Oyakodon and Macaron

On our way to the National Arts Center on Thursday, we stopped in Midtown first for some lunch. We've had a list of "to eat" food items before leaving on Tuesday. So in Midtown we were able to check off oyakodon (good and cheap 800 yen lunch set!). And we just so happened to wander into a Sadaharu Aoki shop for macarons to bring back for dessert with Carlos's mom (black sesame, yuzu, cassis, and genmaicha).

This ridiculously large structure (you can see it in the above picture at the left too) is solely for umbrellas.

Art students' graduation exhibition 

Bethany noted that the things above Carlos's head are supposed to be smashed parakeets. Carlos told her they were real. Bethany believed him. For a second.

How come I have to fight with that little gold creature for the burger this time?

Cafe on top of the upside down cone inside National Art Center

 

Electric Town

[Finishing up the Tokyo portion in even colder Boston now...as we battle jetlag with Simba...]

Bethany has been bugging Carlos about going to Akihabara the past couple times in Tokyo--just so she can see yet another "famous" neighborhood here. Carlos has been avoiding it because of the maid cafes and cosplay people. We finally made it there on Wednesday. Electronics aren't Bethany's thing so even though she was glad to see a new neighborhood, if you ask what her favorite part of it was, her answer is appropriate: a warm choco cro from St. Marc Cafe in the Yodobashi Building (ie, absolutely nothing to do with Akihabara, says Carlos).

Sigh. Another plate of food I can't eat. Sushi near the Toritsudaigaku station.

 

A New Granddaughter

We have an announcement! Mari and Miguel have found out they have not just two, but THREE granddaughters!!!! 

At the Chinese restaurant where we joined Carlos's mom for lunch, Carlos's mom introduced her son, his wife, and granddaughter. The owner looked really confused. He looked back and forth from Carlos to Bethany, and then looked at the stroller too. Suddenly we find out that the owner thought Bethany was the granddaughter and he wondered where the wife was! The owner erupted in a fit of laughter and tried to make one of the waiters guess Bethany's age. More laughter and disbelief ensued. Now there's a Chinese restaurant in Tokyo where everyone will remember that Bethany is 32. [Carlos and his mom think that the owner thought that Bethany was Cater's daughter and not Carlos's.  Bethany thinks they are making that up.]

The owner of the restaurant happily got into a photo with the granddaughter and her grandmother! When he found out that Bethany is Chinese, he went back to the kitchen to make sure more cha xiu was added to the rice, which he dubbed Yoga no cha han (Yoga's fried rice--Yoga is the name of the neighborhood).

And we went to the Imperial Palace's East Gardens too on Tuesday.

Fancy hotels and department stores are perfect places to feed Simba

Happy Food Days

We were pretty happy with our Omotesando jaunt on Monday. We ate at a new (for us) old school tonkatsu restaurant called Maisen that we will totally incorporate into our food rotation when we're back in Tokyo again. Lunch sets are less than 1000 yen. And since we were in Omotesando, we again visited Omotesando Koffee.

Maisen felt like old Japan

Nicely fried, light katsu

Katsu sando to go (for dessert)!

Unfortunately the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art is closed on Mondays but its art and design bookstore "On Sundays" was open!

This old Japanese house is now a familiar stop now for us in Omotesando. We promise Simba is in the baby car.

Domesticity in Tokyo

Nothing says "domestic" more than a Costco trip! Costco has been open for about five years here and sometimes the line for cars to park can take up to an hour!! After visiting Carlos's grandparents, we went with Carlos's mom to Costco. Even with no wait to park the car, Costco was ridiculously crowded--clearly the place to be. We were happy to try all the free samples (free cans of a new Kirin beer!). And buy lots of Pampers, which in Japan is synonymous with diapers.

Some Costco products in Tokyo:

Seafood pizza next to huge platters of sushi

Squid on the left, ikura on the right

Yaki onigiri and red bean desserts in the freezers

Shoveling Out

In a city that doesn't normally deal with snow, there are no plows. When Bethany went out to help shovel last Saturday, she found Carlos shoveling in the middle of the street. And she used a dustpan to shovel (as did many others in Tokyo). 

In Karuizawa, where we were at the end of last year, approximately 40 trucks were stuck for days on the highway. The neighbors began bringing the drivers onigiri and other food.

Meanwhile near the center of Tokyo, Carlos's grandmother matched her grandson shovel for shovel and cleared both her driveway and the street in front of it.

Dustpan snow removal

Carlos was very proud of the snow mound he made--almost Bethany's height!

Snow Day

We seem to have escaped a ridiculously snowy winter on the East Coast so Mother Nature thought it would dump snow on Tokyo. The weather people said 5cm. It ended up being 28cm. Some weatherman on TV previously apologized for predicting rain when it didn't rain. I wonder how many gomennasais they uttered this time.

Before the snow got too bad last Friday, we decided to get Ippudo for lunch. We bundled up Simba and set out through Komazawa Koen...only to find Ippudo in the dark. The electricity had gone off just a few minutes before! The cooks invited us in for tea as they called the electric company. One woman got to leave without paying because the register wouldn't open. The conversation the cook was having with the electricity company seemed pretty bleak though and we began to bundle Simba up. But then suddenly the lights started flickering!! And the snow day trek was a success cause we got ramen and cha han for lunch!

We went to Tapas Tapas the day before the snow so we could hibernate

View from the second floor window

Ready for snow! Ready for Ippudo!

Snow wasn't sticking yet but very few people were in the park.

Gomennasai!! Black out at Ippudo!

No ramen for us??

Happy customers, although we couldn't get gyoza because the black out cooled the pans too much!

Snow is coming down after Ippudo

Gotta get a plow accessory for the "baby car"

Simba's first snowstorm

A Tale of Two Views at Breakfast

The change in weather from humid Singapore to snowy Tokyo has been drastic.

Here's our typical view at breakfast in Singapore:

And here's what greeted us in Tokyo once we got back:

Singapore River Telescope

We're writing about our last day in Singapore a week later in Tokyo. In the snow. So we write longingly for the heat now.

We started off the day last Monday with yummy fishball noodles. And then followed that up with nasi lemak for lunch from the hawker center. Yee Jerng and Yee Ma got so much good food for us. Some of our favorites were the fishball noodles and the bak kut teh. Anyways, I digress.

On our last day in Singapore, we left Simba with Yee Ma and went to Raffles Hotel and the Tim Ip exhibit at the Esplanade. We had already decided we would take a water taxi or "bum boat" back from the Esplanade to Robertson Quay (S$3). Having previously tried to get on this water taxi, we knew to allot at least 1.5 hours to get back (despite being able to walk that distance in less time). Here is our story:

2:05pm

Ticket Man (TM): It will be twenty minutes for the boat to come.

B: Okay, so I should be back here in fifteen minutes right? Cause twenty minutes is approximate?

TM: Mmmmmmm. No you should stay here. Cause I don't know when the boat is coming.

B: Okay...do you know how long it takes the boat to get from here to Robertson Quay?

TM: Mmmm. I don't know.

Since it was a beautiful day and we had allotted a good chunk of time to get back, we figured we would just chill next to the river and enjoy the heat and sunshine (in the shade of course). A good thirty minutes pass.

2:35pm

C: I think the ticket guy is looking for our boat with a telescope.

B: No he's not. I can see the Merlion [where the boats are coming from].

C: I think he is. He stuck the telescope out of his ticket booth door.

B: Ohmygod I think you're right. [Bursts out laughing. Can't stop laughing]

2:38pm

B: Telescope!! [Can't stop laughing]

2:45pm (We gave ourselves this time as a limit to catch a cab back if the boat hadn't come yet so B gets up to ask for our money back, but before she can say anything...)

TM: Wait, wait, wait. I think your boat is coming!

B: Oh really? Is that it? [Points to approaching boat]

TM (aka Telescope Man): [Sticks telescope out through door crack again] Yes, yes, I think it is.

Turns out these boats don't have any sort of schedule. Telescope Man has asked his bosses why the boats have no schedule and he gets no answer so he gave up. As we passed Clarke Quay in the boat, we watched a woman with a stroller walking at the same pace as our boat. We heard our boat drivers trying to get in touch with someone over walkie talkie and then they gave up, remarking to each other: "I think he's sleeping." We got back to Robertson Quay by 3:15pm and to Simba by 3:30pm. All in all a relaxing and entertaining boat ride down the Singapore River.

Yee Ma called this nasi lemak a rich man's version of a poor man's meal

Thanks for letting me stay in the air conditioning today

Raffles Hotel is so fancy laaaaaaa!

Waiting for our boat

Telescope Man. He stepped aside when Carlos went to take a picture, but Bethany insisted Telescope Man get in the picture with her. Our boat is in the background.

How was your nap, sir??