We woke up to bright sunshine. It felt extra sweet after a few days of cold gray drizzle. We are already not morning people, but without school and jobs to get to on the trip, we are reaallly not morning people. We had read that to get the most out of the morning market we should get there early, but we didn’t start walking out the door until 9:30.

We walked the quick 20 minutes to the market, stopping to admire the cool manhole covers along the way.

The morning market is a fish market turned tourist attraction. About half of the patrons were locals buying fish, and the other half were tourists like us. There were big “no pictures” signs on most of the stalls, so my words will have to suffice. Imagine giant crab claws, squids, boxes of roe, and flash frozen whole fish. We browsed the aisles for a while.

We stopped to get the two fruits that were being sold everywhere: cantaloupe and persimmons. I feel like I’m missing something when it comes to persimmon. I’ve had them fresh in California, China, and now Japan. They have such a cult following and I find them to be just… okay? Like sweet flesh and not much else.

We stopped at a little stand with a cafe in the back and ordered a traditional kaisendon bowl to share, with crab, scallops, salmon roe, and uni on it. Everyone around us had beers with their breakfast fish bowls so, twist our arm, we got one too.

From here we walked along the water to the red brick warehouses, which are to Hakodate as the siloes are to Waco. Old industrial buildings turned into tourist shops. Nothing to write home about but a good way to kill a couple of hours on a brisk day.

In one there was a very bizarre “teddy bear museum” which had bears that had been painted by artists.

So true.

We made two physically small but spiritually huge purchases. First, we replaced the beloved headband that Millie left on our last flight. Second, we got baby Judy a kimono.

Can dolls get canceled for cultural appropriation?

We were exhausted for no good reason so we walked back to the Airbnb to rest. Millie played for a while and I almost took a nap. At about 4 we started to get hungry and went out to get a beer at the local craft brewery. The beers we had were excellent. It’s amazing how craft beer is just everywhere, and often very good.

Millie has been telling us she is “sick of noodles” for a couple of days now and that she wants pizza. We went to a nearby large restaurant that serves pizza. It seems only fair after dragging her to where we have wanted to eat for the last week. The food was not great but the room was cozy on a cold night.

Tomorrow we will get back to eating all the delicacies Japan has to offer.

On our walk home we saw a major, major attraction. The first concrete electricity pole in Japan.