Hakodate, Hokkaido Trip (Day 8)

18th May 2019, Saturday

Toast with hot chocolate

Coffee cake

Live Squid

Grilled Scallop

Today, we just planned to have a relax day in the city since we had not been driving even since we reached Hakodate. So we got ready and walked back to Misuzu Coffee cafe for our breakfast. This time, we ordered toast and a coffee cake. We even bought more coffee powder to bring home. After that, we walked to Hakodate Morning Market. This time, we decided to have a try to fish the squid. So we queued for our turn and i tried to fish a squid. It feel weird to try to fish out the squid as you can feel the pressure from the squid but it took me some time to fish out the squid. And once the squid was fished out, it spilled out water as an attack. We took photos with the squid happily and gave the squid to the stall owner. The lady inside then cut the squid alive in front of us. The head was actually still moving while the lady cut its body into slices. After that, she passed us the prepared squid for our consumption. We also ordered a grilled scallop from the opposite stall. The squid was super fresh and nice to eat. You have to try it at least once. We also bought 2 slices of honey drew for 700 yen, it was still verry sweet.

Sausages Set

Carl Raymon Exhibit

Some items left by Carl Raymon

After that, we walked to Carl Raymon Cottage to buy the sausages. We also ordered some sausages to try in the place. It was also yummy, so my friend bought some of the sausages home but we were worried to over-buy and not allowed to bring back. Plus, it had to be keep cool. So we bought a small quantity. They even had the service to ship your purchases back if you were planning to buy large quantity. Then, we went upstairs to have a short visit on the museum regarding Carl Raymon. We even left a note on the board as an appreciation. Then we made our way up to Mount Hakodate Ropeway station as the sky was quite clear today. So we decided not to miss the chance to see the view on the summit. We bought our tickets for ropeway to go up to the summit from the ticketing machine. There were many people going up too.

Summit view

Does it look like a whale's tail?

Mount Hakodate Sign

It was really breath-taking when we reached the summit, it was said that the Hakodate landscape looked like a whale's tail and it was a million-dollar view when you view it in the night. However, we missed to view it at night but we enjoyed the view as much as in the day time. We stayed up there for some time and had our mini picnic there with the corn we bought in the market and other snacks. After that, we left the summit and walked back to restaurants place where we had our ramen last night. There was a public foot-bath somewhere there, so we decided to have a warm foot-bath before we go for our special dinner (which my friend made an reservation before flying over). We took a whole good 20 mins to relax ourselves there.

Public foot-bath

Uni Murakami entrance

Tempura Rice

Sea urchin Rice Bowl

Sea urchin gratin

Grilled mackerel

Once we are done with the foot bath, we headed to our dinner place, Uni Murakami which was located in the Hakodate Market (in fact, it was just beside the place we had the ice cream the other day). And the restaurant building looked small from outside and the name was in Japanese. We didn't know we reached the correct place until we went in to check with the staffs. Anyway, we were brought to the table and were told we only had a 1-hour dining time. So we didn't waste any time and made our orders. The food items on the menu looked amazing and yummy. They were famous for their sea urchin and of course, we had to order their specialities to try. The food was really yummy and the sea urchin...ahhh...yummy...covered with cheese on top (i don't normally eat urchin). We had a great and wonderful dinner there...so heavenly (prepare to pay more for the uni here)...And the staffs were kind of rushing us to finish our meal as they were having other reserved guests coming soon.

Octopus Post Box outside JR station

After that, we headed to Hakodate JR station and explored around as it was still early. There wasn't much to shop there except we got to have the station's stamps before we left. Then we walked slowly back to the hotel as we will have to hit the road to our next destination, Lake Toya.

Places visited:
Misuzu Coffee Daimon Branch
Hakodate Morning Market
Carl Raymon Cottage
Mount Hakodate Ropeway Station
Mount Hakodate
Uni Murakami (Address: Otemachi 22-1, Hakodate-shi, Hokkaido)
Hakodate JR Station

Hotel Stayed:
Hotel Paco Hakodate