive heat in other parts of Japan. As the conference started the next day, we had some free time for tourism. The picture above was taken from the Goryōkaku Tower where you can have good views of the city of Hakodate.

The next day, we went to the Future University (未来大学), where the conference was held. The building was surprising at first, spacious and modern. However many of us were wondering how many people would move to such an isolated place as the one where the University is located at. I made a presentation there and in fact, it was my first presentation in Japanese!!. After the presentation I received several questions, also in Japanese. There was one question that I could not understand correctly at first because the accent of the person asking the question (most probably from Osaka 大阪) was a bit difficult for me. There were some interesting presentations. I especially liked one about clone code.

The day after the conference we had some time for ourselves. We took a train to Nanae town (七重町), rented some bicycles and went around the Oonuma lake(大沼湖), which is near an active volcano called Komagatake (駒ヶ岳). Actually, I wanted to climb that volcano but they said that I had to apply at least 3 days in advance!

During the afternoon I went to climb Mt. Hakodate (函館山), which is famous for having one of the best night views in the world. The path to climb it is quite nice and I could see some squirrels. Do not go out of the path because there are snakes. Specially be careful with the so-called mamushi マムシ!

The day had been a bit cloudy so I didn't have the chance to see the long-awaited night views of the city. Instead, I enjoyed the beautiful colors of the sunset while wearing my new t-shirt :D (Note: kuma means bear in Japanese). I went down at night using the cable car.

Now that I am finishing this post I realized that I didn't mentioned anything about food in Hakodate. Trust me, if you ask any Japanese what is worth doing in Hakodate, they will all tell you to eat as much seafood and fish as you can! This is because you can enjoy very fresh seafood at much cheaper prices than in the rest of Japan.

Apart from seafood, there were also some other interesting places that we went for lunch such as Hakodate Genghis Khan (函館ジンギスカン) which is basically a yakiniku (焼肉) restaurant, the Lucky Pierrot hamburguer chain or some place near Oonuma lake (大沼湖) which served a huge dish of ankake yakisoba (あんかけ焼きそば).

Kamikōchi (上高地)

A few weeks ago, I went with Simon to visit a beautiful region in the northern part of the Japan Alps (Nagano prefecture), known as Kamikōchi (上高地).

I took a train from Nagoya (Ltd. Express Shinano) to Matsumoto city. After meeting in Matsumoto (he was coming from Tokyo) we took a bus to Kamikōchi.

We spent our first day walking around the lake and admiring the mountains that were surrounding it. Perhaps the most famous touristic spot there is the views of Mt. Hotaka from the Kappa bridge.

We stayed in a mountain lodge called Nishitoya (nice place, good service and delicious dinner). The next morning we woke up very early and decided that the mountain we wanted to climb was Mt Nishi-hotaka (西穂高岳) with 2908m of altitude.

After an hour or so, we found ourselves in the middle of the snow without appropriate equipment such as crampons (アイゼン). Although it wasn't the first time for me to climb in the snow, it was for Simon.

Our first milestone was Mt. Nishi-Hodoku (西穂独標) at 2701m of altitude.

Here the hike became quite difficult due to the continuous ups and downs through dangerous cliffs and rocks.

We continued for a while because we really wanted to climb Mt Nishi-Hotaka but finally we decided to go back after reaching the Piramid peak (ピラミッドピーク) at 2740m of altitude. We were quite tired, it was becoming increasingly dangerous and we didn't have the necessary equipment. Plus we had to go back early in order to make it for the bus that would bring us back to Matsumoto (松本).

In Matsumoto, I took the opportunity to visit its castle for an hour before coming back to Nagoya. It was a very tiring hike but I am glad that nothing bad happened to us on those cliffs!!

Study some Kanjis a day!

Just a short post to mention that I recently opened a new blog dedicated to the study of the Kanji. This is the address: http://sangorrin-kanji.blogspot.com/

It is more like the diary of my own study rather than a systematic approach to learn them but I hope it is useful for other people!

Mt. Kama - 鎌ヶ岳 (かまがたけ)

Last weekend I went to Mie prefecture (三重県) for a hike in the Suzuka mountains where I had already gone for two other hikes, Gozaisho (御在所) and Fujiwara (藤原岳). This time I climbed Mt. Kama (鎌ヶ岳) which is 1.161m tall. Similar to the hiking trail to Gozaisho, the starting point for Mt Kama is Yu-no-yama-onsen(湯の山温泉). This time instead of going by train I took a direct bus from Nagoya Meitetsu bus station (1 hour bus ride - 1280yen each way).

The hiking trail is really beautiful!! It crosses many streams, rocks and nature. In fact I managed to see a huge snake on my way!!. Sometimes there are difficult parts where you need to use your hands but in general, anybody with a bit of experience can climb it. In the picture above, you can see the views of Mt. Gozaisho from Mt Kama.