Exploring Hakodate on a Rainy Day –Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse

28 May 2026

Rain was forecasted in Hakodate so we planned to have a relaxing day exploring the waterfront area of Hakodate and take cover in the Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse once the rain starts.

Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse at the waterfront.

The iconic Meiji-era, red-brick warehouses is a reminder that Hakodate was one of Japan's first key foreign trade hubs. These buildings now house a shopping and dining complex and are perfect for exploration on a day with expected wet weather.

The weather in the morning was good. From our hotel (JR Inn Hakodate), we walked over to have breakfast at the Hakodate Morning Market. From there, we continued our walk towards the waterfront via Kaiko Street.

We made a stop at the Satudora Hakodate Kanemori-Soko Store to shop for local cosmetics and pharmaceutical products. From there, we went to explore the harbourfront area where the Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse is located.

Hakodate Meijikan

The first building we went into was the Hakodate Meijikan. This building was originally built in 1911 as the Hakodate Post Office. The building has since being repurposed as a vibrant commercial space.

A signboard explained the history of the Hakodate Meijikan.  

The red-brick exterior of Hakodate Meijikan is covered with attractive green ivy plants.

Inside the building, there are delicate glassware and many cute and charming teddy bears and stuff toys. It is nice to browse and snap photos of the cute stuff on display. Many are Studio Ghibli and Totoro merchandise.

Stuff capybaras and cute stuff.

Themed corners dedicated to popular characters like Totoro.

The famous Catbus from the Totoro anima.

A corner with a cute Doraemon character for photos.

Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse complex

Next to the Meijikan is the actual Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse complex consisting of four facilities. Founded in 1887 and rebuilt in 1909, the original brick architecture of the warehouses was well preserved.

The area around the warehouses is a beautiful place to stroll around. We could see a bit of Mount Hakodate in the background but it was shrouded in low clouds.

It was interesting to read about the history of the place and how the symbol for a carpenter’s square (that looks like a numeric 7) was used as their logo and how the name “Kanemori” came about.

Kanemori Warehouse’s logo with the carpenter square over a bold white "forest" kanji symbol (森, mori).

There were also examples showing the difference in the brickworks used by the British and French builders. The Kanemori Warehouses were built using the British method.

British method of brick laying that features entire horizontal rows alternating between all-stretchers (long side) and all-headers (short end) facing out.

The French method repeats a sequence within the same row, laying one stretcher (long side) followed sequentially by two headers (short sides) across the wall face. More beautiful but less strong.

Bay Hakodate – one of the 4 warehouses in the complex.

The brick warehouse complex features about 50 shops that are spread out over 4 zones, namely

• BAY Hakodate
• Kanemori Yobutsukan
• Hakodate History Plaza
• Kanemori Hall

The Kanemori Youbutsukan (“Western Item Hall”) features shops that offer a wide variety of products. The Bay Hakodate zone features cafes and a chapel. The Hakodate History Plaza includes a beer hall and souvenir shops. Finally, the Kanemori Hall serves as a venue for various events, including concerts.      

Most of the shops featured local brands, souvenirs and handicrafts. One of the highlights was to shop for local snacks and sweets.

 

Local footwear brand with interesting floral design.

One of the snacks we bought was this. Trappist cookies are famous butter biscuits baked by monks at the Trappist Monastery in Hokuto City, near Hakodate, Hokkaido. Rich and creamy with a distinct, fresh butter flavor.

Pastry Snaffle's is a famous confectionery brand from Hakodate, Hokkaido, best known for its signature "Cheese Omelette"—an airy, melt-in-your-mouth soufflé-style cheesecake.

It actually started raining as we finished exploring Bay Hakodate. There was no covered walkway linking the warehouses but the rain in Japan was not heavy.  

Cool T-shirt that we bought as a gift for someone back home.

Light lunch before returning to our hotel.

My wife and I are not the shopaholic-types so we decided to return to our hotel by 3 PM. We actually walked back to our hotel in the light rain, protected by our rain jackets.

We went to check out the Hakodate JR Station and Hakoviva Shopping Centre that is located next to our hotel. There are some restaurants and souvenir shops but the place does not appeal to us. Most of the restaurants were still closed and only opened later for dinner.

Back at the JR Inn Hakodate, we went to the top-floor lounge located on the 12th floor to chill and relax. We could see Mount Hakodate and was glad that we went to see the famous night view on our first day. No one is going to get any views on the mountain on this cloudy and rainy day.

View from the lounge at JR Inn Hakodate.

Made a cup of hot tea but spilled it on the floor before she could drink it!  

 

Hakodate Shio Ramen Shinano

It was still raining when we decided to head out to grab some dinner. There is a popular ramen restaurant near our hotel that is renowned for its traditional Hakodate-style shio (salt) ramen. The store opens at 5 PM and it made sense to go early to avoid the queues.

We made good use of the covered walkways in the bus station, next to the JR Station, to shelter us from the rain for most of the way to the restaurant. Thankfully, there was no queue and we managed to get seated immediately.

A friendly staff came to take our orders which was a nice change from having to order from a ticket machine.

The place itself is quite small, but still very comfortable.   

Menu on the wall. The food items are reasonably priced. 

Signature Shio Ramen with clear and tasty broth for 1,000 JPY.

Gyozas for 600 JPY.

Like most small Japanese restaurants, service was fast and efficient.

Slurping on a hot bowl of Shio Ramen noodles is a good way to end a day of exploring Hakodate on a wet day. The ramen was incredibly delicious. No wonder there was a line queuing outside when we left the restaurant!

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Our breakfast at the Hakodate Morning Market

28 and 29 May 2029

On both mornings of our stay in Hakodate, we had fresh seafood breakfast in the Hakodate Morning Market. The Hakodate Morning Market is held daily from 5 AM to 2 PM and is an excellent place to enjoy various types of fresh seafood, such as live crabs (kani), salmon eggs (ikura) and sea urchin (uni), as well as fresh produce such as the famous Hokkaido melons.

It was easy for us to get to the market since it is located right in front of our hotel, the JR Inn Hakodate.

View of our hotel, JR Inn Hakodate, from a street in the market area.

The market area spans about four city blocks. On the first day of our visit, we had plenty of time to spare. So we wandered, explored and check out some of the produce on sale before getting our breakfast.

Manhole cover with squid motifs.

Hakodate is known as the "Squid Capital of Japan" and there are plenty of squid pictures and motifs everywhere.

We saw one stall offering visitors a squid fishing experience where you could try to hook some live squid swimming in a large tank. I found this very gimmicky, so we just stood and observed others. Once caught, the poor squid was quickly sliced into katsu-ika (live squid sashimi) served with ginger soy sauce.

We loved dried cuttlefish or squid, not squid sashimi. We figured that Hakodate would be a good place to buy some to bring home. The ladies manning the dried seafood stalls were very friendly and enthused. They keep stuffing our hands with samples to try. Even before we finished chewing and savouring the first sample, they offered us another. No obligation to buy, just taste and see if you like. We were told the products were freshly made and could be kept for about 2 weeks.

We bought a large selection of dried cuttlefish and scallops from this stall.

We tried almost all of their product offerings.

Their effort paid off as we bought bags of dried scallops and dried squid of various types. Total damage was 6480 JPY! I must say, the products were very tasty and irresistible.

Marinated squid being grilled at the stall.

Some stalls were selling frozen, pre-packed seafood. These were targeted at locals or local tourists.

Incredible giant king crabs from one of the stalls. The crab claws alone cost 17,000 JPY!

After exploring almost the entire market, it was time for our breakfast. I was looking forward to eating Hokkaido’s live King Crab again.

Hokkaido boasts 4 types of crabs; the Horsehair crab, Snow crab, Hanasaki crab and the King crab. The King crab is the most expensive and is the undisputed king of seafood so it was worth to splurge a little to enjoy this delicacy while in Hokkaido. 

There are many stalls offering live crabs and other live seafood in the market.

Live snow crabs in tanks. 

Frozen hairy crabs and live squids.

There are many stalls offering live crabs and other live seafood, so it pays to shop around and compare prices.

The live crabs were sold based on their weight and the king crab can grow up to a few kilograms in size. We wanted a smaller crab since it was just the two of us and the smaller crabs were also cheaper in terms of price per kg.

The first store that we enquired quoted 17,000 JPY per kg for a small live King Crab. The seller then dropped the price to 13,000 JPY per kg when we walked away. Trying to retain us, he brought us to another shop to show us a half dead (or dead crab) with missing legs for 8000 JPY per kg.

We did not get good feelings from this seller so we decided to go to another store.

We bought our breakfast from this store.

We found a nice lady who quoted us 10000 JPY per kg for small live King crab. She chose a small King crab that weighed 1.68 kg for us. She then gave us slight discount offering us the crab for 16,000 JPY which we accepted.

 

This 1.68 kg crab was dancing on the weighing scale.

We also check the price of a horsehair crab but we did not go for this.

This 1.68 kg crab is consider small but was just right-sized for us.

The price includes free cooking. She offered to cook the crab in two ways (half of the crab to be grilled and the other half boiled). We told her we prefer to have the entire crab boiled. From previous experience in Otaru, we prefer the texture of the boiled crab over the grilled crab which was sweeter but a little drier after cooking.

The crab took 30 minutes to prepare. The seller made and served free hot macha green tea while we waited.

The macha green tea was free and refillable.

The cooked crab was expertly cut and presented. It was very easy for us to eat without getting pricked by the thorny shells. 

The best and sweetest parts of the king crab were the long legs.

The chef expertly cut the cooked crabs so it was very easy for us to eat without getting pricked by the thorny shells.

The store also sells donburi and other fresh seafood. We saw that the store’s menu offered fatty bluefin tuna sashimi. Tuna sashimi is a “must try” food while visiting Japan. It would be difficult to find similar quality fresh tuna sashimi back home, even at a much higher price than we are paying in Japan.

We ordered the chutoro which is the medium fatty tuna. It was good but not great. Not as good as the chutoro we had in the Maguro Koya restaurant in Nara, where we had our first taste.

Chutoro or medium fatty tuna. 5 pieces for 1452 JPY.

After our fishy breakfast, we returned to the market square to buy some Hokkaido melons for dessert. Hokkaido melons are Japan's most prized fruit, celebrated for their intense floral aroma and melt-in-the-mouth, juicy texture. The most sought after is the Yubari melon, painstaking grown in greenhouses by farmers in the town of Yubari.

The famous Yubari melons cost 700 JPY per slice while the “normal” Hokkaido melon cost 500 JPY. We tried both.
Yubari melon at 700 JPY per slice.

The Yubari melon is slightly sweeter and tastier although both were juicy and sweet.

Our second visit to the Hakodate Morning Market was on the day that we drive to Lake Toya. Unlike the first day, we wanted a quick and fast breakfast before checking out from our hotel.

There are several stores selling seafood sashimi rice bowls in the food court area of the market. There are tables and chairs in a very clean environment and we saw many locals eating at this place.

We ordered the sashimi rice bowls from the Araki store. We could choose any mixture of seafood sashimi as toppings to our rice bowl. For us the best toppings were the ones that are hard to get back home. i.e. sea-urchin (uni), salmon eggs (ikura) and crab.

This stall also offered grilled squid!

We went to patronise the Araki store.

Two seafood rice bowls – one with ikura and uni (2850 JPY) and one with 3 toppings that include ikura, uni and crab meat (3850 JPY).

Grilled squid for 880 JPY.

Overall, this stall offered value-for-money fresh seafood rice bowls.

We had Yubari melon again for dessert before leaving the market.

Yubari melon for dessert.

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