Hokkaido catchup

Catching up on daily entries seems increasingly quixotic. But a quick summary

Sapporo events

• Went to Maruyama park a few times. Enjoyed a lot of cherry blossoms, and climbed to the summit, which wasn't the greatest experience.

• Took ropeway and cable car up to Moint Moiya. That was cool

• Botanic garden

• Train to Otaru. Views from the train might have been the best part, for a good stretch it runs right between the ocean and hills.

Hakodate

• Train to Hakodate was less pleasant in both experience and views. JR seems to like running the Green cars hot. But the seats in ordinary cabin would have been very narrow.

• Ropeway to Mount Hakodate

• Visited Goryokaku star fort

• Coast east of me, park, and little zoo. Album

• Coast west of me, shopping area, and bikeshare ride. Album

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Hakodate (or my part of it) continues the Sapporo feeling of "where are all the people?" With more justification: Hakodate's population is down by like a third from peak. Though I suspect there's also a thing of businesses being more concentrated than in Tokyo or Osaka, with residential places being quieter. Or the fact that all the streets are wider leads me to expect more.

Ironically, I write that as I wait in Hakodate Park, in between Airbnbs, right next to a small amusement park which is decently busy even at 11 AM on a Monday morning in mid-May. Some of these kids look older than six...

some Japan population numbers

• Osaka: absolute peak population was 1940, and had lost half by 1945, whoops. Postwar peak was 3.1 million in 1965, vs. 2020 2.7 million; been increasing since 2000.

• Sapporo has increased in every 5 or 10 year period between 1920 and 2020. No obvious hollowing-out effect here, unless people have been resettling outward.

• Hakodate: peaked at 320,000 in 1980. 266,000 in 2015, having lost 10% since 2005. If that trend continues it's probably around 240,000 now, 75% of peak and 83% of 20 years ago. Yeah, you hear about Japan losing population, but I think of that as more of a rural thing, not hitting a regional center city of (formerly) 1/3 million people.

Overall, Japan's unemployment rate is 2.7%, vs. 4.3% in the US. But I'm guessing there's a shift toward working in big retail centers rather than running small shops, thus a lot of shuttered shops even without city opulation decline (like Tengachaya in Osaka).