A market you can walk to from the station. Akita Shimin Ichiba is indoors, a few minutes from Akita station, with fish, pickles and the components of kiritanpo laid out along its aisles in the quantities a household buys. It is not primarily a visitor attraction; people shop here for the week, and the pricing and the portions assume a kitchen rather than a souvenir to be carried home on a train. Stop in front of a pickle stall for long enough and you may be offered a taste, and the discovery that the same daikon differs this much between vendors is one you will make repeatedly and never quite get used to. There is no theatre to any of it whatsoever, and no English signage to speak of.

The prefectural offices and a general hospital are close, and the town centre works perfectly well on foot and by local bus without any need for a car. Because the market is under a roof, shopping is not dictated by the weather during a snow season, which matters more to living here than it sounds when it is written down. In February that single fact reorganises the week.

This is a market that is an extension of a kitchen rather than a destination in its own right. The building itself is unremarkable and was put up to be useful rather than admired, with strip lighting and a concrete floor that has been washed a great many times. Vendors know their regulars by what they buy rather than by name, and will hold something back if they expect you. Nothing is wrapped elaborately, because most of it is going straight home. That is exactly why it is quiet, and it is also why it is worth an hour of anyone's time.