After my New Years pit stop in Sendai, I continued north to Hakodate. My plan was to keep going north until I couldn’t go any further, or until it got too cold, since I was traveling in the middle of winter. I chose Hakodate because one of the friends I made while I was staying in Hai Phong, Vietnam over Christmas, Peter, told me about this city and said he studied abroad here and it was a great little town. I loved that it wasn’t a huge touristy city so that I could explore it myself instead of follow in so many other traveler’s footsteps.
It was such a cozy city that I ended up extending my stay here for a couple days to slow down, enjoy the snow, wander the city, the beaches and see the snow monkeys.