I took a couple hour wander through the lower altitude Berkeley Hills - the Berkeley Foothills to me - and took the big camera. This was mostly to test a new lens. I came back with some decent shots and this blog is just hanging out here, so why not.

Pink on White

As I wrote before, Osaka is a good place for side trips. Since we've been to Kyoto and Nara many times, we decided to go to Kobe where we've never been.

Hakodate is the Hokkaido city that we've most visited. Past visits were mostly in the snow, flying up from Tokyo to cross country ski and wander the city in the snow. It is far more interesting and historical than Sapporo - more like Otaru, but bigger. The city has built up the historic areas directly focusing on tourism, both foreign and domestic.

Time to move on from Sapporo to our other Hokkaido destination, Hakodate. Naturally the weather decides to be spectacular - after a week of not seeing sun, it came out with lots of blue...

About a half-hour train ride from Sapporo, Otaru is a popular side trip for tourists (both Japanese and foreign). It is most famous for 3 things:

This will be a bit different post. Because of timing and weather, the wanderings in Sapporo itself were limited. We always planned to spend a good bit of time at the Sapporo Brewery, but the weather was a disincentive for some of the places we wanted to go; Sapporo is surrounded by a lot of nature which is nice in good weather, but.