Tokyo Diary Pt 5 - July 2014

Only in Japan - weirdly shaped, ridiculously expensive fruit. I love going to the supermarkets, all sorts of interesting stuff to see + free samples! 

Popped by Uoriki Kaisen Sushi (B1 Tokyu Dept store, connected to Shibuya station) for another sashimi breakfast. The fish here was extremely fresh and so cheap! Highly recommended!

Chirashi Don

My sushi set. So good.  (Btw this cost less than SGD20) 

I amused the chef by butchering my request for uni sushi. But omg, this was so good and fresh I basically moaned in the restaurant eating this. And only SGD3. Sigh I miss Japan. 

At the museum of yebisu beer which was quite disappointing, far too small; we completed the tour in about 15 mins. 

Our favourite place in Tokyo - Uniqlo! I spent at least $500 there but I just love the basics, so comfy + Tokyo has a large range of cool tees + 11 floors Uniqlo -gasp-

big bowl of sukiyaki pork on rice (btw this was a small) at a random vending machine shop 

Day trip to Odaiba, so much fun. I love looking at all the vintage stores here including the old school arcade 

And old school sweets 

Whats Japan without some robots

Gorgeous view on the train towards odaiba

Rounded off our last night in Nagoya where we indulged in bbq once again. Awesome being able to order the best cuts of meat and paying a fraction of what we expect to pay in Singapore. Who says food in Japan is expensive!

Tokyo Diary Pt 4 -July 2014

Woke up (not-so) bright and early for brunch at Tsukiji Market! If you love sashimi as much as I do, this place will probably be disneyland to you (as it was for me). 

Skipped the long queue at Sushi Dai and Daiwa, I have been to this market a couple of times and honestly, I think the rest of the stores are comparable in terms of quality and price.

And...my order! Skipped the carbs and went straight for the fresh sashimi - crab, salmon, tuna, scallop and of course my favourite the sea urchin. So good, so fresh and so cheap, the above prob cost about SGD40+, to think that price would probably get you about half that amount of uni alone  back in SG, and not even as fresh.

The chef and queue handler were too cute, offering to take pictures of us before eating. Talk about good service.

Walked off our huge breakfast by heading down to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine and the Yushukan museum,dedicated to those who died fighting for Japan. The museum has been accused of revising the accounts of Japan's actions in world war 2 and wow, lets just say it was an extremely interesting and eyebrow-raising experience. Now I understand why no photography was allowed specifically in the WW1 and WW2 exhibits. 

Tendon Tenya tempura, a fastfood chain in Tokyo selling super cheap and good tempura. A meal cost ~SGD10 and features crispy delicious tempura. Now who says you can't get cheap food in Tokyo. This one was the branch at Harajuku

Another long walk down the crowded streets of Harajuku to take in the crazy sights and sounds of Tokyo. I can never get anything here (too out-there for me!) but I love the atmosphere. 

Of course, the only thing we bought was food. Freshly cooked chocolate callbee chips (super shiok!) 

and of course, the famous crepes. 

Dinner at a bbq restaurant near our hotel where I satisfied my craving for beef tongue. So hard to find good ones in Singapore! Yes, we did eat all day in Japan. 

Takayama/Tokyo Diary Pt 3 - July 2014

Saying goodbye to our lovely ryoken but not before another awesome breakfast.

Seriously, someone should open a brunch place in Singapore serving Japanese style "brunch"

Another long bus ride down the mountain and we decided to walk around the takayama old town before heading to Tokyo. 

Very quaint and beautiful place. Lots of old, well preserved shop houses though mostly selling touristy stuff. We did chance upon delicious matcha soft-serve and grilled mochi. 

The town is apparently known for its architectural methods; we wandered into the Takayama Museum of History and Art and spent a good 45 mins playing with the "architectural toys" there. 

There are many many restaurants dotting the old town and we just randomly picked one, needed to have one last hida beef meal before we headed off. Most of the restaurants here do serve hida beef (its a speciality after all!) so just keep a look out for the signs outside the restaurants. This was just a simple and cheap sliced beef bowl but oh, still sooo good. 

Back onto the bullet train and to my favourite city in the world- Tokyo! If you are planning to travel to various cities in Japan, do get the JR pass. We saved a ton for this trip with these passes; also gave us the flexibility to reserve tickets in advance and then changing the timing of our reservations (Based on availability of course) when we changed our travel plans. 

Obligatory train snack for the boy. The egg mayo sandwich from any convenience store, how do the Japanese make such delicious egg sandwiches, how is the bread still so soft and fluffy (despite being pre-packed for god knows how long). Why are the 7-11 sandwiches in Singapore so nasty? Sigh

We stayed in Best Western hotel, smack right in the middle of Shinjuku. Not the most romantic I know but what we really needed - bright lights and noise after 2 days in the mountain. Oh and uniqlo, lots of uniqlo. 

Supper stop at probably the most famous Ramen in the world. Needs no introduction - Ichiran!

Queue still darn long at 10pm but hey I am a true-blue Singaporean so queuing is of no issue (plus the boy was queuing while I went into the Pachinko outlet next door to attempt to understand the game, nope still dont get it)

Trying to understand the seating system, but still dont quite get it. Ok green = empty, red= occupied but what do the blinking lights mean? 

And then,  without knowing how your server looks like, a steaming bowl of perfection sits in front of you as you slurp down everything while facing basically nothing. So good. Rich thick flavourful soup with melt-in-your mouth char siew and noodles with just the right amount of bite. 

Chanced upon a series of tiny alleys behind our hotel, occupied by what must be at least 100 tiny little bars. Each bar could probably house maybe 6 customers? Each bar had its own unique selling pt too (e.g. rock n roll, retro etc), too cool and interesting. Tempted to go into one but it was not cheap (cover charge + cost of beer), seriously who pays cover charge to sit in a tiny little bar? 

Takayama Diary Pt 2 - July 2014

Decided to explore the mountain on day 2 of our trip.

buses here are few and in-between, we ended up walking around, breathing in the fresh air. Even walked thru a tunnel! It  was a pretty cool experience though the cars driving past were deafening. 

A quick bus ride up the mountain and then we were at the Northern Alps, with a long ropeway (or cable car) that brings you all the way up. The ropeway was divided into 2 sections, with one being double-deckered - pretty awesome.

The view of course, was stunning. 

Rest stop in between where one can opt to go enjoy the hot spring or just dip your feet into a pond and relax

Even random lunch at the rest stop was good

Alas, it was a tad too misty that day so our view at the top looked like that. Still pretty cool though, being surrounded by so many mountains.

And back to our awesome dinner. This time we opted for Hida beef in Sukiyaki style and cooked in miso. 

The beef still as melt-in-your-mouth good as the day before. I could never get sick of this.

So my verdict of the ryokan experience?

It was great, just 2 days of being pampered with good food and resting in the peace and tranquility of the moutains and nature. Of course, 2 days were more than enough especially for city dwellers like myself who need the lights, sound and hi-speed internet. 

Takayama Diary Pt 1 - Jul 2014

As part of our honeymoon, we headed down to Japan - specifically to Takayama in the Gifu Prefecture. It was our first time staying in a ryoken in Japan and having watched countless episodes of Japanhour, we were damm excited to get that full ryoken experience.

Our ryoken was located in a mountain deep into the prefecture, in fact we took an awfully long time to get there : Nagoya airport -> train to central nagoya -> train to Takayama -> 2.5 bus ride! Thankfully the scenery along the way was gorgeous, sprawling mountains and waterfalls, a welcome sight from the past few months of busy wedding planning.

Snacks on the train. I love the convenience stores in Japan, even the humble egg sandwich taste so good, what is in that soft fluffy white bread! Train rides in Japan are the best! Clean, comfortable, quiet and great food. 

We experienced the wonderful (and honestly disconcerting) Japanese hospitality the moment we got off the bus. 100m away from our hotel, the staff came out, bowed to us and ran over to get our luggage. This was a traditional ryoken so nobody could speak english and we basically communicated using sign language over the next few days; so thankful they were incredibly patient and polite. 

View of the hot spring in our ryoken. Gorgeous. Too bad we came during summer but the weather was still cool enough for a quick dip. 

Our traditional tatami room. I love the thick beds, we were hopelessly ignorant and didn't know what the many other small rooms were for haha 

Of cos, the best thing about staying in ryokens, other than the bathing facilities would be the food! Breakfast and dinner are provided here and those meals were the highlight of our stay, scratch that, highlight of our entire trip. 

So Takayama is known for its beef (hida beef) and our dinner options were various ways of cooking beef - tepanyaki, sukiyaki, grilled etc 

The start of our 10 course meal. I love how exquisite everything looked.  

Prepared with so much love! 

 The ridiculously beautiful hida beef. 

Grilling mah beef. Bitting into the meat was like hearing a thousand angels singing, I got goosebumps from how delicious it was, the fatty beef just melting away into your tastebuds. 

So damm good. Best beef I have ever eaten hands down. Sure I took a 20 hour trip to get there but damm was it worth it. 

Tiny clams in my miso soup that amused me

Breakfast the next morning. Doesn't matter how full I am. Just gonna keep eating because everything tasted so good.

Fresh produce, from the farms of takayama. 

Yes, I was darn lucky to be experiencing this.