So yay! Hokkaido! Here we come!
First time visiting Hokkaido… so we were all super excited. I spent so much time doing research… can’t believe when the trip finally happened. I was nervous, stressed and excited at the same time.
Early morning at 6.30am, we carried our backpacks, checked out of Ueno hotel, and first head to Family Mart to get my morning latte. Then we made our way over to Ueno station to catch the 08:46 shinkansen to Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto station. We were super early, but we were able to buy some Ekiben to eat on the train. After waiting for quite a bit, our Hayabusa train finally arrived!
It’s obviously not the first time that any of us had sat in a proper shinkansen, but that didn’t stop all of us for being excited about the shinkansen trip. About midway into the trip, I finally opened up my ekibento and dug into it. It’s not super uber fantastic, but there’s really something so fascinating about eating a bento on the shinkansen, and watching the scenery flew by… that somehow the food tasted better than it actually is.
It was an uneventful ride, with Bruno nodding off as usual whenever he’s on a train. Soon we reached Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto station at 12.52pm, where we got off the shinkansen to transfer to a Hakodate Liner to Hakodate station.
And thus, we finally set foot at Hokkaido for the first time!
We just had to grab some lunch right away, as it was already rather late at around 1.30pm. Everyone’s first impression about Hakodate is really just seafood and crabs, so naturally my mom’s interested in getting some crabby cuisine. We decided to go for Hakodate GAYA, which is rather near the station. They had English menu, and since they were still open for lunch, why not?
I was finally able to order edamame (I really didn’t understand why it is actually so hard to order edamame in normal restaurants in Japan…), yay! I also ordered ordered a crabmeat don, while Bruno and my mom ordered the snowcrab (with shell) set. Sorry for the blur photos but yeah. The food was okay…. crab was pretty fresh…. but I still feel they were a tad overpriced.
It was still very early so we ended up heading to another market Hakodate Jiyuichiba since the Morning Market should be closed by this time. It was a long walk (my mom was complaining for the entire journey) but it was a fruitful onr because she managed to get decently priced yet cheap, good quality dried Hokkaido scallops. Instead of walking back, I decided that we should just hop on a bus (with my half-assed spoken Japanese to confirm with the driver that the bus was going back to Hakodate station) instead. My mom then started complaining why did we walk in the first place when there’s a bus… sigh.
We tried to check in, but it was still about 15min before 3pm, so Toyoko Inn requested us to just wait at their dining area. As it was really cold outside and she had just walked such a long distance, my mom just wanna rest and charge her phone while waiting. So Bruno and I left our heavy bags with my mom and went out for a quick walk around the hotel.
We managed to find our way to the “harbour”, and boy, the views were so magnificent!
We then went back to the hotel to check in, before going to the bus stop outside the hotel to take the bus up to Mt Hakodate. The ropeway was closed for maintenance, but there was a bus service that would bring us up. The views were really breathtaking up there, but it was also unbelievably cold. So cold, that we weren’t able to wait till the sun fully set and all lights came on. It was really way toooo cold. After taking some pictures, we quickly went back to queue for the bus, and thankfully we were able to get a seat for all of us this round.
When I was doing my food research, I found a ramen place Tsutsuiken that’s near Hakodate station and our hotel in the most inconspicuous place – behind a carpark. The comments were all positive, so I decided to give the shop a try. We finally managed to find the small one-man restaurant, and thankfully it wasn’t all that crowded and the owner (and chef) managed to find a spot for all 3 of us.
I ordered Yaki Soba, while both my mom and Bruno ordered the miso ramen. The food is so good! It was a bit of a wait for the food to be served, but that’s understandable because there’s only just the owner doing all the cooking, serving, collecting payment etc.
After a satisfying dinner, we then went back to hotel to rest for the night.
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