I took a pic of this building and spotted a cat staring at me.
Zoomed up for the cat
Google map was telling us to walk through this passageway and I thought...
It's great for a jump shot!!!
LOL I'm abit sorry to YK for making her do multiple jump shots throughout the trip :D, just thought they would be nice photos to refer to in the future hehe.
Anyway we walked quite a bit cos we just couldn't find the market. When we eventually located it, I was amused to see a seagull and a crow hanging around the road.
They were 'chased off' the road and walked /hopped away in a stately manner. Lol. And we realised the morning market is really just adjacent to the hotel, but we walked much more because we turned right instead of left after exiting the hotel >.<
Huge scallops!
Squidddd..
Crowded interior
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| Squid buns! |
The squid bun was pretty yummy in a squid-y way.
We stopped for scallops
This was real good!! Lol YK looking at the organ part with deep suspicion in below pic. Conclusion: We only like the muscle.
Crab buns! We got the king crab and snow crab bun if I didn't recall wrongly. The king crab (less expensive one) tasted better.
After 3 buns, we were kind of full. That was not good because one should not visit Hakodate Morning Market and just eat buns. I was determined to locate Uni Murakami, which is famous for... Uni. This speciality resturant is operated by a uni processing plant and offers additive free uni on its menu. It's not often one gets to eat such uni, even in Japan.
After some walking, we found it. Actually we had walked past it earlier but didn't realise that was it. It only opens at 11am during winter months. 11am also happened to be our hotel check out time. We decided to return to check out and then come back to Uni Murakami to queue up before the place opens.
View from hotel room is nice!
Four Points is a nice place, too bad we only stayed for a night. If I were to return to Hakodate, definitely will spend more than one night +_+.
Anyway back to Uni Murakami.
When we returned, we were like number 4 or 5 in the queue, made it for the first seating, lucky!
English menu was available, service was great, food was super too! I created a dedicated post for Uni Murakami here
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| Heart! |
Passed by Hakodate Factory while walking to the red brick warehouse.
While walking through the factory, I spotted a dustbin with a merlion. I had to take a picture
After some walking, we reached the Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse. The area was pretty nice, with a nice view of the bay
I asked YK to give a nice pose in below picture, think she did it a few times lol, but sadly I didn't realise she was kind of camouflaged (she's on the left of the blue banner hehe) I was abit 'paisay' to inform her lol!
I didn't take a nice pic of the red brick warehouse but managed to catch them in above picture (red buildings on the left). From what I remembered, there wasn't much to see or do at the red brick warehouse. We kind of entered and then exited. Lol.
I was alot more fascinated by a giant local produce shop targeted at tourists ><.
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| Love the metal cups! |
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| Cheese |
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| Yoghurt/Pudding |
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| Uni! |
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| More Uni |
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| Seafood flavour and hmm veggie flavour? |
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| Regretting not buying this soup curry flavoured one.. |
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| Shoyuuu |
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| Shio, miso, shoyu varieties! |
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| Very unramen-like packaging |
I also had a moment with these candies because I really loved the packaging. Printed pieces of fabric sewn together into a bag to hold the candy. So prettyy! Again, I decided to just remember them with pictures because I don't really eat candy.
Finally.. The biggest struggle: Beer. But, again the photos won.
The only thing we got was this stuffed squid that looked real interesting. Lol.
They were yummy in a very full out strong squid-y way.
#onlyinjapan
Lololol, YK's expression super funnnnnyyy
Hakodate is famous for its Shio Ramen, and we could not leave Hakodate without eating one. We did some quick Google research and decided on Ajisai, which is walking distance from the warehouse we were at.
It was undoubtedly Shio Ramen. Very light yet flavourful. Would be more satisfying if I wasn't so darn full!
We had a train to catch, so sped off to collect our luggage. On the way, I spotted this interesting car plate number lol.
And some lessons on the walls
We got to Tokyo after 4+hrs at 8.30pm and made our way to our airbnb at Ikebukuro. We decided on Ikebukuro because the average price of the accommodations was slightly lower compared to other popular parts of Tokyo. I was also very keen to try the ramen at Mutekiya (short walk from Ikebukuro Station) since I didn't get to try it on my last trip to Tokyo.
I was pleased with the airbnb room. The outside of the apartment looked a little suspicious, as did some of the neighboring residents/businesses but the room was clean and neat and the location was relatively accessible from the station.
After settling in, we moved onwards to Mutekiya! It was pretty chilly and the queue was longer than expected. In case you were wondering, we were behind the man in orange goodie, and the start of the queue was beyond the woman in white (middle of the photo)
If you had been queuing conscientiously for close to an 1hr before reaching the side of the ramen shop like us, you would feel grateful that Mutekiya takes queuing etiquette seriously.
Finally got in after 1hr 15min!
My super yummy ramen
YK's crazy yummy dry ramen
Mutekiya's ramen is So. GOOD.
YK and I couldn't stop saying how our 75min queue was so worth it lol. It was already 12am by the time we finished, so we went straight to the apt and concussed big time. End of Day 5!!
