Tiny things in Japan – Learning a very local life of Japanese

There are several morning markets in Japan. I’ll introduce the Yobuko morning market (呼子朝市) in Saga prefecture Karatsu city (佐賀県唐津市) which many tourists visit as well as local people.

What is Yobuko Asaichi?

Yobuko Morning Market is famous as one of Japan’s three major morning markets along with Wajima morning market (輪島朝市) of Ishikawa prefecture and Katsuura morning market (勝浦朝市) of Chiba prefecture. *Asaichi is literally morning market in Japanese.

In the early period of Taisho era (1910s), it is said to be an opening that a small market was held when people caught fish. Since large ships came to arrive at Yobuko port, people gathered gradually and then it formed an early stage of a morning market.

About 50 stores line up on the ‘Asaichi-dori’ street everyday (more stores on the weekends). Fresh seafood, vegetables and fruits, flowers, are sold with cheerful shout of shopkeepers.

Arriving to Yobuko Morning Market Street by car.

Arrived at the Yobuko-Asaichi in the early morning. The morning market starts from 7:30, but we arrived there before the time. It is also possible to use public transportation, but if you are planning to look around this area or to go to restaurants nearby, it’s convenient to go by self-driving.

This is a map around the Yobuko morning market. Yobuko Morning Market takes place in the Asaichi-dori. There is a large pay parking lot of one hour 100 yen to the west of the morning market street. Free parking lot (below photo, second floor) is also available on the north side but has to pass through the narrow road.

Only a few customers were there around 7:30 in the morning, but some shops had already opened.

Let’s try out the food while walking on the street.

The first we tried was Uni (sea urchin). We can buy them one by one, so we can try out many kinds of fresh seafood while walking on the street. By the way, one Uni is about 200 yen to 300 yen.

When I asked the auntie of shopkeeper for Uni, she grabbed and cut it and put the Uni to my hands. Well, I know there will be two types of reaction for these photos, “Yummy!” or “Yuck!”. Even though the appearance of Uni is also bad for Japanese, we love to eat Uni because already know the taste of it.

Tried Awabi (abalone) at another shop. She made Sashimi on Awabi’s shell (The yellow one is Uni). It was very delicious with crunchy texture. The price is dependent on the size and mine was 800 yen.

Grilled oysters and turban shells. They were smelled sooo good. Some shops had tables and seats for eating like this shop in the photos below. I ordered half dish of both and it cost me total 1000 yen.

Lastly, I bought some dried horse mackerel (鯵の干物) and dried squid(イカの一夜干し) as a souvenir.  5 of squid was 1000 yen and 5 of Horse mackerel was just 500 yen. Because some shops would discount, you might be better to try to negotiate the price with them.

Oh? What’s that? Something’s turning round and round.

It was a machine that makes the dried squid. It is interesting. 

Round and round…You might find interesting things like this if you walk around the morning market. 

Yobuko morning market information
Opening hours: 7:30 – 12:00
Address: Yobukocho Yobuko, Karatsu city, Saga Prefecture
Access:
By Car: Nagasaki Highway Taku IC(多久IC) 45 km for 1 hour → via National highway No.203, 204 about 45 km 1 hour.
By Train & Bus: JR Karatsu station north exit (JR唐津駅・北口)→walk north 5 min to Karatsu Oteguchi bus center(唐津大手口バスセンター) → take Showa bus bound for Yobuko(昭和バス-呼子方面行) about 30 min → get off at Yobuko bus stop. (Or take a Showa bus at Nishi Karatsu station(西唐津駅).)
By Taxi: From Karatsu staion to Yobuko ¥4,960(about 30 min), from Nishi Karatsu station to Yobuko ¥4,150(about 25 min). *Taxi fare is the approximate amount of fare by Navi site.