Seafood, Shinkansens and Shinjuku

One of the nicest things about being back in Tokyo is not needing to tread carefully to avoid slipping on ice. It's more about treading carefully to avoid stepping on other people, but here in Shinjuku the legs are on automatic, so familiar is it to them.

With the arrival of a sunny day and no snow overnight the streets of Hakodate were a little clearer and we made our way safely to the Asaichi, or morning market. This one is primarily for tourists, but tourists we are, wandering past the rows of eviscerated fish, scrabbling crabs and steaming scallops on the grill.

No live squid in evidence. Mustn't be the season.

Three types of crab were on offer. Giant king crabs from Alaska and snow and hairy crabs from Hokkaido. We chose the latter, which had a surprising amount of meat in it, filling all three of us.

There are shops selling grilled seafood and seafood on rice around the market area. We had ice cream and I asked for a rockmelon juice but it had yoghurt inside and required quick swallowing.

Hakodate's Shinkansen connection lies about twenty minutes out of town. It is fortunate that we gave ourselves extra time to reach it because the line suffered a points failure. How Sydney!

Unfortunately we couldn’t get three seats together on the Hayabusa Shinkansen. I found the ups and downs of the four hour ride unpleasant, especially as I was unable to look out of the window.

We hadn't time to pick up lunch and wanted to buy some on board, but the group of Asian tourists ahead of us purchased every last meal item from the trolley.

The train must have restocked later as the trolley lady came along with a box of sandwiches for us.

Changed trains at Omiya on to a local line to Shinjuku and we're treated to evening views of Mount Fuji.

B and Alex wanted sushi for dinner and B discovered Numazuko on TripAdvisor and insisted we go there. The sushi was great but the bill was big. Best to have lunch before eating sushi for dinner.

It feels like home in Shinjuku. Pity it's the last stage before heading home.

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