Hirome market ひろめ市場

Visited 28 Jun 2016
 
Name of Attraction : Hirome market ひろめ市場
Tripadvisor Name : Hirome Ichiba
Address (住所) : 高知市帯屋町二丁目3番1号
Area : Kochi 高知市
TEL : 0888-22-5287 
Website :  www.hirome.co.jp
Opening Hrs : generally from 8 to 11 pm, depending on food/drink stall
Parking (駐車場) : payable

1. This market place lies at one end of the Shopping Street and is opened quite early in the morning till late at night, but I think not all shops are opened at the same time.
2. It was raining when we went out at night and we were looking for a restaurant. We stumbled upon this sheltered Shopping Street behind our hotel Bright Park Hotel and we practically walked the whole length of this street, until we saw this Hirome Market. We were glad for it was one of the attractions we wanted to see in Kochi.
3. There are many foodstalls inside and we took our time to decide. It's all self-service and free-seating in a few open space areas. There's a popular stall selling seared tuna, but we have already tried that elsewhere.
4. We settled for a stall selling Kochi traditional food in a self-service style : we picked what we liked : beef broth, stewed radish, braised brinjal, seared salmon sushi, fried prawns and rice. It was reasonably cheap, and good, especially the beef broth, radish, brinjal and sushi.
5. We visited it again early the next morning, but there are just 1 or 2 stalls opened, selling dried seafood and fruits. We did not buy anything, and went on our way to walk to the Kochi Castle garden nearby.

 

Hirome Market

Kochi traditional cuisine food stall

Our dinner

Beef broth

Stewed "daikon" (radish)

Rice

Fried prawns

Seared salmon sushi

Braised brinjal

 

Shopping Street

Kochi Castle Garden

Visited 29 Jun 2016
 
Name of Attraction : Kochi Castle Garden
Tripadvisor Name : Kochi Castle
Area : Kochi 高知市
Website :  http://kochipark.jp/kochijyo/side-contents/pamphlet
Admission : free

1. We did not visit the castle but took a walk in the castle garden early in the morning before we checked out of our hotel at 10 am,
2. This is a beautiful garden not to be missed and commands a good view of Kochi city.

How to choose Airbnb in Japan ?

Which Airbnb accommodation to choose ?


Indeed, what are our criteria ?
     Based on our experiences :

1. Availability of Free WIFI

This is by far the most important because in Shikoku, we were unable to purchase a local travel SIM data card, say for a week or a month. We gave up finding it at local telephone shops after 3 days in Imabari or Matsuyama.
This criterion has become less important (wef 2017) as our local telephone service provider has a good data roaming plan in Japan, and it works well.

2. Free parking on-site

Yes, parking is expensive in Japan. So this is equally important.

3. Entire Home/appartment

Yes, if you like your privacy. It would also be good if the host is living nearby and not miles away, in case you run into problems.

4. Fully equipped kitchen (preferably with conventional oven)

• Yes, if you like to cook. When you see such fresh seafood, wagyu beef, meat or vegetables in the supermarket or seafood shop, well...you may want to try your hand at cooking it your own way. Japanese cuisine for seafood do not vary much, and the sauce they add especially for grilled seafood is just a bit too sweet sometimes.
• Why the conventional oven ? If you want to grill your seafood and eat it naturally just seasoned with salt, well the oven is helpful, though I guess this item is hard to find in a Japanese home. They probably use a microwave oven.

5. Washer, dryer, rice cooker, electric hot thermos pot if possible.


     Budget of course will play a part in your choice of the Airbnb. Already for both of us, using an Airbnb helps us to save money, sometimes by 40 to 60%, as compared to a standard Japanese hotel with on-site parking. Cost savings will be more if you want to stay in a higher class hotel or one with on-site onsen (hot spring) or open-air onsen. It all depends of course on what you are looking for in an accommodation.

How to navigate to the Airbnb home

Problem of locating Airbnb home

1. The Japanese Airbnb host may be unaware of this problem : non-Japanese who do not speak nor write Japanese trying to find their home with a rental car.
2. Once you have booked your Airbnb home, you will be given the address by Airbnb. Do not use this address. Instead, ask for the address in Japanese from the host. Use it in Google maps : it's accurate.
3. However, the post code given is not sufficient as I've mentioned before that I had a difficult time finding the first Airbnb home, because the GPS brought us to a slightly different area.
4. Then use Google Maps to search for a nearby establishment, like shops, restaurants, supermarkets, with a telephone number.
5. Or ask your host to find you one that’s closest to his home.
6. From Google Maps, establish a walking path from this establishment to his home and print it out.
7. Use Satellite View also to view the location in Google Maps. Look out for any easy to identify landmark close to the Airbnb home.
8. Ask him also to send you pictures of his home (view from the road), if possible.
9. With that tel number, you could navigate to the closest establishment or his home, and trace your path on Google Map to find his home.
10. Good Luck !