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Top 7 Things To Do In Hakodate, Japan
Hakodate is one of the main cities located in Hokkaido. It’s the third largest city after Sapporo and Asahikawa. If taking a bullet train from Tokyo, Hakodate is the last bullet train station into Hokkaido. The trip will take about five hours.
Some people will choose to hop on another regular train and head to Sapporo but Hakodate is worth spending a couple days in to explore. Even though it’s the third largest city in Hokkaido, it’s not too big. It’s very laid back and things are slower paced here. If coming from Tokyo, it’s a nice break from the crowds and the hustle and bustle. Two days will be good enough to see all the sights that Hakodate has to offer.
Mt. Hakodate Observatory
One of the top things to do in Hakodate is making a trip to the Mt. Hakodate Observatory (1800 yen, $12.24 USD) at sunset or at night to enjoy the panoramic view of the city. It’s certainly a spectacular view with water on either side of this particular part of town. There’s technically not a best time to go here. Day or night you’ll get a beautiful view but I’m more partial to the night when the city is fully lit up. It’s a pretty sweet view! Nighttime is also the busiest time to go so expect to see some crowds on the observatory deck. There’s also a restaurant and gift shop located here if you want to hang out a bit and soak in some more of the view.
Fort Goryokaku / Goryokaku Tower
I’ll fold these two attractions into one. But you can certainly do one or the other and skip the other one if you wanted to. Fort Goryokaku is the iconic star shaped fort located in Hakodate. Completed in 1866 as a military site in the defense of Hokkaido, the fort was later converted to a public park sometime in the early 1900s when the fort lost its military importance. The star shape of it is really quite unique, as is the moat that surrounds it. There’s not a ton to see here but the grounds are quite peaceful and nice to take a stroll around. There’s also around 1000 cherry blossom trees planted around the fort so if planned correctly during cherry blossom season it would be quite the sight! Visiting the park itself is free.
Fort Goryokaku To get a full view of the fort and it’s unique shape you can go up the Goryokaku Tower (1000 yen, $6.81 USD) which has a great view of the fort as well as other views of Hakodate since the tower provides a 360 degree view. There’s also displays up in the tower which provides the historical backdrop of the tower.
Hakodate Morning Market
The Hakodate Morning Market is a four block stretch in Hakodate that sells fresh seafood, vegetables, fruit, and snacks. It’s definitely one of the top things to do in Hakodate in the morning to start your day. It opens from 5am to about 2pm, with about 250 places total, there’s a lot of food options to choose from. The seafood here is outstanding. Even though there’s 250 places here, the market doesn’t seem huge. Crowds are fairly mellow here as well, which is nice.
Cape Tachimachi
Cape Tachimachi is a scenic spot in Hakodate with a fantastic view of the ocean, with sharp cliffs surrounding the area. There’s a paved path that loops around on top of one of the cliffs with a great lookout point with a couple benches where you can take a seat and take in the stunning view.
Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse
These old converted red brick warehouses were once used in the old trading days of feudal Japan when the Hakodate port was used for international trade. Now, the warehouses are home to souvenir, clothing, boutique type of shops. There’s a beer hall, restaurant, and some other places for snacks and dessert as well.
Eat At A Lucky Pierrot’s
One of the top things to do in Hakodate is a place you can both visit and EAT at. Lucky Pierrot is a chain of hamburger restaurants that are only located in Hakodate. There’s a total of 17 restaurants, all of which have their own individual personality and flair. No one restaurant is the same as the next. It’s immensly popular and is a tourist draw. It’s one of those things that you feel you need to try if in the area. I mean you’d try In N Out if you saw it wouldn’t you?
Hachiman Zaka Slope
Hakodate’s most famous slope, Hachiman Zaka Slope provides a scenic view on top of a hill down a stone paved, tree lined street, with a view that leads down to the bay. During Christmas time the trees are adorned with lights which provides quite the setting at night.
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The Hakodate Morning Market Is A Top Destination When Visiting Hakodate
What is the Hakodate Morning Market?
The Hakodate Morning Market is open from 5 am to about 2 pm, but that can vary by stall / restuarant. The location is very convenient since it’s right across the street from the JR Station. This is a four block stretch in Hakodate that sells fresh seafood, vegetables, fruit, and snacks.
There’s a couple of additional, larger buildings in the area that houses more stalls and restaurants. There’s about 250 places total in this area but it never seems all that dense unlike the Tsukiji Outer Market in Tokyo. That has to do with Hakodate in general being less touristy, so there’s less people, which is quite nice actually.
The main drag of the Hakodate Morning Market The Seafood
The Steamed Crab Bun
The main draw of coming here is of course the food. Specifically the seafood and the fruit. There’s several types of crab, uni, squid, salmon eggs, scallops, other shell fish, and a whole lot more at this market. As you’d imagine, it’s all very, very good.
To start the morning off I decided to grab a steamed crab bun (450 yen, $3.06).
The stall that sells the crab buns 
The steamed crab bun 
The filling of the crab bun The dough was very light and airy. The filling is a combination of snow crab mixed with some onion and bits of carrot in some kind of sweeter sauce. It’s a little salty and sweet at same time. Crab meat taste gets a little washed out due to all the other ingredients but pretty good.
Donburi
Ikuratei
Now this was something I was looking forward to the most. Donburi is rice-bowl dish that consists of fish, meat, vegetables, or other ingredients. It’s a very popular meal throughout Japan. In the Hakodate Morning Market there are TONs of places that offer donburi with some of the freshest seafood you can find.
There’s a building on the main strip of the market that houses a bunch of restaurants. They all serve pretty much the same type of foods with the same kinds of seafood donburi, with subtle differences. The displays, like the below, showcase all the different types of donburi that restaurant makes and these line the one hallway of the building.
I ate at a couple of the places during my stay in Hakodate with the first being called Ikuratei. The menu is pretty extensive. There’s a lot of different types of donburi to choose from so it can be a tough choice sorting through all the options. It’s odd to be eating fresh fish at about 8 or 9 in the morning but you get used to it and it’s VERY good.
I went with the crab, salmon roe, and uni bowl (2800 yen, $19.03) which came with miso soup and pickled vegetables.
This definitely beats a bowl of cereal for breakfast The crab was insanely sweet and quite salty on its own. I didn’t need to add anything or dip it into any soy sauce. It was the best tasting crab I can ever remember having.
The uni just melted in my mouth. It has that real intense seafoody taste before dissolving. Extremely creamy adn the deep sea taste was quite memorable.
The salmon roe provided a totally different texture to the bowl with that nice popping, burst of flavor with each bite.
Everything blends together so well. Drizzling some soy sauce over the bowl enchances the flavor as well. The highlight for me was the crab. I couldn’t believe how naturally sweet and salty it was!
Maruishi Shokudo
The second restaurant I went to within the market was called Maruishi Shokudo which was located in the same building as Ikuratei. The menus were very similar. The combination of what kind of seafood was on top of the donburi would be somewhat different from restaurant to restaurant.
Maruishi Shokudo stood out to me because they had a bowl that included scallops, tuna, and yellowtail (1980 yen, $13.47). I had scallops the previous night for dinner at another restaurant and they were amazing, so I wanted to double down on them for breakfast.
The scallops were tender and extremely sweet. So good!
Both the tuna and yellowtail just melted in my mouth. No chewy parts at all.
The scallops and fish were extremely fresh. Another outstanding donburi bowl. The seafood and donburi bowls are must gets when visiting the Hakodate Morning Market. Very affordable and just amazing seafood!
The Produce
Something that also warrants attention at the Hakodate Morning Market is the produce. Hokkaido is the largest agricultural area in Japan and produces many fruits and vegetables. The corn and melons are a couple of the notable products from Hokkaido so I had to try them!
At hte morning market you’ll find stalls with vendors selling individually plastic wrapped corns like the above photos. They’re about (472 yen, $2.72) a piece. It’s well worth the price. Once you unwrap the corn it’s ready to eat. It’s hands down the sweetest corn I’ve ever eaten. It tasted like cream of corn. It’s pretty insane how sweet the corn was.
Many of these same stalls and vendors will sell slices of Hokkaido cantaloupe as well (500 yen, $3.40). They’re conveniently cut up so you can use a tooth pick to pick up pieces of the slices.
This wasn’t quite as sweet as I anticipated, although this was in December, not exactly prime melon season. The melon was still super juicy , it really explodes with a great cantaloupe flavor. This one was not super sweet though. Still pretty quality. I’m sure in the summer these would be insanely good.
The last bit of produce that I got were strawberries\ (861 yen, $5.86). These were very sweet and very juicy. Super tasty. I was surprised how sweet they were since I didn’t think they’d be in season.
Perfect Place To Start Your Day
The Hakodate Morning Market is great place to kick off your day in Hakodate and grab some of the freshest seafood you can find in the country. It’s not a huge, robust market place, but that’s part of the charm. It won’t take you too long to walk through the entire Hakodate Morning Market but it might take some time to figure out what you want to eat exactly. There’s A LOT of seafood to try here and you certainly should try to fill yourself up with as much as your wallet will allow. I definitely recommend grabbing as much of the produce as you can too!
