Be Jealous of Me

Last week Ad and I walk past a long queue of people waiting outside a little eatery specialising in Gyoza in the back streets of Omotesando. Since we were in the area tonight we thought we'd join the queue for the best gyoza in town. The menu was very short and to the point.

- 2 types of gyoza (original or garlic & leek) cooked 2 different types of ways (pan fried or boiled).
- 3 vegie sides (sliced cucumber with a peanutty sauce, bean sprouts with a mince meaty miso sauce and lightly pickled cabbage)
- rice and chicken soup
- various beers and alcoholic beverages

This place was churning through customers and all the food was being cooked by 1 person!! We had a good seat right in front of the cook (it was an open kitchen) and every plate of food went through his hands. He didn't stop working for a single second that we were there. I think he must have been some hi tech japanese robot.

After dinner we went for a stroll down Omotesando and "popped" into BVLGARI for some dessert.





The BEST Chocolate fondant pudding I've ever had.



This petit four was divine too. The highlight for me being the kaffir lime white chocolate mousse on the top.



Ad often says 'marriage is blissful' but I say BVLGARI dining is blissful. Clearly this was my favourite culinary experience for the day.



My other treat for the day was getting my early birthday present, this camera (Fujifilm Instax Mini 25 if you MUST know..) It's pretty similar to those Polaroid cameras that were big in the 80's and they are definately making a come back here. I'm bound to get bagged out by my dad for buying this.

ps, sorry for the poor quality photos, only had the iphone for pix.. well, other than my new one obviously

Coffee In A Can Part 6 - SPECIAL NIKKO EDITION!

Day Trip to Nikko

Nikko is a 2.5h train trip north of Tokyo from Asakusa station. You can buy tickets from the tourist information booths that you find around the station on the ground floor (the Lonely Planet had us looking for the basement of some building that didn't exist and if it did, was not easy to find).

The area of Nikko we visited was the world heritage site that has several shrines, temples and mausolems including that of Tokogowa Ieyasu (founder of the Tokogowa Shogunate that ruled Japan from 1600 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868).

In my opinion, we visited at the best time of the year as the mountain side was brilliant hues of gold, bronze and copper.

Coffee In A Can Part 5

Hard Yakitori

Ok Ad put me up to the title this post 'Hark Yakitori' (which is a reference to this Australian brand of clothing for the non-aussie readers).

This post is about our most serendipitous discovery so far. Whilst looking for public toilets (as is often the case when one spends about 10 hours a day wandering the streets) we stumbled upon this neat little alleyway that follows the JR Yamanote line between Yarakucho and Shimabashi.



It's a string of little eateries that are actually situated underneath the arches of the bridge the train line runs on!! Brilliant!! Most of them were Yakitori places. (Yakitori = skewered bite-sized pieces of meat and veg cooked over hot coals) We often see loads of business people getting drunk at these restaurants as the yakitori seems secondary to the beer and sake they consume.



Another place we passed in the same alley.



We chose to eat in this open yakitori place (as opposed to one of the indoor places) as it was packed and had a menu in english (bonus!)



And darn, was it good! (That was Adam's beer by the way, not mine)



A trip to BIC Camera was inevitable after dinner as it's right next to the station. 8 floors of electronics. Wild stallions couldn't drive Ad away.

Splashu Mountain

Everywhere in Toyko is packed with people and Tokyo Disneyland was no execption. I mean really, haven't they all been by now?! Two hours is the longest time I've EVER waited in any queue and such was the wait for the ride Splash Mountain.



The real reason anyone goes on this ride is for that drop down the mountain side towards the end. It gets the heart pumping. So we stood in this queue watching people scream as they went down it for about an hour. The next hour was spent queuing in a cave. It's really a bit of false hope reaching the cave entrance as you think your turn is just around the next bend.. but no.. the queue winds on and on down the cave too!

Two hours later, at which time Ad notes we could've watched a whole movie whilst waiting, we finally get our turn! Excitedly we hop into our 8 seater boat and we're off! Our boat meanders around the bends and we gaze around caverns which tell the tale of Brer Rabbit to tunes to the like of Zippidy Doo Dah.

A minute into our 10 minute ride, our boat gets halted at one of the bends.. we're sitting there for a few minutes wondering if this is a feature of the ride when the music stops and we hear someone speaking in Japanese over the loudspeaker.. and then the music resumes.. oh well, gives us a chance to look around and give those singing pelicans a closer inspection. Music cuts out again, more Japanese over the loudspeaker.. then back to singing pelicans.. this must of happened around 5 times before we hear a prerecorded message in English apologising for the delay and to stay put in our boats until we are escorted out!

And that's what happened! Finally someone came and unlocked our safety bars so we could get off the boat and out we hopped. When I asked the Crew member who had come to get us why we were stopped, the one word response was "Maintenance".

We were lead down the back lots of the studio (to find that it had become dark while we were queuing in the cave) and sent back into Disneyland with 1 priority no wait ride ticket and no further explanations. So in summary, 2 hour wait, 1 minute ride, no heart pumping drop down the side of a mountain.

That's really the end of this post, but here are some other snaps of our time at Tokyo Disneyland.

This photo's for Brendan.



'Electric Parade'

Disney Castle

3D movie love

Rainy days and Mondays always make me..

Shop! It rained all day yesterday so it couldn't be be helped.



See how they put plastic bags over our shopping bags so that they don't get wet? : )



Spoils of war.



And after our hard days worth of work, we sat down to some Japanese 'Flavoury' Tea.

Tokyo Game Show 2008

We found a place more crowded than the Tokyo subway on Sunday and it was the Tokyo Game Show 2008.



Ok so this photo doesn't quite convey how crowded it got, but let me just say we where shuffling along shoulder to shoulder with just about every person in the hall at one stage.



Ad doing his thing..



And he was actually doing it comparatively well as noted by the mob.



There were loads of crazy kids dressed up in cosplay..



And plenty of booth babes who are obligatory at this kind of event..



In their obligatory short skirts and thigh high socks.

Coffee In A Can Part 4

A little bit of Roppongi

The reason for getting out of bed yesterday morning was..

The opening of Genius Party BEYOND. Needless to say Ad was very excited about this! We went to see it in a little art house cinema called Cinem@rt - it's kinda like a Dendy back home. Here's the trailer.

Next up was a look around Roppingi Hills. It's a more up market shopping complex in a series of buildings, hence the 'hills' bit I think! Not the quite the Gucci, Prada, Harry Winston that you find at Ginza or Harajuku but lots of other expensive labels I've never heard of.

Move over Samsonite..

It's Halliburton.

Then we headed over to Tokyo Midtown and found a Vietnamese restaurant!

The sign reads:

PHO = Fresh x Healthy x Ethnic

Yep, definately 3 good reasons to eat pho! lol

Our last stop in Roppongi was Time & Style, a furniture and homewares shop, where once again by chance we stumbled upon a free show. A BOSSA NOVA one of all things!! : )

Performing one of my favourites, Chega De Saudade

Bossa Nova at Midtown featuring:

Ricardo Sagioratto guitar/bass

Paulo Cesar Gomes piano/vocal

Francis Silva percussion/vocal

Oh what a feeling..

TOYOTA! This was taken just outside the Toyota showroom in Odaiba. Odaiba is right next to the water and is build on reclaimed land which seems pretty amazing when you see the number of high rise buildings there. The showroom along with the ferris wheel in the background is apart of a complex called Palette Town where colour is obviously a theme.

We took a ride in Toyota's self driving car (costs 200 yen per person)

And tested our peripheral vision and reflexes.

We also visited the Panasonic showroom in Odaiba business park and saw the worlds largest hi-def panel to date. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos but it stood taller than me standing up and wider than Ad lying down (which John said makes for some super widescreen ratio, ha-ha NOT funny).

Ghibli Museum

After buying our tickets from Lawsons, we caught the train to Mitaka Station (Tozai line)..

And followed the signs..

Down a lovely avenue which follows a canal. Turned right at the park and walk along it until we reached the Ghibli Museum.

We found the giant from Laputa: Castle in the Sky.

Watched a movie..

And wandered around in Totoro's world..

The museum is set up like a big old house in which you can wander into different rooms featuring different things. Most things are not displayed behind glass cabinets but laid out as if in a real home so you can touch, examine and play with them.

Rooms displaying artwork are set up like the artist study. Not in a pretentious studio but a room with a writing desk and chair, paints and inks, books, toys, tins, baskets, lunch - everything scattered everywhere. The artwork pinned up willy nilly on the walls with thumbtacks! And we would just walk through this room.. flip through the artists Visual Arts Diary and play with one of his strobe experiments.

Some of the doorways were so low (designed for kids) that we'd have to duck to get through them. There'd be the odd vintage armchair with the tall back (very Alice in Wonderland like) for us to rest in. The ladies room had wooden cots and change tables for the little ones. Each toilet was its own little room with proper door, wainscoting, playful wallpaper and decorative watercan in the corner! I could go on about vintage brass taps, frosted glass and the like.. but I won't.