Next to Hakodate's morning market is Ekini Market, at 9-19 Wakamatsu-cho, about five minutes on foot from the station. Inside it there is a tank you fish in.

Squid arrive every morning still in seawater and swim in the tank, and you are handed a rod. The technique is to hook the fin, the part called the ear, rather than the body. When you lift one out it squirts water and ink, usually at whoever is standing closest.

A cook takes it from you and turns it into sashimi on the spot, working fast enough that the legs are still moving when the plate reaches you. The local way to eat it is with soy sauce and ginger, and with the goro, the innards, served alongside.

The flesh is transparent, and the reason is simply that the animal was alive until a minute ago. Squid here is brought in live in tanks rather than iced down. From summer through winter it is ma-ika, the Japanese common squid, and from winter into spring it changes over to yari-ika. The ma-ika was designated the city's official fish in August 1989, which tells you something about how Hakodate thinks of it. The tank opens at seven in the morning. The price is whatever it is that day, and when the squid run out the tank closes, whatever the hour.