Good morning!
This morning we're continuing our exploration of Hakodate
We're going to go to
Hakodate morning market
It's half eight in the morning
So it's early for us
But not really that early!
And we've wrapped up very warm
Today it's about -11
Agh!
I can feel the cold on my legs
And we haven't even gone outside yet
It looks really snowy out there
The coldest it ever gets in the UK
Is about -1 or 2
I remember it was -6 in the middle of the night once
So we're not really used to this!
Today we're in Hakodate
At the end of the shinkansen line
In Hokkaido
It's known for fresh seafood
Today we're going to see a lot of it
At the morning market
Along with the most expensive fruit I've ever seen
There's lots more coming up on my channel
From Hokkaido
Including the Sapporo Snow Festival
And new videos every Thursday
If you want to subscribe
Here's a map of the morning market
It's just next door to the station
A nice rainbow there!
There's Hakodate Station
And the morning market's just next to it
Behind this big snowdrift!
It's hard to tell if there's anything underneath that or not!
And that red writing above the door
Says "Donburi Alley"
Donburi is a rice bowl with toppings
In this case, fish & seafood
You're definitely spoilt for choice here
Here's all the stalls in the morning market
I think there's about 250 actually
Maybe not all in this building
If you like fish, there's certainly a lot!
Looks very orange!
And here's the souvenir stamp
Lots of places in Japan
Have a souvenir stamp to prove you've been somewhere
At a tourist attraction or somewhere important
What's this one?
Turn it upside down
Other way round
Spin it
I think, is that a basket with some-
Is it a donburi?
I think it might be
Full of those - cod - not cod roe...
What are those round things?
Are they salmon roe?
I think they're salmon roe
And here's some gachapon
There's some special Donburi Alley gacha
We've got Snow Miku
For the Sapporo Snow Festival
And these cute dango in traditional Japanese desserts
I think they're a sequel to one I had in my gachapon video actually
Oh and there's a shinkansen gacha
This shop's got a tank of live crabs
In here it looks like more normal market stalls
Selling food, rather than little restaurants
I'm not sure what all these things are
Before, when I'd seen markets in guide books
I never really thought they seemed that appealing
But it was actually really interesting
To see what's on offer
You can try different types of food
And everything is really fresh
Arigatou!
As well as selling fresh fish
Lots of the stalls will cook or prepare it for you
So it's a good place to come for breakfast or lunch
Most of the little shops & kiosks here
Are selling donburi
Which is just seafood on top of rice
A seafood rice bowl
There's also stalls selling fish just on its own
And fruit on its own
And lots of ones that I'm not sure entirely what they are
Like bags of dried things
Look you can have a meal inside a clam shell
Probably not a clam
You can have a meal inside a shell
On another stall
They had all the shells on the grill
And they were cooking everything inside them
There's a food court here
In one of the markets
So you can sit & eat the stuff you bought
Without going out in the cold
Very good!
Here's Phil's donburi
It's actually a lot bigger than we expected it to be
The rice is warm!
The fish is raw and fresh
It's tuna, salmon and scallops
It also comes with miso soup
Some wasabi
And they've given us some soy sauce
I didn't expect it to come with these extra bits
I'm not complaining!
It's 1300 yen
How's yours Phil?
Sorry!
It's really nice
The scallops in particular
Are really really nice
They taste super fresh
The salmon and tuna, I've had better
It's still nice
But these scallops
Are excellent
Wow
And the rice of course is just good rice
You don't normally have scallops
Not normally, no
I'm always a bit skeptical about them in the UK
But Hokkaido's famous for them, you've got to try it
It is mainly fish
As you'd expect
But there are quite a few stalls selling fruit
Which is good for me
Because I wanted to try some fruit
I'd heard they have different varieties of fruit here
That might taste different from fruit at home
This is what I was looking for
Hokkaido melon
500 yen a slice
And strawberries for 1000 yen for a box
They look delicious
Those are big strawberries actually
Here's my Hokkaido melon
It was 500 yen
And Hokkaido's famous for melons
So it should be really good
Wait wait wait!
Now go for it
It is a delicious melon
Tastes like a melon!
Is it better than a melon you've had before
I don't know, i think it's about the same actually
But it does have flavour
And it is sweet
Which melons don't always, do they?
Sometimes they taste of nothing
So maybe it is better!
I wanted to try everything
On the fruit stall
They had really big grapes
And a bunch of them was 3500 yen
Which is really expensive
I'd heard fruit's expensive in Japan
And it appears that some of it is!
I think here, people get other people fruit as gifts
Which is nice
It's healthier than chocolates
Better than flowers
They were also selling whole melons
Which had stalks on like the ones in cartoons
Like cute character melons
But real
And they were 4500 yen
For one melon
Wow!
The other morning, Phil went to Tsukiji, the famous fish market in Tokyo
So how does this compare?
It's a lot more laidback
Which is, I guess what you'd expect
Tsukiji is rammed with people
It's got a lot of life
Whereas this is quite laidback
I guess it's a quiet time of year
But it's the same kind of idea
It's got the same sort of food on offer
Same kind of stalls
It's a good experience
It seems like the fish should be really fresh
It should be
I mean, you can see the sea from here!
It's just outside!
Just hop in!
I'd say what's available here
Seems less catered to tourists
In Tsukiji, there's dishes that are perhaps a little less intimidating
If you're into loads of different types of seafood
It seems to cater more for locals
So I guess that's a good thing
This is full-on seafood
With all the live crabs and everything!
It's not for the faint-hearted
But it's an interesting place
You can pick up a few things
Aaaah!!
I just spotted a little girl with the same hat as me!
Something else Hokkaido's famous for
Is sweetcorn
Tomorokoshi
So I've ordered a fresh one here
And they've grilled it for me
This is actually really big
It's a strange breakfast, melon & sweetcorn!
My sweetcorn is delicious
This sauce on it
Is like butter soy sauce
But it tastes a bit sweet as well
I think it might have some mirin in it
It just tastes really good
It's really heavy as well actually
It's a big sweetcorn!
I don't eat any fish at all
To me it seems really horrible
But it doesn't really smell of fish in here
Because it's really fresh
Hokkaido's known for fresh seafood
And it doesn't smell bad
Or what I'd call bad
It doesn't have a fish smell at all round here
We just took our plates back
And he gave us these coffee cookies
That was a nice surprise
We just went past the fruit stall again
And there's actually a bunch of grapes
That's 5500 yen
That's about £35 - £40
So much!
I wonder what they're like!
I really want to try them!
They were big grapes
Look at this big pile of snow
Where they've shovelled it all
It's huge!
Do bears like melon?
There's a big tank of crabs over there
We've seen a lot of live crabs
There was one on a display that looked like it was escaping
The snow almost looks like smoke!
It all gets in your face
As you're walking around
I really want to try the £35 grapes
Like how good can they be??
I wish you could pay like 100 yen
And have just one grape to try it
We've only got half an hour till we have to go back
And get our train
So we were looking at what's around
And look at this gem
The oldest concrete utility pole in Japan
How can we miss that?!
It's 0.7 miles away
So we'd only just make it in time
Dammit!!
We're just going to brave the snow again
And walk down to the sea
And see what's there
Well there's a ship over there
That's where the sea is
You can't see much else
With all the snow, it's like a blizzard!
And that wind is absolutely freezing
This was a terrible idea!
Retreat!
I forgot to turn on the mic
But what I'm talking about here
Are some of the other things you can do in Hakodate
If you have more time
Nearby there's an area of red brick warehouses
Where you can go shopping
When it's not winter
You can go on sightseeing cruises around the bay
And that ship we saw
Is actually a maritime museum
One of the most famous sights
Is Goryokaku
A fort that's star shaped
There's an observation tower
So you can see it properly
If you're staying for a bit longer
There's also an onsen town nearby
With hot spring baths
And traditional Japanese hotels
But for now, we're done in Hakodate
It was just a short stay
And next time
We're off on the train to Sapporo
For the snow festival
See you on Thursday!