Travel

Hakodate Morning Market

While my personal highlight of Hakodate was the star-shaped Goryokaku Fort, Hakodate has to offer many other things as well. Mt. Hakodate has an awesome night view and there’s also the famous Hakodate Morning Market near the JR station that I want to introduce today!

Visited: May 5th and 6th 2012

Hakodate Morning Market

Hakodate Morning Market

Just a few steps away from the JR Hakodate Station you’ll run into many restaurants offering fresh and raw seafood.

The banner in red and white above the restaurants says: “Hang in there Tohoku! Don’t give up, Hakodate!

Things like that you can find all over Tohoku (and obviously even in Hokkaido) ever since the big earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

Hakodate Morning Market

If you walk a few steps from the restaurants you’ll bump right into the Hakodate Morning Market (函館朝市) which is mainly a fish market. It opens at 6 a.m. (5 a.m. in winter) and closes around noon, so you don’t have to get up ridiculously early to experience it! smilie

Hakodate Morning Market

It’s a great chance to taste delicious seafood! It’s a little bit expensive, though.
Here you see Hakodate’s famous seafood-topped donburi (a bowl of rice with different toppings).

Hakodate Morning Market

Salmon for 6000-9000 yen! Looks expensive to me!

Hakodate Morning Market Hakodate Morning Market

Anybody wants to buy an octopus tentacle? (x___X’) …

Hakodate Morning Market Hakodate Morning Market

It was really a big market, selling various things. I found it interesting to see that they hung up some fish and dried it with a fan.

Hakodate Morning Market

Some more salmon. I have to admit that besides tuna, salmon is one of my favorite fish to eat.

How about you?

Hakodate Morning Market Hakodate Morning Market

Wow, 18.000 yen is a lot, but that thing was HUGE, so I guess it’s a justified price.

Hakodate Morning Market

In the picture you see “Bafun-uni (バフンうに)”, also known as Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus. It is a species of sea urchin and is edible. It is found along the coasts of Korea and China, and in Japan from Kyushu to Ishikari Bay.

Hakodate Morning Market Hakodate Morning Market

I liked the cute drawings they had all over the street.

Hakodate Morning Market

Even the manhole covers of Hakodate were pretty cute and carried the theme of the morning market.

Hakodate Morning Market

Big crab on a scale.

Hakodate Morning Market

The smaller ones seemed affordable.

 Hakodate Morning Market

All in all, they had a lot of different crabs there! Something Hakodate also is famous for.

Here’s a short video I took so that you can experience the atmosphere of the morning market a little bit. It was around 9am and I guess the peak was already over.

Hakodate Morning Market

In the evening I decided to eat in one of the seafood restaurants near the station.

Hakodate Morning Market

Speaking of fresh seafood, you could pick your dinner right there if you wanted to.

 

Besides its European fort, Mt. Hakodate and its big Morning Market Hakodate has a lot of European buildings and even some churches which I want to show you in my next entry about Hakodate.

Hakodate has a similar atmosphere to Yokohama and Kobe.
If you like those cities, I’m sure you’d enjoy Hakodate as well.

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