Tohoku Series: Seafood Capital, Aomori (青森市)
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October 20, 2018 - Tohoku Series: Seafood Capital, Aomori (青森市)
This travel report is a continuing series highlighting the various destinations of the Tohoku Region. In this report I finally made it to Aomori City, in Aomori Prefecture.
In the last report I talked about the Gono Line and the amazing things to see along the way. After the long train ride I made it to the end of the line, Aomori. This is an amazing city to visit and I am going to start off with its famous exports, seafood.
Japan is really blessed with so much seafood but its only here where you can try in huge qualities of hotate (scallops) and ika (squid). Let's go on a tour of a famous seafood market in the city, Furukawa Fish Market, also known as the Aomori Gyosai Center (青森魚菜センター)
This seafood market has the best and most fun way to order your seafood bowl. Upon entering you need to go to the Information Center to purchase a book of tickets (shown below). You don't need to use up all of the tickets on the same day as you can always come back again and use the remaining tickets.
Once you are given a bowl with rice (which cost 1 ticket) you are free to roam around the fish market. There are many vendors here selling little portions of raw seafood. Its like a buffet-style arrangement where you point to what you want and they will give it to you.
The photo below is an example of one stall selling fresh shrimp. As you can see one small metal tin cost one ticket.
After choosing you can sit at one of several dining areas. For free you can grab a wooden chopstick, napkins, hot water, green tea, and small packets of soy sauce and wasabi.
Each seafood bowl is different based on what you like. For me I am a huge hotate and ika fan so I grabbed three scallops (including the crunchy innards) and slices of ika. Others include tako, maguro, and salmon.
Some say the market is super busy but when I visited in late-October at 9:00am it was quiet with plenty of space to roam around. If you get to visit Aomori whether a day or multi-day trip you must come here. Its a 5-7 minute walk from the train station.
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