The markets and a morning bowl: seafood breakfast, then the centre

The day, in order

1. Early morning

   Set out before eight

   The Curb Market sits beside the city's central wholesale market and runs to around sixty shops. The official guide is blunt about timing: products thin out after the busy hours from 8 to 11, so it suggests going early. Take that literally. Breakfast is the reason to be here, and breakfast at a market is a before-nine activity.

   Read the city guide →
2. Morning

   Breakfast: a bowl, not a menu

   The dish is sashimi-topped rice, and the market's restaurants open earlier than the shops do. Order the bowl with what is in season, add crab only if you intend to spend on it, and eat it where you bought it. This is the one meal of the day worth planning the whole morning around.

3. Late morning

   Nijo Market on the way back Optional

   Nijo Market has been in the centre since the early Meiji period, and it is a different animal: smaller, more central, and close enough to the arcades that you can walk to lunch afterwards. Come for the contrast rather than a second breakfast.

4. Lunch

   Keep the second meal small

   The bowl was the meal. Soup curry or a bowl of miso ramen later is fine, but a second seafood spread is how this day goes wrong. The city has plenty of both, and neither needs a reservation at lunch.

5. Afternoon

   Sapporo Station and the observatory Optional

   Sapporo Station is the gateway to the rest of Hokkaido and the building is directly connected to a run of shops, which makes it a useful wet-weather afternoon. JR Tower Observatory T38 sits on the station itself: go up at dusk and you get the grid you walked in the morning, lit.

Make it lighter

Out early, one market, one bowl, and back in the centre by lunchtime. The second market and the observatory are dropped.

Odori to Susukino → Maruyama and Mt. Moiwa → Read the Sapporo city guide →

If the weather changes

Both markets are indoor halls, so the morning survives rain better than a park does. Swap the afternoon walk for the station complex, which is connected underground.

Check before leaving

Individual stalls keep their own closing days and hours even where the market itself does not close. Check the market calendar and the shop you actually want before an early start.