Sapporo, Hokkaido Trip (Day 12)

22nd May 2019, Wednesday

Today, we just planned to walk around Sapporo city so we woke up late and we took our time to prepare ourselves. We went down for ramen at Ramen Sora, a small ramen stall recommended by the hotel staff. It was just round the corner of our hotel. We ordered a miso ramen and a spicy ramen, it was quite nice. After we finished the ramen, we walked down the shopping streets of Sapporo, Tanukikoji Shopping Street. It was quite like the one in Osaka, with streets and streets of shops. There were many shops available along the streets, selling pets, shoes and food. I was amazed on how big their Don-Don Donki was. It was 6 storeys high and there were 2 shops, opposite each other in the same street. We spent a lot of time shopping inside.

Miso and Spicy Ramen

Tanukikoji Shopping Street

Donki Shop Entrance

Then we walked further down the streets to a cheese market and Istean. We were amazed at the seafood and cheese products selling at the supermarket. We took our own time exploring in the supermarket and bought some fruits and some food back. We were lucky to buy 1 whole honey dew for $1000 yen as there was an offer going on. So we asked the staff to help us pick ripe one that we could eat it. After that, we walked back to the hotel and asked the counter staff if they had a knife to lend us. The staff was so funny, she actually gave us a plastic knife and asked us if it is okay. We broke into laughter and my friend kept telling her we want to cut our honey drew and the plastic knife won't work. Later my friend asked the staff if the kitchen chef of the hotel restaurant could help us cut the melon drew instead. So the staff went to the restaurant and asked. After some time, she came back and told us the chef was willing to help to cut the fruit. We were so happy, and so i went up to the room with our purchases first while my friend waited for the fruit to be cut.

Eel

Fishes

Giant Scallops

More honey dew

Yummy!!

After some time, my friend came back with a tray and on the tray, there were 4 big slices of the honey dew. So we sat on the floor and had our maki and honey drew. The honey dew was sooooo sweet and juicy....It was soooo enjoyable...After that, we just stayed in the room and do nothing...hahaha....We stayed in the room till about 6 plus, then we went down again to see what was nice for dinner. We walked into a small eating alley with some small restaurants but we gave them a miss. Then we ended up at an okonomiyaki place named Hina-Chan which we had to wait for some time before we could get a seat. Finally, we get a table and we ordered a coke float and two okonomiyaki for dinner.It was not bad but it was quite a lot so we didn't managed to finish the food. After dinner, we walked back to hotel and rested.

Entrance

Coke Float

Recommended Okonomiyaki

Places visited:
Ramen Sora (Address: 5 Chome-20 Minami 3 Jonishi, Chuo Ward, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0063, Japan)
Cheese Market (Address:  4 Chome-14-5 Minami 4 Jonishi, Chuo Ward, Sapporo, Hokkaido 064-0804, Japan)
Istean
Tanukikoji Shopping Street
Hina-Chan (Address: 6 Minami Sanjo Nishi Tanukikoji 6-Chome, Chuo, Sapporo 060-0063, Hokkaido)


Hotel Stayed:
Hotel Vista Sapporo Odori

Hakodate, Hokkaido Trip (Day 6)

16th May 2019, Thursday

Today, we are going for a city exploration in Hakodate city (no need for driving, phew). So we woke up slightly late and got ready for our adventure. We walked about 15 mins to Hakodate Market, the place where all the seafood are. The market was interesting with all the giant crabs, clams, fishes, scallops, etc. There was even a small area where visitors are allowed to fish live squids for a price of 100 yen and the stall owner will cut it live in front of you for consuming. There were restaurants on the 2nd level of the market where by buyers can buy the seafood downstairs and have the food cooked and have the meal at the restaurant upstairs. The seafood were all fresh and huge. Also, there were stalls selling their sweet honey dew but they were selling by slices (1 slice was about 400 or 500 yen). There were also many seafood restaurants at the Hakodate Morning Market square.

Live Squid Fishing

Sweet Honey Dew

Grilled Butter Scallops

We walked around the market, exploring every stall and eyeing on every seafood items we saw. We eventually bought a giant crab for 7200 yen when the stall owner told us he is selling off at half price as the crab was missing one of its leg. We don't really care if the crab is missing one leg as the crab was damn huge...hahahaa....So we told the stall owner we wanted the crab to have it cooked grilled and have 3 of the legs to eat as sashimi style. He even let us to take photo of us holding the crab. Then he brought us up to their restaurant on the 2nd level to wait for the crab to be served. We also ordered a seafood don (500 yen - the cheapest among all we ate) and a scallop sashimi to share. Our eyes were so wide open when the crab was served in front of us. There was so much of the crab roe...very high cholesterol...My friend was the one eating them....lol....

Scallop Sashimi

Seafood Don

Our main dish

Crab meat sashimi

After the nice and full breakfast, we walked down to the market again and explored other stalls we haven't seen. We saw some stalls selling baked scallops in packets (the popular snack) and we bought quite many packets to bring back. We actually did a bit of bargaining with the stall staff but it was still not cheap (about SGD$3 per piece). Of course, we didn't miss buying the honey dew and we got 1 piece to try...It was damn sweet!! After that, we walked outside the market to see what were available. Mostly were selling live seafood and fruits. We bought some fresh packeted corns (3 for 1000 yen) and dried cuttlefish snacks made on the spot. After that, we came by another indoor market which was having lesser people. It was having stalls selling shoes and other non-seafood stuffs but there were some stalls selling seafood. However, the seafood stall owners were not as friendly as the ones we met in the other indoor market. Anyway, we were interested in the shoes shop as it was selling a japanese brand named spingle move as we don't normally see and the shoes looked nice and comfortable to wear. I ended up buying one pair for myself (total damage: SGD$100 plus)....hahaha....

Sea Urchin

More honey dew

Dried Cuttlefish Snack

Place we bought ice-cream

After all the shopping, we came upon a milk ice-cream shop where there were many people gathered. There was a lady giving out tasting of their ice-cream outside, so we took a spoon to try out. It was very creamy and sweet...My friend was super excited when she tried the ice cream and she went inside quickly to buy a cone. We got 2 flavour ice-cream (vanilla and squid ink) on a cone and rested our feet. It was very relaxing and cooling having the creamy ice-cream in the cold weather. After the nice ice cream treat, we decided to walk back to the hotel to unload our goodies before we headed out to our next destination.

Tram Tickets

Sakura Trees

Inside the Park

Magistrate House

Goryōkaku Tower

Goryōkaku 

However, when we reached the hotel, we ended up taking a short nap before we dragged ourselves out of the hotel for the next destination...hahaha...We left the hotel around 3 plus again to the next attraction, Goryōkaku. We did a bit of direction googling and headed out to the bus stop to take the city tram. It took us about half an hour to reach there and walked towards the park. There were sakura trees surrounding the fortress and it was very very big. The uniqueness of this fort is that it is a star-shaped built in the Edo Period to protect Hakodate against Western threats. Now it is a national public park for visitors to visit and know its history. The former magistrate house stays in the central of the park for visitors to visit.  Also, a Goryōkaku tower stands slightly opposite the park where you can purchase a ticket with a small amount and go up the tower to see the park from higher ground. You can really see the park is built in a 5 star-shaped formation with a river outside its walls and the city of Hakodate and Mount Hakodate in view. We went exploring the park and the magistrate house and went up to the tower to have a better view of the park. Of course, we made sure we collected their attractions' stamps whenever we find in the places we visited.

Restaurant Exterior

Our dinner

By the time we finished our exploration, it was about 5 plus to 6 plus. So we searched for our dinner place (Gourmet Kaitenzushi Kantaro, 函太郎) which was some distance opposite the park. We had to guess if the place we reached was the correct restaurant as the restaurant name was in Japanese and when you google, it was with the English name. Anyway, we decided to try the sushi in this restaurant after reading mostly good reviews from others on TripAdvisor. We were seated in front of the sushi bar counter and luckily they do have English translation printed on their sushi menu. We could order the items we wanted to the sushi masters easily by writing the item numbers down on the order list. The sushi was damn fresh and nice...We love the fatty tuna as we kept ordering it and they had 3 ways of preparing it. We enjoyed our sushi dinner there (don't remember how much we spent but we had to pay in cash) and left the restaurant happily.

By the time we left, the sky was really dark. So we went back to the bus stop to take the tram back to our hotel and rested for the day.

Places visited:
Hakodate Morning Market
Goryōkaku
函太郎 (Address: 25-17 Goryokakucho, Hakodate 040-0001 Hokkaido)

Hotel Stayed:
Hotel Paco Hakodate