Hakodate Morning Market

It started as a black market in 1945, farmers selling produce off the ground near the station, and it never moved. Today it covers about 30,000 square metres one minute from JR Hakodate Station, with roughly 250 shops selling crab, sea urchin, salmon roe, scallops, dried kelp, melons and everything else Hokkaido sends south.

The set piece is the squid tank in the Ekini market, where you fish out your own squid with a rod and the staff clean and slice it in front of you. It is served still moving, which unsettles some people. Note that squid catches around Hakodate have collapsed over the past decade as the water warmed, so the price is now several times what it was and the fish is not always local. The city's signature dish has become its scarcest.

Donburi Yokocho, an alley of tiny counters, is where most people eat: rice bowls loaded with uni, ikura and crab, made to order. Around 2,000 to 4,000 yen depending on what goes on top. Quality is good and prices are tourist prices; locals buy at the shops and eat at home.

Trading starts at five in the morning, six in winter, and the whole place is winding down by early afternoon. Come before eight if you want it working rather than performing. Bring cash for the stalls. And if a vendor offers to ship a box of crab to your hotel, that is normal practice here and generally reliable.