This year, “Golden Week” lands within the peirod of April 27th to May 6th, with a three-day weekend from April 27th to 29th, and a four day weekend from May 3rd to May 6th. This year, intead of using three days of nenkyuu to make it a continuous vacation, I decided to take two mini trips with the two short weekends, one to Hakodate, and one to Sendai. Here’s the Hakodate leg of my Golden Week this year! Yes, I did go to these two exact places last year with my family, but it was more like two non-full days, and I wanted to go back and spend more time exploring the places.
April 27th: My boyfriend and I left home in the morning on our usual bus, and though our flight wouldn’t be until later in the evening, I figured it’d be better to arrive earlier and make the most out of being in Sapporo. First order of business was to get the new limited menu at Yamaokaya. Now, Yamaokaya seems to be a pretty big and beloved ramen chain around, and I haven’t been yet, and kind of dismissed it as just another ramen shop. However, the last time I went to Sapporo, I passed by one, which had a poster outside of their new limited menu featuring scallops. I knew I wanted to try it before they got rid of the menu who-knows-when, and so we had ramen for brunch. Another branch of Yamaokaya is open 24 hours, but I believe this one was open from 8. I got the tsukemen, while my boyfriend got the normal ramen version, and we also got the gyoza. They let you customize the richness, noodle chewiness, and greasiness, and I got it less oily. Each bowl also comes with a “service ticket”, and if you collect enough, you can redeem them for a plate of gyoza, ramen, or even a shirt.
I really liked their ramen, or at least, their tsukemen! The noodles were unique, very smooth, butalso kind of thick and really chewy, and the broth was indeed salty but flavored the noodles well. The broth came with a scallop piece and three cubes of chashu, and a ton of green onion (green onion seems to be one of their selling points). The scallop was good and meaty, but the chashu cubes were dissapointing. I expected them to be meaty like the picture advertisement, but instead, the majority of them were just pure fat and almost no actual meat. The actual chashu that came with the normal one would have been better. The bamboo came cold along with the noodles, and the dish actually came with a hot pot of broth. I had heard of tsukemen places pouring hot broth into the dipping broth to water it down to a drinkable soup, but this is the first time I’ve experienced a pot of broth. I had a bit just to taste, and it was white and somewhat creamy, had a super light pork broth flavor to it. I guess that’s what pure tonkotsu tastes like, and added it to my bowl at the end for a few spoons of soup. Mixed together it was ok, the salty broth kind of overpowered the whole thing.
We spent the next bit of time browsing any new releases in the anime stores and arcades close by, and grabbed boba since we were in the area. It worked out, because Shin An Ju also sent me a coupon to use on the weekend. Read about my boba here!
We walked past Odori Park because I heard that the sakura were in bloom under the TV Tower, and there were a frew trees blooming with the Soumei Yoshino type. They were a lot whiter than the stereotypical pink sakura, but nevertheless, it was still super pretty, and a ton of people were taking pictures.
We did a bit more time killing, such as doing a bit of shopping in GU, stopping by an ATM, and getting my boyfriend a drink from Nana’s Green Tea. I didn’t get anything, but he just wanted something to drink. Then, we hopped on the train to the airport around 3!
Because we still had quite a bit of time and it wasn’t exactly the time for a full meal, I decided to head upstairs to the Baskin Robbins and grab some ice cream. Unfortunately, I missed the promotion for the matcha brownie flavor, but I did have a coupon that was expiring soon that I wanted to use, and it turns out that the Baskin Robbins at the airport was doing a collab with Miku Sky Town (if you buy a double scoop, you get a free cup holder with stickers). I chose a scoop of White Peach Blancmange, a limited flavor, and my boyfriend chose a scoop Bananas’n Strawberry.
The peach has white peach juice infused sherbet with peach ribbons, and amaretto flavored milk flavor mixed in (with no actual alcohol). I was very yummy, definitely with a sorbet-like smooth texture, with the occasional peach bit mixed in. The banana strawberry mixes sweet banana and sweet and sour strawberry. A kind of basic combination, yet the ice cream was creamy, with rich banana and strawberry flavor. I also sampled the new flavor in collaboration with Detective Conan, and though it was advertised as a blueberry yogurt, it was quite an interesting ice cream, being sweet, yet a bit tart, with a bit of fruity yogurt.
As I was browsing the selection and taking a walk after we passed security. I found this White Tailed-Tit (the Hokkaido bird you see everywhere) packaged guarana drink, one being white, and one being sakura pink to commemorate the season (I think only the color is different). I picked one up to share, and also the packaging kind of got me…Guarana drinks seem to be a big thing advertised in Hokkaido (as a Hokkaido limited drink), and weirdly enough, this was going to be my first one.
It was very interessting! I’m not sure if all guarana tastes like this, but it was kind of a sweet soda with a flavor I couldn’t really put my finger on. It had like a vague berry taste to it?
And then it was time for our slightly delayed 5:45 flight! I guess since the flight is only 30 minutes, there isn’t really a point in hauling a giant full plane, so instead, we got a baby plane. The flight was so short, that they don’t have time for drink service, and instead, just handed out candy. On the way to our plane. I saw a Vulpix plane (The Hokkaido pokemon), and during our flight, as we were landing, we caught a really good view of Goryokaku park with sakura from above.
After a smooth and fast flight and picking up my check-in, we headed out from the airport around 7, and it took about 30 minutes by bus to get to central Hakodate. Originally, I wanted to go to Lucky Pierrot that night to eat (to show to my boyfriend, I had been before), but there was an insane line at the station location, and we didn’t really want to wait. Turns out, throughout the weekend, even with all of the locations around Hakodate, all of them would be a packing a line.
Instead, we headed over to Daimon Yokocho, a small alley with a collection of izakayas specializing in various cuisines. One that was empty and looked good was this pork yakitori place, and we headed in. I think everything was pretty worth it, especially how most of the items were a flat 500, and there was no table charge!
Something about this place really made me appreciate small yakitori and hole-in-the-wall businesses. Although you could get most of the yakitori items at any yakitori place, the quality was top tier, and all the meat was fragrant and juicy. I also ordered the buttered scallop, because I’m a scallop girlie, and it came with escargot. This was my first time trying it, and I have to say, it just tastes like any chewy seafood, and pretty yummy. The service was pretty slow, but that’s because it was just one guy making food for 6 people in a small kitchen. We didn’t mind, but maybe something to consider.
We had passed by a bar earlier, and my boyfriend wanted to get drinks after dinner. He got a couple of drinks, and I got the Shimaenaga Parfait. Beause he followed them on Insta, we got 10% off our bill!
The parfait was super cute, and itself mostly consisted of vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and coffee jelly. Yummy overall.
April 28th: This was our only full day in Hakodate, and I was going to make the most of it! Going to all the major sightseeing places, exploring the main attractions, and of course, eating my way around!
Last year I went to the Hakodate morning market next to the station, but since then, I learned of another seafood morning market a bit away called the Jiyuu Ichiba (Free Market), which apparently it more of the actual local spot, and prices are a decent bit cheaper over there. I had planned to go there, but when I looked up the website, I found out that they’re closed on Sundays. A bit unfortunate, but at least I found out before we actually made our way over. Instead, we went to the morning market, and after loitering around and window shopping for a bit trying to avoid all of the long lines for all the shops, we settled on Sazae Shokudo around the corner, because our hotel gave us a coupon to use there. Our coupon for this place gave us the option of adding an extra topping to any kaisen don, or upgrading our miso soup to a scallop soup. We opted for the extra topping, and I got a bowl with salmon and crab with extra salmon, and my boyfriend got uni and crab with extra scallop. I also ordered an ikameshi, which is a pretty famous dish around Southern Hokkaido I’ve been meaning to try.
Everthing was very good and fresh, and first the ikameshi came out. Ikameshi is basically a seasonsed sticky rice-filled squid, and the rice was super savory and chewy, and the squid was perfectly tender! I also really liked my bowl with fresh seafood on top of not too hot, but warm white rice.
Although it had just turned 9 and we just finished eating, I couldn’t help but already be thinking about lunch. My plan was to get shio ramen lunch at Jiyouken, which is supposed to open at 11:30. Now, the thing about Hakodate is you gotta eat shio ramen, and the thing about Jiyouken, is that it’s the place that founded Hakodate shio ramen (at least, according to an NHK ramen video I watched a bit ago). Jiyouken is only open from 11:30-2, or until their soup runs out. Many reviews said people line up as early as an hour early, and the line really starts picking up arond 30 minutes before. As we made our way back to the hotel to chill before said lunch, I headed over across the street to see if anyone is actually insane enough to start lining up two hours early. The good news, is that there was no one, and Japan, the land of lines for food, is not that insane.
Around 10:30, an hour before they’re scheduled to open, I went back to scope out the situation. Lo and behold, there was indeed, quite a line around the first corner already. I did the sane thing to do, and joined the line. The line just kept growing.
A little past 11, a guy, who I assume is the owner, comes out, puts on the shop’s flag, and occasionally counts the number of people in line and goes back in. Although it hadn’t hit 11:30 yet, he lets a few people in.
Just before 11:30, he comes back out, counts people again, and announces that due to no more soup, the last person currently in line is the last person for the day, and they’ll probably wait an additional 2 hours. He takes down the shop flag, flips the OPEN sign to CLOSE, and pastes a notice on the door that says the soup is out for the day. That was insane. The shop closed before they even opened.
I think we eventually got in around 12, and once you enter, you can see why they take a while. The inside is very homey, almost as if you’ve stepped into their home kichen, and you wait a bit on the side before actually getting seated. There’s only 15 seats, and not even all of them are occupied as some are tables of 4 that are trying to accomodate parties of 3. The only people working and making food are two people, the man from before, and a lady who I assume is his wife. Since we were there, my boyfriend and I both got a shio chashu wonton ramen, and a gyoza and fried rice to share.
My god, this has to be the best shio ramen I’ve ever had. Usually at a restaurant in the States, I go for a tonkotsu, a shoyu, maybe a seafood if they have it, and shio is usually my last choice. If places offered this kind of shio, I’d get it more often. The soup was clear and light, yet had a strong soupy broth to it, and true to its name, is salty, yet not overwhelmingly salty (despite watching the lady prepare the ramen and scooping actual heaps of white powder, what I presume to be salt, into the bowls). There was barely any green onion (to my happiness!), and the wontons were tiny, with just a bit of meat inside. Very cute. The chashu was very lean and meaty, which also meant it was a bit tough and hard to chew at times, but it was almost refreshing to not have super fatty chashu. The noodles were by far the best part for me unexpectedly, as they were super smooth, almost slippery in my mouth, and felt round, despite being straight like normal noodles. The fried rice was very good, great balance of flavor, and had a ton of chashu bits. The gyoza were cute, a little skinny, but filled with fresh greens.
Oh yea, a bit after we ordered, the guy announces they were out of wontons for the day.
After full and satisfied from lunch, we went to Goryokaku Park to check out the sakura! When it comes to Hakodate and sakura, nothing can beat Goryokaku park. There was an insane line to go up, and neither of us wanted to do that, and we already got a great view on the plane! Instead, we walked around the park, took a ton of pictures, and looked at all of the pretty sakura trees. What was really interesting was that a bunch of people were picnc-ing, and a ton of them were doing genghiskhan barbeque (very Hokkaido). Hakodate is actualluy doing two campaigns at the moment; on top of it being golden week, there are Sakura Miku spots in various places around the city, and Detective Conan displays to commemorate the new movie taking place in Hakodate.
After we were done, we made a brief detour to Cafe Rob near Goryokaku Park before our next stop to get some boba! No vacation to a new(ish) place is complete without exploring the boba scene. Read about my boba here!
Next, we rode the city cablecar to the Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse. Historically, it used to be a proper storage space, but since, it’s been converted into a museum and a shopping area. We did do some shopping…
around the corner is actually another famous Hakodate sweets spot, Hakodate Koi Ichigo. They specialize in strawberry goods, with their famous ones being their strawberry pudding. We decided to eat in so we wouldn’t have to worry about carrying the puddings without refrigeration the rest of the day. To eat in, you have to order a drink for a drink set, so we both opted for the strawberry soda. My boyfriend got their number 1 Strawberry Pudding, and I got the number 3 Luxurious Strawberry Pudding.
I went with the luxurious one because it had more strawberry, but I might have liked the normal one more. The luxurious one, apart from the strawberry jam on top, had a milky strawberry pudding. The normal one, was well, a normal pudding, rich and quite eggy in flavor, which provided a contrast to the strawberry jam on top.
We made our way to Hachimanzaka, one of the slopes in the nearby area. There’s actually quite a few slopes, but Hachimanzaka is probably by far the most famous, as evidenced by the hoard of people taking pictures when we got there.
In the area were a couple shops I wanted to check out, the Kikuizumi Cafe and The World’s Second Best Melon Pan Ice Cream. I had been to Kikuizumi before, but I wanted to come back to bring my boyfriend to see the nerdy room they had. We had been eating all day, so we weren’t super interested in eating in another cafe anymore, and just moved on. Also, apparently, they went through a renewal recently, so they overhauled their whole menu, but for any fans of Love Live, all of the merchandise and the entire old menu shifted to the cafe next door. We went to go check out the melon pan place down the street, but they had already closed by then. Perhaps they were open earlier (we were there around 5pm).
Our next stop was to walk on over to Hakodate Park to see more sakura, but really, to go see the Hakodate Pokemon Manhole. There’s a theme park for kids nearby (Kodomo no Kuni Park), and it happened that there were street food stalls set up, and we bought some long fries with garlic salt.
Our last item of actual business was to go to Hakodate Mountain and see the night view from up top. Hiking up was no on our radar, so instead, we bought a round-trip ropeway ticket for 1800 yen (one way is 1200 if you want to hike or take the bus up instead). The Detective Conan collab strikes again, as for a limited time, on the ride up and down, you get a special edition voice message from Conan on the gondola ride. I think we got there at the perfect time, early enough to still see the daytime view, but not super early, and with just a bit of wait we could see the night view too once the sun set at 7. There’s a souvenir shop, a restaurant, and a cafe if you need to kill time. Definitely hoards of people, but I do think the view is pretty worth it.
It was about 8pm by the time we returned back to the city center, and with no real dinner plans, we headed back to Daimon Yokocho to see if there was an open izakaya we could eat at. We chose Wabisuke, a tiny yakitori izakaya. It’s a cute establishment with 8 seats, and a tiny menu. Beware they have a 600 yen seat charge, and you can order their courses or a la carte. The food was good, andi found the fried tofu one to be the most unique.
My boyfriend wanted to hit up a bar, and we had walked by a promising one earlier, so we headed over to Hatsumi. For the record, their table charge is 600. He got a whiskey, and I don’t drink, so I got a hot green tea. I was stil a bit hungry, so we ordered the sausage plate to share.
After stopping by a Family Mart for some late night snacks, we headed back to the hotel.
April 29th:
Our last day in Hakodate mainly consisted of getting breakfast. My last Hakodate food to get was a yakitori bento from Hasegawa store, a local convenience store chain in the city that’s known for well, their yakitori bentos. Luckily, the one near the station opens at 8, and fits perfectly into the schedule. They sell already made packs of yakitori, but we opted for a freshly made-to-order one, which takes about 20 minutes. I got a mini one with tareshio sauce, and my boyfried got the large with tare. While we were waiting, I went to grab a kaniman for my boyfriend from the morning market.
The mini bento comes with 150g of rice, two pork skewers, and 1 veggie skewer, and the large one 350g of rice and 4 pork skewers (for 800 yen). I liked how everythng was super warm and fresh, though the pork was a bit chewy. I thought shiotare would be both salted and sauced, but unless I got the wrong sauce, it was a bit of a thick, salty and slightly spicy sauce. If I knew I was getting this, I would have just gotten a tare…
We headed to the station to see if we wanted any last minute souvenirs, and also to check out the Sakura Miku Photo Spot as part of the ongoing collaboration.
After finishing our bentos in the hotel and packing up, we headed over to Hakodate Airport. We didn’t do too much there, but it’s a really cute, tiny airport with a souvenir shop, and a couple restaurant and cafes. Our flight was at 12:10, with the same baby plane, but this time, with Demon Slayer patches on the outisde and inside of the plane.
After a quick flight, we were in Sapporo around 1:30, and wanted to grab lunch before heading back home. I had been meaning to try this butadon and udon place, and it was close by and seemed easy, so we headed over to Azuma. I got their butadon and udon set, and my boyfriend got the curry udon.
Everything was yummy! The udon was super chewy, though the broth was indeed pretty salty, so definitely only should use it for seasoning the udon. In comparison, the pork looked super appetizing, but in contrast to the dark color, the flavor was just a bit savory, light, covering the chewy thick pieces of pork.
My boyfriend grabbed some McDonald’s, and of course, the last item of the day was to get boba at Gong Cha! Read about my boba here!
And then we got on the bus at 3 to go home!
This trip, we stayed in a small double room at Unizo Express Inn Hakodate. It’s pretty conveniently located near the station and central area, was no fuss, and had all the basics. Pretty standard Japanese room, and clean.
Japan Excursions 
Leave a comment