Hokkaido~DAY6 HAKODATE 函馆朝市-->金森倉庫-->100yen shop
By Happy452 - Thursday, August 14, 2008
Today we will visit the famous Hakodate Morning Market 函馆朝市. We will be having our lunch and dinner early today as we need to catch a flight back to Narita at 1855 hours.
M-size is ok with us as we use it for porridge and soup only.
A must buy in Hokkaido is the dry scallop. It's better quality and cheaper as they have pretty of supply here. According to Low-san that Japanese also sell dry China scallop in the market to cater for specific group of consumers.
He promised to bring us to this one particular stall in the market which will only sell dry Japanese scallop. Well, we don’t know how true the truth is.
). 500g of M-size cost ¥6,500 (RM200) while L-size is ¥7,500 (RM230). We bought 1kg of the M-size. So, better listen than sorry later as long as the price is within our budget. They have S M L sizes (just like clothing,
We bought the scallop at the left hand stall. Our tour members are still busy at the front of the stall. Most of the goods sold here are more or less the same at each stall.
There was this small pool filled with live squids in the market, not far from the stall. You could fish the squid out and have them sliced alive (yes, alive in front of your eyes!) and served them as sashimi. Of course, you need to pay for it. It was not a nice thing to watch when they slice the squid. Photo allow but no flash. This photo shows the unlucky squid being fish out from the pool.
Seafood, seafood and seafood!
Live crabs.
Live fish with one side of the face facing upwards while the other below it. Wonder how the fish see….
Outside the market. You could see tourists crowded the place at the end. That is where the grilled seafood are sold. It rained yesterday night and still drizzling this morning.
All kinds of fresh seafood are selling here such as crabs (kani), salmon eggs (ikura), sea urchin (uni), scallop and even fresh produce such as melons. At one corner, they have restaurants selling fresh seafood top donburi (cooked rice with seafood on top of it). You would not find stall selling meat like pork or chicken in the market. Weird, right. In Malaysia, we get everything in the market. It seems that the Japanese will buy chicken and pork from the supermarket only. And the chicken must be beheaded in Japan, unlike Chinese, sometimes we need the head intact for certain purpose. There is no fishy smell at all in the market and better still you could smell the nice aroma of grilled seafood.
On our way back to the bus, we saw this seagull in the middle of the road. My sis took great trouble to take this photo. So must posted here.
Motomachi 元町, located near the foot of Mount Hakodate, is the historical district of the city and our next visiting spot. We took a walk in the rain down the hill from the Old Public Hall 旧公会堂 (Kyu-kokai-do), a European-style building which housed the Hakodate government in the early 1900's. We also passed by the Russian Orthodox Church, built in 1859 for the Russian Consulate. The church served as an introductory of the Greek Orthodox religion to Japan and is now one of Japan's important cultural assets.
We are going to have our lunch as early as 11.30am. This is our lunch venue.
Romantic atmosphere. Once you enter, inside is typical Japanese style restaurant.
Seafood pot with rice.
This restaurant makes their own miso and ready packed for selling at the entrance, if you are interested. We still have one last place to visit in Hokkaido, the Kanemori Red Brick Warehouses 金森倉庫. It’s built at the end of the Meiji era, now house a variety of shops and restaurants. If you miss the glassware and music boxes in Otaru, Meiji-kan 明治館 is your last place to shop for such items. This formerly was the Meijikan Post Office building.
The front entrance of Meijikan. On the right hand side are the old mail boxes.
Want some dessert? A café house next to Meijikan.
If you still have not buy enough omiyage, there’s another big market here selling all kinds of omiyage.
Next we headed to our next shopping spree at one of the Japanese Supermarket and ¥100 shop. Both are not included in our itinerary but additional goodies since we have more time in hand now. We have 2 hours to shop here. Most of the ¥100 (RM3) shop sell goods made of China but better quality. Anyway, personally I find it worth the money. They also have one drugstore inside the supermarket, at last I could shop for skincare products with no time constraint 
.
.Well, buying is the easier thing to do but the coming headache is how to pack them 
. We went straight to the Hakodate airport for luggage check in. So, everyone start to open their luggage once inside the airport building to reshuffle their luggage. It’s a funny scene. Luckily we could stuffed everything in with no sweat 
.
. We went straight to the Hakodate airport for luggage check in. So, everyone start to open their luggage once inside the airport building to reshuffle their luggage. It’s a funny scene. Luckily we could stuffed everything in with no sweat 
.
After luggage have been checked in, we went for our ramen and dumpling dinner nearby.
Ramen supposed to be served bowl by bowl but since we are in one big group, they have served us in this way ie. we got to cook ourselves. The dumpling is nice but not the ramen.
Once we reached Haneda airport at about 2015, we need to travel another hour and a half to reach the Narita Garden Hotel 成田花園酒店. Nothing around the hotel except a convenience store. Most of the tour members are hungry by that time and all headed to the store for some take-away supper. Not much choice but at least something for the stomach.
22 July 2008
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