Date

2022-11-11, Friday

Distance

25.06 km (1854.71 km in total)

I woke up early to bike to the harbour to photograph the sunrise and a few surrounding areas, including the premature poet Takuboku Ishikawa (石川啄木, 1886 – 1912)'s family tomb. Among a few passers-by who, seeing the poster on my bike, came to speak to me was a lady walking with her elderly Akita. At the end of a pleasant conversation (despite my poor Japanese), she invited me to have breakfast at her dwelling near the cliff by the Tsugaru Strait. I had to decline this rare opportunity to sit with a local at the table because my friend was waiting for me in the hotel. This is the inconvenience of travelling in a group; if I were alone, I would certainly accept the invitation.

Our ferry was scheduled at 5:30 pm, so we had plenty of time to visit Hakodate, one of the 3 first Japanese port cities that opened to foreign trade in 1859 (I possess stamps specifically commemorating the 150th anniversary of this result of the Kanagawa Treaty). In a hilly district where townhouses built in Western, semi-Western, and Japanese styles co-exist, stand several old foreign diplomatic establishments and Christian churches, including, most notably, a Russian Orthodox church and a Roman Catholic church (the first I have seen in Japan!). At the foothill of this Preservation District, a cluster of old-styled red-brick warehouses now host souvenir shops and other venues.

The Orthodox church, apparently the most famous one of the entire group of Western-style architectures of the Meiji era, was unfortunately under restoration; the whole building was veiled. The Roman Catholic church, founded in 1859 by a French priest during the time when Catholicisim was banished, was open to visitors but photography of the interior was forbidden. There was no one monitoring inside this gothic-style structure built in 1924; it's up to each visitor's good conscience to observe this strange rule — strange, in that I have never been to a church in the West that is freely open to the public but where photography is forbidden, even outside of service periods. I wonder what may be the reason behind this decision.

Outside of the churches, we met a lady who, originally from Kansai area, now lives and works as a farmer in Hokkaido.The farming community has always need of workforce, so despite her young age, she is able to integrate into the community. Farmers in northern Japan usually find a secondary job during the austere winter months such as working in a hotel when tourists come for skiing. This lady seems to have a keen eye for natural beauty residing in what appears to be insignificant things. I saw her photographing leaves from an interesting angle. I wish to get to know her better.

We also went to visit the Goryokaku (五稜郭, literally, 'five-point fort'), a star-shaped fortress designed during the Tokugawa Shogunate and modelled after medieval European fortified cities. Inside the fort, the traditional Japanese-styled building that used to host the Hakodate Magistrate's Office has been entirely renovated (or they say, 'restored to its original state'). The architecture is gorgeous but everything is too polished and smells too new to me. There is not a shred of that distinct scent of old wooden buildings that I like.

We specially prepared 1 hour to go to a moderate-size post office to mail some stuff back home. Of the 4 personnels present, 3 came to gather in front of us after we expressed our desire to mail a parcel overseas. We have an international parcel! (WOW! How did they find our tiny post office hidden within a residential area?) Can Japanese sake be shipped aboard? (Yes, if it's alcohol content is under 24%.) What's ema that you indicated on the list of shipped goods? (It's 絵馬, I pronounced in Japanese). They treated our request as the biggest challenge they have faced in months with an incredibly high level of seriousness. After the first person had checked our declaration, a second person came to double check every entry o-n-e b-y o-n-e. And as if this is not enough, after the second person was done, a third person came to triple check to finalise our shipment. Oh my God, it's always a big event to ship a parcel outside of Japan.

At 4:45 pm, I boarded the ferry with a mixture of excitement and melancholy. I feel that I have barely begun to know Hokkaido and its people and I am already leaving. Looking back now on my month-long sojourn on this island, one thing I lament is that I did not have as much interaction as I wished with the locals. We almost made a complete circle round Hokkaido, starting from Sapporo, thence Cape Soya and Cape Nosappu, and finally Hakodate. We started hanging up our posters announcing our cross-Japan bike tour at the northernmost point of Japan, yet it's only in the southern part that we got more and more encouragement from total strangers. In the cities more so than in the country. Nevertheless, I must speak in defence of Japanese people by pointing out that another Taiwanese cyclist Chou (周俊廷) who is currently biking from Wakanai to Okinawa has received locals' gestures of kindness since the very first day. Eliminating all factors that may contribute to this difference in acceptance of foreigners, I think travelling alone is the one that makes people more willing to approach him.

The most frequently asked question to me when I conducted my two biggest solo bike tours across Canada and Europe is: 'Are you not lonely?' I am not, honestly, because I feel connected to the places I travelled through and the people I met. Strangely, I find myself more lonely when travelling with someone (whom I get along well) — because I don't feel that connexion. A (woman) touring cyclist once told me, when she travelled by herself, people came to speak to her all the time, but once she started travelling with someone, it never happened again. It seems that people — especially Japanese people who are trained not to mind others' business — have the tendency to 'leave a group of people alone'. My friend is the kind of person who doesn't care much of others' business, so she has adapted to this 'lonely' tour more than I did. This is the downside of touring in two.

Anyways, by 9:15 pm, we finally landed in Aomori where we were supposed to be about a week ago. We will get proper rest in our hotel room before continuing our journey in Honshu.

The full take — 72 more photographs from this day