After all the rain the day before, we had a good day with the sun breaking through for a while in the morning. We started off by wandering around the "asaichi" and eventually settling on a place for breakfast. I went for the uni and ikura variety. Afterwards, we headed along the docks of the harbor behind the old warehouses, to the Western Slopes of Mt. Hakodate. We found the statue of Commodore Perry, who visited the city when it was one of the two opened up for foreign trade. The building where he met with the Japanese is remembered by a post in the ground. We dropped in the old British Embassy where some signs said a wedding was taking place although I didn't see much in that respect. The souvenir store had bunches of Scottish stuff so we didn't get anything. We continued up around the old city hall until we ran out of road in one direction, and then back down to cross over toward the old Russian Consulate. We found it and it was falling down. It had seen better days and was far enough off the tourist track not to invest in a restoration. We cut down through a cemetery behind two temples, emerging onto a lower street that took us to the shore of the bay. We found the western cemetery with only a few tombstones. It was surprising that it was on the map, but apparently the different head stones are enough of an attraction to advertise. Across the street from the western cemetery was the marker for the beggar Manpei, who apparently had class if no money and was so remembered.

After a longish slug down to the street car, we caught it at its terminus and rode it to Goryokaku Fort, the site of the last battle of the Meiji Restoration, where samurai from the shogunate were attempting to set up Hokkaido as a separate country. Long artillery from the Imperial ships put that hope to rest, and most of the leaders were killed and the rest were put into labor camps around Tohoku.

After the fort museum, we headed to Lucky Pierrot, a local hamburger chain and fairly popular by the number of clientele. We ordered what we thought were just plain hamburgers and they were definitely different. I was the only one who finished as I suppose I've had things like that before, and the fact that it wasn't a Whopper didn't phase me too much.

After a break back with cards at the Aozora, we caught the bus up to the top of Mt. Hakodate. It started with some good views, but eventually, the rain and wind began and it got cold. It took a while at the bus stop with screaming school girls passing by before we finally had a bus to ride back to the station.