the wacky wombat weblog

As much as I enjoyed the shopping and sight-seeing, the majority of my Tokyo experience also revolves around food.

I pretty much love japanese food (ok, except for natto, which is fermented soy beans, and most things fermented taste/smell foul and should be ample warning for people to NOT eat them). But Japanese food in Japan tastes way better than japanese restaurants at home. It’s kinda like when you’re in US and chinese food taste nothing like the chinese food you have at home. (e.g. WTF is General Tso’s chicken?!)

A piece of Japanese food knowledge that I picked up in Japan was about wasabi. Behold - fresh wasabi!

Yes, this is the real deal, the root. To eat, you have to finely grate it first. The flavour is a little lighter and more fragrant than processed wasabi paste (which may not even contain wasabi at all according to this wiki article!), and the hotness does not rush up to your nose and threaten to destroy your nasal passage. It’s all very subtle and pleasant to eat.

Another big surprise about Japanese food (in Japan) is pork. Contrary to the popular belief that seafood and raw fish is all the Japanese people ever eat, pork actually does figure quite heavily in their cuisine. Not only do they eat pork quite often, but they can cook it darn well too! The kind where the pork literally melts in your mouth. It is that good.

Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of their yummilicious pork to show you, because well, pork + soupy ramen = instant respite against winter chills and palatte satisfaction, so we basically attacked the food right when it reaches the table. There is no time for nilly-willy things like posing and selecting shutter speed on cameras. This is my 3rd trip and I still don’t really have pork-y pictures for you.

Besides the fine art of roast pork, there is also the very cute fast food pork: McPork burger (100yen only!). McDonald’s in Japan is Makudonaludo, and McPork is makupoku. And when Mario wins a challenge in Super Mario Galaxy (Japanese version), it is “star get”. English is a whole new language to me in Japan.

Anyway, I’ve posted some photos of my makan adventure in Tokyo. These are the few moments when we actually stopped ourselves from devouring the food just as it’s served and behaved all civilised and snapped away with our camera. Just go to our Photo Gallery and check out the album titled Eating Marathon.

Other food-related thoughts:

• Japanese people eat a lot of radish. I seem to get radish everywhere. I like it in oden (an assortment of boiled stuff in light broth soup), but not so much as a condiment. While shopping in the supermarket on new year’s eve, I see at least 1 big radish in almost everyone’s shopping basket.
• They also eat a lot of rice. I cannot understand how, in between slurping down a whole big bowl of noodles, typical salarymen can wolf down mouthfuls of plain white rice as well. Lunch sets with noodles + rice + condiment are pretty common.
• They eat horse meat too. I’ve seen places sell horse sashimi, but I cannot bring myself to eat horse meat. However it’s not really a common thing, unlike fish.
• I love how restaurants always serve water for free. Some even leave you with a whole big pitcher. Some restaurants in Malaysia should learn: We should not need to pay for plain water, especially when your food is salty.
• They eat innards too! Yay! I’ve eaten chicken heart, chicken gizzard, chicken butt, pork belly, bbq-ed (yakitori) and deep fried, and they taste great! I believe bak kut teh will do extremely well if sold in Japan.

Now that I’ve procrastinated for 2 weeks after my return from Tokyo, the time is ripe for me to upload some pictures and write about the trip.

One of the common thing I hear people say about Tokyo is that everything is expensive and you can’t holiday there without a ton of cash.

That’s only true to some extent. Yes — hotels are expensive, public transport isn’t cheap like in Singapore, and forget taxis if you value your money.

When it comes to shopping during sale time, it is fantastic. I’m talking about 10 bucks a piece and up to 70% for clothes, and for brands that are normally considered a little pricey back home, like GAP, Zara, Benetton, etc. And finding an XS isn’t like searching a needle in a haystack of XLs like the sales back home either.

This largely explains why I went there with one luggage and came back with two. LOL.

Also, it isn’t too costly to dine at a nice restaurant, where service is always top-notch. Ok, even the neighbourhood aunty shops have good service. And beer is cheap, and good. I will have a follow-up post solely dedicated to all that is fooood.

This post is all about my favourite place to shop: Harajuku, and adjacent to it, Shibuya. Trendy, with wide array of shops from quirky to classic, streetwear to couture, and cheap to expensive, it’s a nice place to just walk around even if you’re not out for shopping.

It is an interesting place to people-watch. But turns out it’s also a nice hang out for fashionable doggies out for a little sun-tanning on a warm winter day.

And beyond the glitzy main street of Omotesando are the little back lanes and quirky shops, which houses possibly the thinnest (yes, thinnest) building I’ve ever seen.

This is not an optical illusion. And I’m not sure if I can fit into the corner of that shop.

As you walk deeper into the network of criss-crossing alleys, you’ll find a few little houses squashed in between boutiques and designer shops. And that’s where we also found our favourite burger joint - Freshness Burger.

I like the concept of this particular outlet. It’s like going into someone’s little house and dining in their kitchen or in their courtyard (depending which table you get). But the whole look and feel is of a very homey and comfortable setting.

The front of the house is non-descript: small signage, a low black grill gate, and a cobble-stone walkway. Inside it’s warmly lit, with wooden furniture and kitchen utensils. And burgers grilled to order. We’ve eaten at other outlets of theirs, but this one’s the cutest.

For more pictures of Harajuku / Shibuya, just head on to our photo gallery. Check out the album titled: A day around Harajuku & Shibuya on page 2. Mouse over photos to read the captions.

=.=”

It’s been months since my last haircut here in Tokyo. I’ve only been getting my haircut every 3-4 months while living here. And it’s always been at the QB House, those vending machine-based express haircut outlets that takes payment in one and only one denomination (a single 1,000 yen note in this case), spits out a ticket with a number, and makes you sit alongside other patrons patiently waiting for their haircut.

There isn’t much sense with the ticket number as I’ve noticed. There’s no wall display of next number to be called to the seat, there’s no announcing of the next number by the barber, there’s no indication that the number is of any use except to serve as a figure of interest while you stone at the bench waiting for your turn with nothing better to look at. People would sit down on the bench according to their turn, and when one leaves the bench for the seat at their turn, the rest of the people will shuffle around to fill up that gap in the same order. Why do they make me sit down at all the different bench seats just to get to my turn for my haircut?

The process is fast though, 10 mins per head with another 1 min overhead (pun not intended) to brush and sweep away the hair from the seat and scissors. There’s even a traffic light-like device out there with blinking lights to indicate how long you’re gonna be stuck there waiting for your turn, should you decide to part with your 1,000 yen note. At the end of the haircut, the barber will even offer to give you the disposable comb he just used on your head as a token of appreciation. That’s not a bad deal after all. After 2 times, I started to politely decline the offer as I’ve got no use for the extra combs at home.

My haircut there tends to be simple, just inform the barber (in whatever limited command of Japanese language I have) how short I want my haircut, in the same style. I’m not about to experiment, or let the barber experiment his skills. Not at 1,000 yen anyway. Keep it short and simple. And my hair seems to grow at a slower pace here, dunno for what reason. So that’s stretching my 1,000 yen a long long way.

In comparison, I often have my haircut every 1-1.5 months back home. At the neighbourhood salon, I get charged like RM 16 per visit, and that’s cheap. Dollar-to-dollar, my haircut here at the QB House is slightly cheaper. But of course, back home it’s a decent salon, and the stylist-cum-owner would talk to me about football betting and how the matches are fixed, so the skill is to bet on how you would think they fix the matches. When it comes to yen-to-ringgit, it’s like RM 120 (4,000 yen at 4 times) per year compared to RM 160 (RM 16 at 10 times) per year. Seems like I’ve been shaving off my haircut expenses while living here at a great extend. LOL!

Guess I’ll be going for my haircut this weekend, but not before a hearty lunch at Maru-kin for its excellent ramen!

I like parks. It’s one of the few public spaces that aren’t crowded, unlike shopping malls.

Parks are also a nice place to just go for walk, clear out your mind. Or you could do plenty other things: jog, read a book, picnic, take photos, people-watch and secretly laugh at the weird people.

Ueno Park is one of the bigger parks in Tokyo. It isn’t very beautiful — maybe it was the wrong season when I was there. Although it is the place to avoid/go to (depending on how you look at it) during the crowded cherry blossom season, it is pretty tranquil on a summer weekday.

I finally sorted through my stash of photos, and uploaded an assortment from Ueno Park. Go to the navigation bar on top, hit <photo gallery>, or click here.

The thing I remember most about Ueno Park is the stray cats. They’re huge and fat, totally unlike the scrawny ones back home.

And they are unfriendly. They hardly mew at anyone, and they all have a haughty look on their face that says “I don’t give a shit about you” when you mew at them.

I also saw a few cats balanced at the edge of a pond with plenty of fish that were as big as the cats. But they weren’t going after the fish. They were stealing fish food.

The homeless folks would feed the fish little bread pieces, and the cats would slip their paws into the pond and grab the ones that fall at the edge of the pond. Maybe that’s why they’re so fat.

***

Sometimes we also went to Yoyogi Park. On weekends, it’s filled with people. People enjoying picnics, playing frisbee. There were also jugglers, unicyclists, tap dancers and girls practicing some cheerleading/dance routine.

And musicians. OK, some of them are good, can’t deny that. But with freedom of expression, comes freedom of sohai*-ness. (*slang word in KL for “total idiot”.) There are some disillusioned people who’d go to the park, display their non-talent, and annoy the hell out of everyone.

There was one guy, braying at the top of his voice, something out of tune and horribly painful to the ears.

Another group of washed-out wannabe rockers were “dancing” to some music. Except it’s not really dancing. It’s stoned expression with arms flailing in every direction.

What they’re experiencing in their extreme disillusioned condition, can only be best described in yet another KL slang word: “shiok sendiri” (i.e.: reveling in pointless stupid fun that only they themselves can appreciate and are oblivious to the real world).

And because it was Japan, everyone is too polite. I almost wanted to look up the word “shut up” in my Japanese phrase book but I can’t be bothered. We simply moved to a quieter and less annoying section of the park.

Besides my mer-dragon encounter, I also had a nice time strolling around the gardens at the Imperial Palace. I always like how fresh everything looks and smells right after a short misty shower.

Took some photos, but not all turned out as nice as I had hoped. This time I decided to skip the editing like fine-tuning the colours and all, and stuck with the original, although I cropped some slightly to give the picture more balance. But all the same, I had fun playing with Au Yong’s digital camera (Casio Exilim EX-Z850).

My favourite is the spiderweb and the suspended water drops trapped in it. Here’s more of the rest. Alternatively, go to the navigation bar at the top of this page, and hit <photo gallery>.

Tried to take some photos of the Tokyo city scape, but I just can’t seem to capture concrete and steel structures nicely. Looks drab most of the time. But gotta shift from the flowers and greenery, and change my focus to city scenes.

Singapore has the merlion. Guess what I found in Tokyo.

Mer-dragon? haha.

Found this at the entrance to the Imperial Palace Garden on Wednesday. The ferocity of the dragon seems kinda diminished with that nice fish tail that he’s got.

But after looking at a notice stuck next to it, seems like he isn’t really a dragon.

Er, stylized dolphin?! (ok maybe a dolphin styled after a dragon?) 0_o

Well at least it looks more dignified than the merlion that zaps laser lights out of its eyes on Sentosa Island. And I suppose being 350 years old helps too. :p

*again, another attempt at clearing the backlog of stuff that should have been posted last week.

In Japan, almost all the food isn’t spicy. And when you’ve lived a majority of your life eating spicy food, you kinda miss the zing that comes from (real, not sweet) curry and chilli. So when we heard that there was a Sri Lankan festival downtown, all we could think of was curry. haha. And we took chilli-addict Benet along.

Most interesting of all was pork curry. All this time, I’ve never had pork in curry. It was always chicken, fish, beef, mutton. I suppose mainly because most eating establishments at home try to make things halal and so no pork.

Found lots of stuff that we liked: roti, curry, tose (or as we spell it back home, tosai), samosa, wade, etc. woot! Of course it was at an inflated price of 500yen for each roti/tose. :s

Kinda strange to be eating indian food in Japan. But fun all the same. Not as spicy as we thought it might be, but still beats japanese curry rice anytime.

*disclaimer: Au Yong says he’s too busy/tired/lazy (please choose one) to provide the update, so I’m doing it instead.

A couple of weeks back, it was Au Yong’s 26th birthday. But since he was always busy/tired/lazy, so me and my friend yuri had to put off our ’surprise’ birthday plan x number of times. Finally on a Saturday, we all managed to meet up, on a pretext of just hanging out (when we actually have a surprise dinner thingy in stored).

Lunched at Kua Aina Burger, a Hawaiian burger joint, that serves avocado burgers on kaiser rolls (my favourite!)

As you can see, it’s HUGE, and I have some trouble stuffing into my mouth. It was quite a sight, with the avocado sliding out of the burger every few minutes and me breaking my jaw trying to open my mouth bigger, thus there will be no photo evidence here to illustrate that.

We hung out, played Wii (almost taking out each other’s arms and eyes with the Wiimote), took a stroll at the nearby temple — a lazy Saturday.

Dinner was in a little izakaya in a small alley of the back street of another back street at Shibuya. The walk there was confusing and I do not remember where it is anymore lol. The whole place is run by women - chef, staff, everyone. Very interesting. Rarely see female chefs.

The place was loud, noisy and friendly. And food was good. Chicken gizzard, chicken hearts (!), and chicken ass (!!) yakitori. Raw fish seared by blowtorch. And eel rice in a stone bowl (tastes fantastic when the green tea was added in later). And a lot of plum sake for me. :p

For the finale, the lights were dimmed and a BIG loud announcement was made about Au Yong’s birthday (in japanese - so we both don’t know exactly everything they said) lol. Followed by a dance to an anime song by the entire staff (all cooking paused), and then a birthday song and a nice birthday ice cream with candles for him. It was a good thing he wasn’t made to give a speech (like what they do in TGI Fridays restaurants back home). The fun thing was that the entire restaurant joined in, cheered, clapped, and was very sporting (unlike at home where everyone will just mind their own business and not join in).

And here’s one for the album. wooo~

Went to try Okinawa cuisine for dinner yesterday on our friend Yuri’s recommendation. It’s really a fantastic place.

The restaurant is a little place right next to Ogikubo train station. Everything in there is Okinawan - the food, drinks, music, and even sand. haha. Ok, I doubt they actually brought the sand over, but I thought it was a cute setting, putting the tables on sand like we’re eating at the beach. :p

Okinawa food is supposed to be very healthy (people on that island live very long), and different from the usual japanese food. I thought this is definitely the most interesting thing of all:

It’s our salad. When I opened the box, there was like dry ice floating out, and the green little itty bitty things on top looked like fish roes to me. Turns out, they’re actually a type of vegetable/plant. Seaweed, that is. O_o Definitely one of the coolest thing I’ve seen so far. haha.

It looks like mini fish roe (on a stem), and when you eat it, it feels a bit like the tiny fish roe texture, but tastes totally different, un-fish-like, but also un-seaweed-like. But definitely tastes gooooood. yum.