Auberge Ginrinsou on the top of the hill !

by Kazu

The downtown and port area of Otaru City could be seen from the premises of Hotel "Ginrinsou".  The number of the guests the hotel can accommodate is so limited that the price of the stay must be set comparatively high.

The watchtower tended to be built on the old "Pacific Herring Palace" called "Nishin Goten" in Japanese. It was for watching out the herring swamping to the coast. The swamping of pacific herring was called "Kuki" in Japanese before.  

Every spring,  pacific herring used to swamp to the west coast of Hokkaido but we can not see such phenomenon anymore. The change of currents and global warming may affected to the pilgrimage of pacific herring. Some kinds of fish are ate up by whales, some researchers said.