Hakodate Trip

Hello!  This is Ayako.  I was on a trip to Hakodate in Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, last weekend and just finished my travel journal on my Traveler's Notebook.  Today I would like to share my journal with you. :)

When you go on a trip, do you journal while you are traveling or after you get home?  I normally bring my passport size Traveler's Notebook with me to use as a brief diary during the trip, and when I get home, I finish my journal in my regular size Traveler's Notebook.  This is because I prefer to have everything ready in front of me such as pictures and leaflets I collected during the trip and all the washi tapes and stickers for decoration.  How about you?  Here is the first page of my travel journal.


The trip started with my daughter's famous "stick situation" which often happens when she is not happy.  This time, she did not want to get off the air plane and went into the stick situation where her shoulders' joints disappear somehow and upper body becomes one straight stick that you cannot find a place to hold her whereas her legs become like an octopus that no matter how many times you try, you cannot make her stand because her legs are like octopus.  When this happened on the air plane when many people were watching us, I was so stressed and frustrated.  But I did not want to keep this negative feeling every time I remember about this trip, so I draw this picture to make this story a funny one. :)  Now it looks like a funny story, right?

In Tokyo, it will take some time till the leaves fully turn into autumn colors, but up in Hakodate, we were right on time for their beautiful autumn.  This is my camel passport size Traveler's Notebook with Totoro charm and Gekkoso right hand clip.  I know Tototo seems a little uncomfortable with this big clip right next to him, but I clip tickets and leaflets with this so it is my must-have during a trip.  Sorry Totoro!


- Traveler's Notebook (passport size / camel)
- Gekkoso right hand clip
- Totoro wood charm (gift)

First we went to Fort Goryokaku.  It is a large star-shaped Western style citadel which is known as Hokkaido's best cherry blossom spots with over one thousand cherry trees.  They usually come in full bloom in early May, so if you plan to visit Hokkaido around May, you may want to add Fort Goryokaku to your visit list. :)  If you visit Fort Goryokaku, don't forget to go up the Goryokaku Tower just across the street.  You can see the beautiful star-shaped citadel from the top.


There are some souvenir shops, restaurants and cafes inside the tower, and I had triple flavor ice creams. :D


I was hoping to do some shopping and visit few cafes after this, but my daughter got too excited about the colorful leaves and became like a "stone" in the park as if she were a heavy stone that no one could move...so we decided to spend the afternoon longer in the park. :)

Here is a page about our fun time at the Goryokaku park.  I brought some leaves home from the park, dried them by putting them between the newspapers and glued them to the notebook.  I stamped a leaf rubber stamp from Kodomonokao using different Soramame stamping ink colors, glued pictures printed by Fuji Film Instax and decorated a bit with Totoro's autumn theme washi tape and Classiky kraft tape.  It is a little hard to see in this picture, but this vintage Sarasa Clip pen color really matches to this page.  I love how this page turned out. :)


- Kodomonokao leaf rubber stamp
- Soramame stamping inks
- Totoro autumn theme washi tape (gift)
- Classiky kraft tape
- Sarasa Clip Vitage Color (Red Black)

And here is a little history page of Fort Goryokaku.  I was a history major at collage, so I am always interested in learning the history of the places I visit.  I found this cute washi tape of Hakodate theme at Goryokaku Tower's souvenir shop.

If you visit Hakodate, you don't want to miss the view from Mt. Hakodate at night.  It was awarded three stars in the "Michelin Green Guide Japon".  At first, we were not sure if we wanted to go up at night for the view because of our daughter who gets sleepy by 8pm, but because it was late autumn and the sun went down by 5pm, we decided to have early dinner and went up for the view.  Because of my horrible camera work, it does not show the real beauty of the view, but here is what you see from Mt. Hakodate.


Trust me.  It was much more beautiful than what you see in this picture!  It was very exciting to see the shape of Hokkaido island like this!

Next day we visited a shop that I really wanted to go.  It is called Chaika.  It is a small zakka shop with a little tea room section where you can find teas, jams, table wear, postcards, stationery from Eastern Europe and Russia.  The shop was smaller than I thought, but it was a really lovely shop.  You can have Russian tea at the cafe space in the shop. :)

Here is my spread of my visit to the shop decorated with Sunny Sunday wahsi tapes and receipt paper (I tore the edge of the paper).  Sunny Sunday items use lots of Eastern European countries paper ephemera for their design, so they are perfect to decorate this page.  I glued the Russian tea bag I bought at the shop, too.

- Sunny Sunday washi tapes and paper item

After this, we stopped by at a fisherman market a little bit before we head to the airport. The market starts at 5 in the morning, but most of the shops are still open even thought it was almost noon when we got there.  We bought some seafood for souvenir and tried Hokkaido melon (Hokkaido is famous for delicious melon).

Our trip to Hakodate ended with one more "stick situation" at the air port on the way home, but it was a very fun trip. :)  I hope you enjoyed my travel journal. :)  If there is anyone who would be interested in sharing your travel journal in our blog, please let me know!  I am always curious about how other people do planners and journals!

Thank you very much for reading this.  Have a nice day!

Ayako (November 2, 2017)

**More info about Hakodate**
- Hakodate Official Travel Guide
- Chaika Shop: 7-7 Motomachi, Hakodate-shi, Hokkaido 040-0054 Japan
(Open: 10am to 17pm, Close on Tuesdays)