Yubari Melon is not a category but a single cultivar, Yubari King, a first-generation cross between a Spicy Cantaloupe father and an Earl's Favourite mother. The flesh is orange, low in fibre and heavily scented. Planting, grading and shipping all move through one channel run by the growers with their co-operative, and that control is what the name rests on. The Melon Dome stands on the co-operative's own ground at Numanosawa 213-27; past the car park the greenhouses begin, so the sales floor sits inside the field it sells from. Because it is a harvest stand, it is open for only part of the year.

Background & history

Melons had been tried in Yubari before the war and failed on sugar content, and the crop disappeared as food shortages deepened. In April 1960 seventeen growers formed the Yubari Melon Association, and in the same year they produced the cross now sold as Yubari King. From the start the district pooled planting, grading and shipping through a single channel, and it grew into Hokkaido's leading melon producer. Yubari Melon was later entered in Japan's Geographical Indication scheme, among the very first group of protected products.

What to look for — in walking order

Yubari melon soft serveノボホショコロトソ / CC BY 4.0

Numanosawa bus stop

the stop standing where the branch railway's station used to be

The greenhouses of Numanosawa

rows of low houses across the farmland that surrounds the dome

The Melon Dome sales floor

cut melon, melon soft serve and local products from the growing district

Resthouse Natsuzora No.1

a converted greenhouse used as an all-you-can-eat hall in high summer

How to enjoy it

Time your visit to the harvest; the dome and the resthouse both open for a short stretch of early and mid summer. Buy a cut half and a melon soft serve at the sales floor and eat them looking at the houses the fruit came from — that view is the whole reason to come here rather than to a department store counter. Out of season, Michi-no-Eki Yubari Melord near Shin-Yubari carries melon products all year.

How to actually get there

From

Shin-Yubari Station

Time

~6 min · Yutetsu Bus, about 10 runs a day

Get off at

Numanosawa bus stop (Yutetsu Bus, Yubari city line)

Shin-Yubari Station → Numanosawa (Yutetsu Bus, Yubari city line, about 6 minutes).

Numanosawa → the Melon Dome (about a 6-minute walk northwest along the highway).

Buy cut melon and a melon soft serve at the sales floor, then look in on the resthouse if it is open.

Yutetsu Bus city line from Shin-Yubari Station

Shin-Yubari is the JR Sekisho Line station where limited expresses stop. From the station front take the Yutetsu Bus Yubari city line and get off at Numanosawa — about six minutes on the operator's timetable. The line runs about ten times a day in each direction, so choose your departure before you set out rather than after.

Return from Numanosawa

The same city line runs back to Shin-Yubari Station. Services thin out through the evening and the last departures are early by city standards, so fix your return when you arrive, not after you have eaten.

Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

Before you go

Cash

The dome sells by the item, so carry what you plan to spend. Yutetsu Bus also sells a one-day pass for its Yubari city services at 1,200 yen for adults and 600 yen for children, worth checking if you plan more than one hop.

Closing days

This is a seasonal stand. Yubari City's guide gives the dome as open from late May to early August, with the resthouse opening later and closing at the same time. Outside that window there is nothing here to visit, and the dates move with the harvest, so confirm before travelling.

Another way

By car, leave the Doto Expressway at Yubari IC; Yubari City's guide gives about six minutes from the exit. Out of season, the co-operative's roadside station Michi-no-Eki Yubari Melord, near Shin-Yubari, carries melon products year-round.

After you get off

From the Numanosawa stop, walk northwest along the highway for about six minutes. One stop further along the line, Yubari Nokyo-mae, is two minutes from the dome according to Yubari City's guide.