Fast train to Hokkaido

I put some northern action in our itinerary to hopefully catch the cherry blossoms which we had missed by about 3 weeks in Tokyo. I can now say after 3 days in Hokkaido that we are about a week too early here. Very disappointing. But we have been to some cute little towns; Hakodate, where people said hello to us on the street, and Noriboribetsu where I had a great outdoor bath experience. We also stepped back to the 80's in at the sun palace lake toya. Which  seriously had a Nintendo 64.