Japan trip 2013 ~ day 1 & 2 (18th / 19th Oct) - p4

Usually, when I go to Japan, I like to keep a relatively detailed mobile blog of the trip.  I failed to blog about the last two days on the previous trip and this trip was an even greater disaster if we are just talking about mobile blogging.  My Samsung S2 phone got really wet in the rain when we visited Ibaraki and was so unstable during the entire trip that all I could really manage was take photos and uploading everything to Facebook for safe keeping.

Hence, now, I really have a lot of stuff to try and catch up on on the blog. :(  So I am going to try and mix blogging about the trip with some of the unboxing posts.  I picked up some Kajiura Yuki and Kalafina related stuff, as well as some Mahou Shoujo Madoka stuff and I really would like to get to some of them... so we'll see.

First things first, I would really like to finish up the account of our first 2 days on the trip.  It was a very eventful start to the trip... hmmmm... actually, it was a very eventful trip all round and it would be a pity not to write about it so that someday when I look back on this trip, I will be able to recall it better because I kept an account of it somewhere. :)

So here goes.... :)

After watching the tuna auction at Tsukiji Market, we walked quickly over to where the sushi restaurants were located to see if we could get into Sushi Dai but the queue was already very long even at 6am in the morning.  We were really kind of tired since we had been more or less on the move since the previous day and haven't really been able to get a proper rest since we got out of bed on the morning of the 18th.  We were also scheduled to meet Manami for brunch and also scheduled to make a trip to Katase-Enoshima for the fireworks festival.  Hence, we decided to go to Sushi Daiwa next door instead.  To tell you the truth, the sushi was quite good but I wasn't blown away.  Maybe I was very tired, or still full from our morning McDonald's breakfast a few hours ago or just simply spoilt by the quality of the sushi at my favourite sushi restaurant at Meguro.  I made this same trip to Sushi Daiwa two years ago and enjoyed it more than.  Maybe it was because the sushi chef that made our sushi then was really friendly or that the Japanese customers were really nice to us then and that enhanced that experience.  But on this occasion, it just didn't feel the same.  In the end, I think one of my big regrets from this trip was that I didn't go to the sushi restaurant in Meguro.  The next time I go back to Japan, I'll have to go back to my favourite place in Meguro. :)

Anyway, here are some photos of the sushi that we ate on that day.  We ordered the set.  While not blow-me-away sushi, it was still good sushi so I did enjoy my meal that morning. :)

 

We had to split our dining party up because Pam's friend Kat hadn't arrived yet and so Pam got out of the queue to get her while Evelyn and I went in to eat first.  So Evelyn and I hung out around the Tsukiji area till everyone was ready and then made our way to our hotel in Shinjuku to ditch our luggage and meet Manami for lunch.

Yes, there was  A LOT of eating during our first day in Japan. :P

After meeting Manami, we randomly picked a restaurant in Lumine and ate there.  The restaurant's name is Brasserie Barbara and wasn't bad at all.  Even though I was quite full, I has happy to eat more. :P



This meeting with Manami was shorter than I preferred but Manami had helped us get Ghibli Museum tickets and express bus tickets to Ibaraki and we had to meet on Saturday to pick these tickets up before our Sunday trip to Ibaraki.  Good thing I was able to arrange another dinner meeting with her on another day while we were still in Tokyo.  She's a very good friend and I think I would have some regrets if I was unable to meet her again on this trip.

We managed to get checked-in to our hotel rooms at 3pm but we only had time for a short rest before it was time to head out again.  This time we were headed to Enoshima to take part in the Fireworks Festival.  Yes, Kalafina was also performing that night at a school festival at Takachiho University in Tokyo and I really could have tried to go for it because I knew about it when they announced it.  However, there were several reasons why I didn't even try.  Firstly, the trip to Enoshima to attend the Fujisawa Enoshima Hanabi Taikai had been planned ages before Kalafina even announced that they were going to perform at Takachiho University.  Secondly, I just couldn't ditch my travel companions on our first real day in Japan, that just wouldn't be fair.  Also, I have never been to that part of Enoshima and have never attended a Hanabi Taikai in Japan before.  So in the end, I decided that I will just have to end this year without attending a single Kalafina or Kajiura Yuki live, the first time I have not seen them live at least once in a year since 2010.  Sniff...

That said :P , even though I would love to have seen Kalafina live, I do not regret making the decision to go to Enoshima that day.  The fireworks festival was really very, very cool and they fired these fireworks so low that it seemed so close, so in-your-face, so just-above-your-head, so very very dramatic.  It's the most exciting fireworks display that I've ever seen.  Not that I've seen that many but most of them were quite high in the sky, this was really very dramatic and photos and videos just doesn't do it any justice.  Also, the food at the festival was really unexpectedly delicious.  We wanted to eat everything and we really bought a lot of food which I, unfortunately, didn't take many photos of.  This is only my second festival in Japan.  The first matsuri that I went to last year had a ton of people and really bad food.  The worse takoyaki that I've ever eaten in my life is ironically from Japan and at that matsuri last year.

First up... photos of the crowds and the very cool looking Katase-Enoshima station, street food stalls and some of the things we ate at the festival. :)



Next up, photos of the fireworks and a short video clip.  It was all shot on my Samsung S2, so the quality isn't the best, but it'll have to suffice. :P  Also, I didn't shoot that many photos or videos and most of what I shot was in the first 15 - 20 minutes of the display.  I spent the rest of the time just enjoying the event.  Here you go, just a couple of snaps. :)

After the festival, it was one huge crush trying to get to the trains.  There was a huge crush I think in part because it started raining and people decided not to hang around longer even though the food stalls were still opened.  I think we would probably have waited a bit and finished our food or got another beer if the weather had been better but we also decided to leave the area as quickly as possible.  We managed to get into a really packed train on the Odakyu line and managed to get seats a couple of stops later and I crashed out and slept quite soundly for some time.  We only realized much later than we were on the local train and although I was feeling lazy and not too keen to change to the rapid line at one of the stations later on, I am glad that Evelyn and Pam decided that my laziness was a poor excuse and we switched trains and made it back to Shinjuku in much less time than it would have taken on the local line. :)  Then it was a shower, some wind-down time and off to bed and that was the end of our very busy and quite ambitious first 2 days of our Japan 2013 trip. :)

I'm not sure what I'll blog about next... maybe a Kalafina or Kajiura Yuki related post first, then do the post on Day 3 of the trip and an interesting visit to the Hitachi Seaside Park in Ibaraki. :)  For now... time for bed, tomorrow (Tuesday), I return to my normal life and it's back to work, OT and saving money for my obsessions and my next adventure. :)  Good night!! :)

Kalafina's Moonfesta - arrived

My Kalafina "Moonfesta" single arrived by mail today. :)

I'll do an unboxing later. There is a ton of unboxings that i hope to do today and in the coming days. The trip was very good and although quite tightly packed at points, I still slept in a lot and mostly managed 7 hours of sleep on most days. I feel refreshed enough to blog more. :)

i would also like to complete my Japan trip posts... lots of missing bits but i think i kept a better account this time round because of the data SIM card i was using. it made it reasonably priced for me to be online and uploading so many photos.


I ate my favourite roast duck noodles for brunch today... yay!!! :) Almost missed fedex and my parcel with the Moonfesta single... lucky the guy was very nice... he waited at the door as he tried to call me on the phone.

k... i will be back with an unboxing post later... meanwhile i want to drink some coffee and have some things i need to take care off before i will have time to take photos and all. :)

edit 730pm:
Looks like my unboxing post will have to wait... am busy spending time with my parents. :)  Family comes first. :)  I have shot a ton of photos though and hope to have at the very least this Moonfesta post up by tonight... cheers :)

Truffle Xiao Long Bao

After post after post on Kalafina, Kajiura Yuki and Mahou Shoujo Madoka, I think it's time to take a break from all things Japanese and talk about another of my obsessions... food!!!! :)

Today, I ate the most expensive Xiao Long Bao I have ever eaten to date. This here is a photo of the Truffle Xiao Long Bao from Ding Tai Fung.  At SGD3.20 per Xiao Long Bao, it is kind of expensive since normal Xiao Long Bao go for SGD6 plus for 6 Xiao Long Baos.

But I love dumplings and Xiao Long Bao is right up my list of favourites... I have a yearly obsession with Ding Tai Fung's Chilli Crab Xiao Long Bao which is only available once a year for a month or two... so when I found out that the City Hall (MRT) branch of Ding Tai Fung was offering the Truffle Xiao Long Bao... I just had to try it.

I only ordered 2 of these little dumplings, one for my mum and one for me.  I didn't order more because I wasn't sure if it would be worth SGD3.20.  After all, who knows if you can even taste the Black Truffle in it.  I've eaten the colourful, multi-flavoured Xiao Long Baos from Paradise Dynasty in Ion and although some of them are really nice and you can really taste the flavours, I don't remember their truffle Xiao Long Bao to be particularly memorable.  Paradise Dynasty's colourful Xiao Long Baos are nice, very nice... but there are 8 different flavours for about SGD13-14... this was ONE Xiao Long Bao for SGD3.20

I must say though, that this Truffle Xiao Long Bao is VERY NICE.  The earthy and rich flavour of the black truffle combined very nicely with the pork and the soup in the dumpling and it certainly was one of the tastiest Xiao Long Baos I've ever eaten.  Regular Ding Tai Fung Xiao Long Baos are already super good but this was really something else... really good.

I'm still not sure if I would eat it again since SGD3.20 is certainly not a small sum for a small dumpling like this and I'm still a bigger fan of the Chilli Crab Xiao Long Bao... but I can say for sure that I do not regret trying it.  It was a very yummy Xiao Long Bao and a very worthy SGD3.20 experience. :)

If I was feeling better... I would dig out photos of the Paradise Dynasty Xiao Long Baos and the ridiculous number of Chilli Crab Xiao Long Baos I ate this year :D  ... but I need to take a break from the computer monitor... the reason why I was on medical leave was because too much time on the computer and the dry air-con air at work had led to both my eyes getting all swollen and inflamed. :(  Time to go drop some eye-drops.... good night. :)

rice balls make me happy

I think it's time to admit that I've been working too much and sleeping too little lately.  Even for me, a self confessed workaholic, too much work is a bad thing, no matter how much I like my work and I like to be working.  In the last few days, I've had so little sleep, I think my temper was quite simply on edge yesterday as evident in my morning FB status update and the earlier post made yesterday.  It really doesn't help that I have this colleague in my room at work who complains and complains and complains every single day... it's not constructive at all and I'm a conflict adverse type of person... I find her constant complaining more stressful than trying to complete my shot on time.

Last night, happily, my niece stayed late and waited for me to get home so that we can make onigiri and that made my day so much better. :)

I'm a huge onigiri fan.  On the two previous occasions that I've had the opportunity to visit Japan, I'll have onigiri for breakfast almost everyday.  Recently, I learnt how to make onigiri.  It's really easy.  I learnt it during Japanese class one day and I decided to teach my 8 year old niece how to make them a couple of weeks ago.  She loved it and so we decided to do them again.   The above photo is a photo picture of the rice balls we made  for dinner. :)

Okay... they don't look like much but these rice balls made me very happy.  It's not so much because I like rice or that rice is to the Chinese what pasta is to Italians or etc etc... no, it's much more than that.  My family waited for me to return home so that we could make onigiri TOGETHER.  So while my dad went to buy us some protein from the coffeeshop downstairs, my mum, my niece and I made onigiri together.  And by the time he returned, it was all done and we sat down to have a very happy and satisfying dinner together.

This dinner was definitely the highlight of what has been several very tiring days. Freshly made rice balls, eaten with people you love... BEST THING IN THE WORLD. :)

killer pasta sauce

This is a photo of my mum's killer pasta sauce. It doesn't look like much, maybe even a little messy and plain. But it's a killer cuz it's really spicy and very tasty. The pasta itself is already spicy but that sauce is truly spicier but not the hole-in-stomach kind. It even has a slight taste of Chilli Crab in it, at least it did to me.

I loved it so much I had it for dinner last Thursday night and then asked if I could have it for lunch on Friday before having it again for supper on Sunday. :)

Unfortunately, I probably will never be able to taste this sauce again as my mum has no idea how she made it. Hahahaha... it's true, she doesn't know which bag of chill she used and can't remember what brand she bought so she can't replicate or refine this sauce she whipped up in a hurry that day.

Aiyah... 残念ですね！! :)

Food!!! 食べ物が大好きです。 （１）

Hi hi... this is my promised post on food.  I'm going to keep it pretty simple actually.  I'll just post photos of food I like, have tried or have eaten.  It's just for fun.  I try and shoot photos of almost everything I eat and they just sit in my hard drives, cameras and phones and do nothing.  After awhile, I can't even remember the names of the dishes and places I ate them at.  So I thought... why not, why don't I just post "nothing" posts of photos of food, after all I love eating and my blog has always been about random stuff I love to do and matter to me and food REALLY matters to me. :)

So here you go guys.... Food, Glorious Food.  Itadakimasu!!!! :)

Bakerzin - salads

I love salads and one of my favourite salads are the two you see above from Bakerzin.  On the left is the Vermicilli Prawn Salad and on the right is the Fruit Salad.


On the left, Wu Xiang.  My mum really loves Wu Xiang but it's really hard to get good ones these days and she can't eat so much fried food or prawns any more. :(  In the middle, Pohpiah which my entire family is crazy about.  My mum used to prepare Pohpiah ingredients at home for us to make our own Pohpiahs and I LOVED THEM but it's a lot of work so she hardly does them any more.  On the right, my and Sunsetrose's favourite Claypot Frog.  I am crazy about them.  It goes really well with the Claypot porridge but the photo I shoot of it was soft so the next time we have them, I'll have to shot photos of it again.  This meal was at a coffeeshop in Yishun Central.


This is Shui Jiao noodles from Crystal Jade Restaurant.  I like them.  I actually really love dumplings and wontons and I could eat them virtually everyday.  My mum makes some killer deep fried Shui Jiaos and I could eat just Shui Jiaos for an entire meal. :)  If I remember correctly, this particular dish of Shui Jiao noodles was eaten at the Holland Village branch when I met up with some of my classmates and schoolmates from the school I studied 3D and VFX at.  We were celebrating my birthday then. :)


I drank my first cup of Earl Grey Gong Cha in Hong Kong last year and it was love at first sip.  I was super excited when Gong Cha opened several branches in Singapore and when I can, I almost always will get myself a cup of Earl Grey Gong Cha at lowest level of sweetness with pearls.  I know some will say that Koi's tea is better.  I've drunk Koi's tea twice and have photos of them somewhere in some hard drive or memory card, but for me, Gong Cha's Earl Grey is still the best. :)


Yummy Singapore styled Western food from cheap but good Western food chain Astons.  On the left is the Double Chicken dish.  I'm not sure if that's the official name of the dish, I've forgotten already.  But it comes with two pieces of chicken fillets done in two different styles, I think one is BBQ and the other is Teriyaki.  If you spot a piece of salmon on that dish... heh heh... it doesn't really belong there, my mum cut off a slice of her salmon fillet and placed it on my dad's chicken dish, so don't go to Astons and demand for your slice of salmon on that dish. :)  On the right is the Wagyu Burger.  It's really huge and yummy.  I love it and have eaten it twice.  I think this is the second time I've had it.

Okay, that's it for today... I'm going to bed now.  I was hoping to sleep by midnight as I didn't have much sleep throughout last week and I'm really feeling it today.  So... hope you enjoy my food photos.  I've got tons more and I will put them up slowly. :)

Good night y'all. :)

happy rabbit year :)

Happy Chinese New Year everyone. May the Year of the Rabbit be filled with happiness, peace, good health and wealth for all.

We had steamboat for our Reunion Dinner meal yesterday. It is a curious thing but steamboat is very popular in singapore even though we are right smack on the equator and it is rather hot here most of the time. Steamboat is also very popular type of meal during Reunion Dinners and throughout the 15 days of new year.

Hopefully I will have some personal time for some anime, some gaming, some reading, some modelling and some resting during this long break. :)

Meanwhile have a great new year's and eat lots everyone. :)

すき焼き

Lately all my blogposts have been kind of long and heavy and tiring to write. :) So for a change, I think I'll type up a post in Japanese just for practice. :) Here goes. :)

２年前に、友達と一緒に日本へ旅行しました。日本のレストランですき焼きを作ってみました。でも作る方法がわからないから、牛肉が焦げました。結局すき焼きが食べられませんでした。残念でした。上の写真は食べられないすき焼きでした。

Ministry of Food

Today we had lunch at a Japanese Izakaya styled retaurant called MOF at the new shopping mall Nex. I'm pretty sure the name Ministry of Food was inspired by the dance club Ministry of Sound.

Previous to this visit, we thought that MOF's food wasn't very good or interesting and the only thing worth eating there were their deserts. However, we were wrong because the menu at Nex is quite extensive and different now . They must have expanded or modified their menu as i don't remember it being so interesting at the Bugis Junction branch. The food was actually quite tasty too. Thank you HT for the treat. :)

One more thing, i'm going to post all the photos of food taken at lunch today. I'm still testing the software and i'm interested in how well it handles lots of attached photos. :)

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

p.s. I couldn't stand it that my earlier test with blogger-droid laid out all the photos in one vertical row, making this post really long and ugly. Hence, I returned to this post on my comp and made changes to the html so that it's laid out better. :)