This was our view in the morning from Spa Alpina hotel.

Morning stroll down the street…

It’s freezing though, look.

We headed towards the Miyagawa morning market~

It’s a leisurely walk of about 10 mins.

It’s a tiny market, so you’ll probably only need 30 mins or so to finish browsing the short stretch of pop-up vendors.

But what it lacked in size, was made up for with it’s interesting range. And if you factor in the permanent stores, one or two hours will be a comfortable enough time for the place.

Many food items I don’t even know the names of… And of course, souvenirs.

I’ve never seen these brands of rice but we didn’t buy any cos it’s kind of cumbersome to carry them around since we’re in the middle of our trip.

I’m always tempted to buy the strawberries cos look at how juicy they are!

Miso and magnolia leaves. I REALLY regretted not getting the magnolia leaves… I’ll explain it’s use later~

Such a peaceful morning…

Click on the vid below to view the surroundings~

I love, love this shop, cos it’s so quaint looking? And guess what? It’s actually a coffee shop. You can get a hot cup of coffee, and sit down on the bench huddled near the heater (that’s the white cylinder in the middle) to beat the cold in winter.

And guess what is this?

We thought it’s only tamago (egg), but the inside is actually marshmallow!

It’s interesting looking, quite a novel dessert. And relatively cheap too at 100 yen.

K went further down to take pictures, whilst I turned the bend to check out the other stores…

I was fascinated with this miso rice cake snack. So I ordered one (250 yen) and it’s grilled right before my eyes~

Lathered with a generous amount of miso sauce, it’s now piping hot and ready to eat!

I didn’t know miso can taste like that. The outer layer is sweet and slightly crisp due to the grilling and when you bite into it, the inside is soft and chewy, like mochi. It’s a simple snack, but delicious and filling for me~

I noticed the shop also sells the local’s famous hida beef. When K finished with his pictures snapping, he joined me and we decided to order the beef as well. The store owner then indicated we could sit down and wait. So we slipped into the shop and it’s like entering another time dimension.

There’s a very thick coffee aroma in the shop, as we realized it’s actually a roastery. The shop retains an old time charm- Not those modern stores with faux retro decor, but furniture and items that really hints of genuine age and wear.

There’s also soft jazz music playing in the background. You can click on the video below to view~

And this is our 420 yen hida beef stick. That is approximately SG$6 for a stick. Yes. We mad. But oei, we are tourists, you do crazy stuff you don’t normally do back home.

Verdict?

It’s chewy, tasted great, but definitely not worth the moolah. But hey, you have to try to know it right? LOL~

Remember I told you about the magnolia leaves? The miso paste here is usually placed on magnolia leaves and together with the meat, grilled over a burner, both to keep the miso from burning and also to impart flavour.

LOL~ “Dragon eggs”. It’s actually a toy~ You submerge it in water and the toy will supposedly emerge from the shell.

There’s this very big store called Uemon Yokocho near the start of the market.

Walk in…

It leads to more shops within. You can find souvenirs here~

We bought a few packs of beef curry. All of them are delicious. But then again, you can’t really go wrong with Japanese curry?

There’s a samurai figurine at the end of the room.

Also a store selling all kinds of nuts with really interesting flavours! We got the yoghurt milk almond and grape macadamia.

More souvenirs…

Really adorable but I’m refraining from getting too many wood items cos they don’t withstand the humidity well back home.

All kinds of chopstick holders you can imagine!

And you can customize a pair of chopsticks too!

Good luck souvenirs~

This is a police station.

And then it’s time for lunch!