Day 3 – HAKODATE

I had an “OMG, I am so excited” moment when we woke up and looked out the window of our hotel on day three on our Japan holiday adventure. I had slept well and after much research was really looking forward to getting out of the hotel and exploring Hakodate.

Dave and I plan holidays together. It was my idea to come to Japan after visiting with Victoria seven or eight years ago and falling in love with it. Sometimes we break up the trip into days or segments and each plan parts of it. Other times we divide up the planning according to activity – for example I plan the accommodation and Dave plans the transport. In this case, we really did much of the detailed planning together, usually allocating an evening at home to planning each of the 13 days we will be here.

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, this trip has been coming for a few years – we originally had booked for 2020. When we did the activity planning together, we tried to balance things out according to our interests and passions. Think food for me and history for Dave.

Day three was all about balance.

To start the day, what better way to find out about local culture then to visit the local food markets. In this case the ‘Hakodate Morning Market’. One of Hakodate’s main industries is fishing, and so unsurprisingly, the markets consisted mostly of stalls selling an array of local fresh seafood. In true Japanese fashion the markets were well organised and extremely clean. Not your usual Asian market with odours of drying, or worse, decaying fish, but rows of small stalls with their wares laid out in neat rows, all smelling and looking sweet and fresh!

Needless to say, I was looking forward to tasting some of this fabulous looking produce. Within and surrounding the markets are numerous small restaurants selling a selection of prepared seafood. Most of the menus and prices seemed to be very similar, so we chose somewhere that was quite full (the old rule of going where the locals go) and perused the menu. As most of you know Dave’s not keen on anything too unusual so he ordered a bowl of steamed rice, and I chose ‘Menu set 1’ from the picture card menu, which included a Donburi (Donburi means “big bowl” and consists of rice topped with various ingredients), in this case topped with raw salmon, scallops, squid, fish roe, Uni (sea urchin) and crab. It also included a small bowl of miso soup; some pickled ginger and some sort of cold preserved what I think was fish innards! Not quite my typical breakfast of All-Bran! As instructed with hand signals by the super helpful server, I drizzled a spicy soy/wasabi mix over the super fresh seafood and then enjoyed every last mouthful of it… the balance of the warm rice, sweet, cool and soft raw seafood and the saltiness, acidity and spice of the sauce was simply wonderful!

The markets were a short walk from our hotel and, as we discovered when we looked out of the hotel window, only a short walk from the Mashu Mara museum ship. What better way to balance out the morning then a visit to learn a bit about the history of ship travel in the region. This ship once carried trains, passengers, cars and cargo from the island of Honshu across to the north island of Hokkaido. Japan Rail owned the ship until it was decommissioned in 1988 when the Seikan undersea tunnel was opened. It was converted into a museum a few years ago, and now sits alongside the wharf right near our hotel, where passenger ships now berth.

Of course, Dave loved exploring the ship, with lots of ‘hands on’ displays, plenty of information signs in English and even a morse code machine to play with in the radio room. (I have a video of him using it, but can’t seem to upload it here)

A quick wander around the wharf-side streets, then back to the hotel for a quick rest and writing the previous days blog, then out the front for a taxi ride to the Hakodate ropeway’s lower station. Taxis in Japan are often Toyota Crown ‘Comforts’, the model remaining unchanged for the past 25 years! (Even having self-opening covid-safe doors!)

The Hakodate ropeway is the region’s most popular tourist attraction – with its three minute each way ride rising to the peak of Mount Hakodate, 787m above (the nearby) sea level. Dave and I both love a cable car – so this attraction was one we immediately put on the list when we were planning.

From the top you can see how the city of Hakodate sits on the peninsula jutting out from the lower part of Hokkaido Island. The weather was cool (5c) but not windy and the sun was shining so the view was incredible from the many viewing platforms at the peak.

Coincidentally ( 😉 ) it was lunchtime, and there was an interesting-looking restaurant within the top station that also had a lovely view over the city. I assume it’s normally quite busy up here – with a well-organised and numbered-seat waiting room for the restaurant queue, but it was reasonably quite today and so we got a lovely table next to the window. Dave and I both had the lunch menu specials – Dave, predictably, a steak and salad and me a bowl of Ramen, some pickles and another Donburi. You can’t have too many Donburis 😉

After lunch, and the return trip down the ropeway, we walked the streets of Hakodate, looking in shops, parks and tourist spots including the former British Consulate. We finished the walk at a group of shops inside a restored brick factory, which included a large supermarket selling only local produce… my kind of shop!

Another short rest (15,000 steps today!) and it was time to explore the local area to find some dinner. We started by heading to an outlet of “Lucky Perriot” burger restaurant. There are 17 outlets of this burger joint in the Hakodate area – which is a lot for a city the approximate size of Wollongong!

As I said, today (and life in general!) is all about balance, and as I had chosen all our Hakodate meals up till now it was Dave’s turn and as we patiently lined up (yes, another queue) we reread our research online on why this place was named best burger in Japan. About 30 minutes after we arrived, we were called forward to the single counter, only to be told in broken English that there would be at least a 45-minute wait for the food to arrive! Given we weren’t actually that hungry, we decided to give it a miss and walked further along the street to find an alternative. As I said, the area is known for its seafood, so many restaurants with tanks full of live seafood out the front lined the footpath. At the same time as I was wondering why there were waves splashing out of the tanks, Dave announced “I feel dizzy”, after a menu in a shop window appeared to start moving. Yes, you guessed it… an earthquake! Not one person seemed to be perturbed by this occurrence – and given there is around 50 a year in this area I guess that’s no surprise. Having said that I did look it up later and it was a six on the Richter scale – so considered ‘significant’. The last time I came to Japan Victoria, and I experienced a ‘very significant’ earthquake when we were in Osaka. Much less scary than that time although for the 15-20 seconds we were balancing ourselves as we walked it was somewhat off-putting!

We did finally get dinner, choosing two restaurants in the end! Dave loved his pancakes with maple syrup from the little coffee shop, and I thoroughly enjoyed my corn ramen from the small Ramen house next door. Sometimes balance might mean choosing two places!