More Hakodate

We were quite cold and my shoes and socks were wet, so we decided to head to the local onsen to soak in the hot, iron-rich water. This is a lovely park we passed on the way. Going to an onsen was something I never really had an interest in doing (public bathing doesn't really appeal to me) but I think I'm now hooked. I was really relaxing and not as awkward as I had thought it might be. This onsen is known for it's iron-rich waters, and the baths themselves were stained brown. Not very nice to look at, though it was a nice place to get out of the cold.

Though there wasn't much to do in Hakodate, and it was cold and wet, the real reason we went was for the food. They are known there for fresh seafood, particularly squid and crab. One night we stopped in a restaurant with huge fish tanks along the wall, filled with all sorts of sea creatures. We knew we wanted some crab, so Leo just asked for kani for the two of us. They pulled a huge crab out of the tank (we think it was a spider crab), bashed it over the head, made the legs into sashimi and then grilled up the body for us. We also ordered scallops, one was cooked inside the shell on a small grill with butter on top, and the other was made into sushi.

We were also able to get up relatively early one morning to see the seafood market. They mainly sell squid in all forms, salmon roe, and crab. We stopped at a small restaurant inside the market to have donburi for breakfast (fishy things over rice). The bowls may look small, but it was a very filling breakfast and I wasn't able to eat salmon roe for at least a day after this.