Fabulous Japan – Day Two – Sushi at Sushi Dae

Dear Readers,

Yes I am still in Hong Kong, but I need a break from all this crazy P.A.D (Powerfully Amazing Dimwits) stress so I am going to reminisce about my Fabulous Japan trip with Andrea.

Goodness me, I’m going to take us back to, 4 fridays ago, October 31st 2009. We finished the Tsukiji Market and headed down these crazy lanes. There are no “RESTAURANT HERE” signs, so again we had to ask the locals where the restaurants were. THANK GOODNESS FOR ANDREA’s PHRASE BOOK!

Andrea: Sushi Dae, doko desku?

 Man: directions in japanese, but communicated us with hands and he drew out a map for us

Andrea: Domo arigato (in a very Portugese tone)

Me: Arigato gozyamase!! (in an overly exaggerating Japanese TV game show tone)

When we got to the food lane, there were basically 2 queues. One restaurant was called Sushi Dae Wo, and one was called Sushi Dae. The edition of the Lonely Planet that Andrea was holding told us to go to Sushi Dae, so as genuine tourist, we followed Lonely Planet and went to Sushi Dae. (Lonely Planet charges restaurants for advertisements and shameless plugs)

Sushi Dae

Imagine that it is 17 degrees (I’m FREEZING..), and we are all huddled in a line, not to go into a club, but to have 10 pieces of Sushi at 8 in the morning. 

The restaurant was approximately 5 people in width, so they made us queue in an accordion fashion. When we first reached the line, I spotted a quite good looking and French looking guy, and I said, “Andrea, there is a good looking guy! let’s see if we get to speak to him!” hahah, I bet you 5$ that he heard me. Oh well.

Turns out that he was Dutch, and travelled throughout Japan for the past 5 weeks, learning Japanese and absorbing the culture, so we learnt quite a lot from him. And I WANTED to take his photo to show Heather, but he didn’t want to take a photo with Andrea, so later on, I super stealth-ly took a photo of him eating Sushi. (Outside-looking-in perspective)

After 1 hour we finally were given 2 seats right at the corner, a window seat. Our chef was super friendly and smiley, he spoke English, Japanese (obviously) and CANTONESE! Amazing lor!

We were smart, we ordered 1 big set, and 1 small set to share, total came to around, 6,000 Yen. For every sushi he laid out in front of us, he would say, SAUCE, or NO SAUCE. haha. 

The sushi was really F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S FABULOUS!! I’ve never had such fresh sushi before, the fish really melts in your mouth! The only sushi I didn’t like was a sardine sushi (eee..) I went exotic and ate Sea Urchin, and all the while Andrea and I are snapping photos, making videos, and you could see the people outside looking at us. Haha hilarious.

During the course of the meal, we heard a CHOP SLAM of the chopping knife..then the chef put a piece of sushi in front of Andrea, and very animately said “ITS ALIVE!!!!!!!” (a bit like frankenstein’s mad scientist)

We took a look at what was in front of  Andrea, it was a squishy thing that curled back, SLURP!!

I was cheering Andrea to go ahead and try it, and she just looked at me and said, oh please Stacy can you have it. So here I am eating Live Shell Crab

 

The texture was just like squid, but the taste was a bit like hmm the seasoned fresh seaweed, that usually comes as an appetitizer in Japanese sushi restaurants. Yummy!

Then came Andrea’s adventurous turn. IKURA – which are HUGE salmon roes – the size of a…5mg pill. And the funniest thing is that it was pure salmon roe, no rice!! haha, he gave it to Andrea, and said “3 months!”

..??? What? during that moment we were like, woah…this salmon egg is 3 months old…then on the train afterwards we just looked at eachother and said again, what??? 3 months old? Aren’t they huge fish by then?

Something got lost in translation. But bravo to her for having it. 

Thus concludes our Sushi and Sushi Dae story, if you ask me, I would go to Sushi Dae Wo instead because the queue moved SO MUCH FASTER!! and make sure you get there before 2pm because that’s when they close.

I’m typing with Doug’s computer so I can’t add any photos to this entry.

Until next time,
Stacy

For photos:

 http://picasaweb.google.com/skmkh2002/FabulousJapan2008#

Stranded in Hong Kong

Dear Readers,

My final hurrah-vacation week was last week in HK. From November 22nd – 27th, but guess what, I am STILL HERE because of the FREAKING RETARDED PAD party!

I will blog about my opinion about their ridiculous protest tomorrow morning, if I start typing now, I will be too hyped up and won’t be able to sleep.

My family is safe and sound, and Daddy and I have prolonged our stay INDEFINITELY in HK. how scary!! We hope to come home by Sunday. 

We are living with Doug now, his apartment is awesome. 
I met with Charles and Cat, and I chose my maid of honour dress! yay! So once I reach Bangkok it is serious gym time. 

Alright, speak soon.

Stacy

Fabulous Japan – Day Two – Tsukiji Fish Market

Dear Readers,

When Andrea was planning the itinery, she said, “We’ll wake up at 7am to go see the fish market.”

….

WHAT!!! A fish market!! 7am! and when I said this to Denise, “Can you imagine, 7am??” I will always remember her response, “My dear, not 7am, FOUR THIRRTY!!!”

*faints*

So on Denise’s expert advice, I ended up being the more ridiculous of us two, and told Andrea that we had to head out at 6am.

The journey getting to the fish market itself was quite amazing. Andrea and I were superstars. On our own bought what we thought were 2 day Tokyo underground passes – Pasmo – only to realise that it is a simple top up card, similar to HK’s Octopus card, Singapore’s  EZ Link and London’s Oyster card. (Fabulous!)

So we reached Shinjuku Station (a 5 minute walk from our hotel) at 630-ish, and it took us roughly 25 minutes to find the proper Shinjuku station to go to Tsukiji. That sentence probably seems like it makes no sense. But in Tokyo, anything is possible. It makes sense.

Because, say there is one station, and this station is an interchanging station, the Tokyo subway system doesn’t provide easy interchanges. You as the commuter have to travel up down and around a pocket full of posies. Oh wait to illustrate, check this out Tokyo Underground Transit Map

So at our station Shinjuku, Andrea and I needed to go on the Marunouchi line but our hotel was close to the Oedo line. Oh wait, as I type this out, I finally get it. The big font letters like, SHINJUKU is the area, so different lines are placed in different parts of that area, and if by chance you can interchange in the same location then you are lucky! Phew! I wish I made that revelation earlier.

To say it simply – the Tokyo Subway is very confusing.

So it was bright early in the morning, Andrea was enthusiastic about talking to people and asking for directions. With her blue small phrasebook, she asked “Marunouchi line (she had the word for it, i cant recall now) doko desku?”  The station manager was nice, pointed us towards the North, we walked there and up a flight of stairs, realised we were walking back the hotel way, U-turned walked down the same flight of stairs, asked another Uncle and he directed us West, we walked straight, didn’t work out, then we asked a tourist couple, who were very nice, told us it was out of the Oedo station and a 5 minute walk. Unclear instructions, didn’t know where to go, then we asked another man, and this man was SO SWEET, he walked us down a small flight of stairs and pointed the path.

All in all, like I said, it took us 30 minutes to get from Shinjuku station to Shinjuku station. And within 15 minutes we were at Tsukiji Fish Market.

What can I say. It was a fish market, there were fish, and lorries and trolleys and wet floors. Coming from Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore, I can openly say, I don’t see the big deal about it. Maybe this is similar to when my Singapore friends come and they say they must go to BIG C (a low grade low cost grocery store in Thailand) I have such a laugh when I look back at our fish market photos. We are taking photos of dead fish, posing with dead fish, its quite hilarious. I just can’t believe it is an actual tourist attraction.

Some points on Tsukiji Market,

1. the vendors are conducting their business, so they must feel a bit

(-.-) <-thats a face

when we tourist come over to snap photos of their livelihood, especially when they don’t profit from it. You don’t see any of us buying 100grams of fresh octopus.

2. The drivers of the trolleys, and the trucks (basically motorised equipment) are either really angry at us tourist and want to run us down, – or they drive like that usually. You have to imagine a lane the width of a king size bed (1.5 meters?) and a trolley zooming by at 20 – 30km/h. Craziness!! All you here is Zooommrr! or Vrrooomr! Easily your foot could be rolled over.

3. The fish market doesn’t have a disgusting fish stench, its quite pleasant actually. Props.

We met these 2 HK girls, who were also scared to death about the trolleys, and when walking to the sushi restaurant, they were standing behind crates not knowing if it was safe to go forward. I was scared too! Trucks driving by, and forklifts driving at 30km/h.

But we survived and made it to Sushi Dae for fresh Sushi!

That’s another entry all together,

Stacy

For photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/skmkh2002/FabulousJapan2008

A good day

Dear Readers,

Soooo I had a really nice day today! Lazy and wonderful. I feel really bad because I am so set on uploading all the Japan and Phuket photos that – (super confession) at work I find myself uploading photos, and filling in all the captions. So tonight, I’m staying uplate – determined to finish everything so that tomorrow can be a dedicated work day.

I’m slowly overcoming my post-Andrea blues. If I keep busy, I don’t notice this huge void in my life.

Today,  I’ve had alot of downtime to sit and think about things, and since she’s visited, I feel really out-of-place in Bangkok.  I love living at HOME, that’s for sure. I don’t regret moving back from Singapore at all.  I am definitely a whole person when I’m with my family. But deep down, I SINCERELY DISLIKE living here. And I’m slowly racking my brain trying to think where our next home could be and how to get us there.

Everything about Bangkok really irks me. Yesterday, Richard was online and promoting all these wonderful restaurants, all the amazing things to do in Bangkok, and my whole attitude was “meh.” Which I do apologise about (SORRY RICHARD! You had the best intentions!) – Sorry for being such a grouch when it comes to Bangkok.

I love my bubble. I love going to work, going to our sports club, going shopping, all those things, but when I have a day where the fact that I actually live in Bangkok is thrown in my face (like when Jeab took Andrea and I to the Loy Kratong festival) I just get really upset.

Anyhoo, here is the link for my Fabulous Japan 2008 Photos!

http://picasaweb.google.com/skmkh2002/FabulousJapan2008#

that should work.

Your resident insomniac,

Stacy

Fabulous Japan – Day One – Reunions

Dear Readers,

Day One – Reunions – Total Distance Walked : 6 Km, Feet-Pain-O-Meter : 1

Andrea and I had it all planned out, that we would meet at the Iris Mural at Narita Airport. Bleh, I wanted to meet her at the arrival gates instead, and so thats what I did. 

Her flight arrived 30 minutes earlier, so I was anxious and was hoping we could do a long but quick hug and rush to the airport bus stop. I waited and waited, saw alot of passengers pass by, tip-toed to see what flight they were on, and finally, I saw Andrea walking out!

It is such a surreal experience to not have seen/met someone for 6 years and everything to be exactly the same. We kept on hugging eachother in disbelief, couldn’t believe we were actually doing this trip together!

We bought our Airport Bus tickets (3,000 Yen *grumble grumble*) went to the internet kiosks to send quick emails to our families (100 Yen for 10 minutes, not too bad). Then we were off.

The bus ride wasn’t that long, but one thing we noticed was that the sun sets so early in Japan! 4:30pm!! I’d go crazy! (and I eventually did) with the weirdness in sunlight hours.

Andrea gave me a friendship ring as a present, its my first ring ever, and it fit nice and snug. I’ve never had a ring before so I felt extremely diva like wearing one. I love it! Thanks Andrea!

When we reached our hotel, I was FREEZING. But this was the first time in 6 years that I experience weather, and with Andrea right next to me, I felt like I was in Canada again! Ah, nostalgic feelings…

Our hotel was super glam, surprisingly. And we were laughing in the hallway in anticipation for how small the room would be like (because we heard stories.) When we opened the door, we found the room not small at all. It was like our room in Tatham Hall (our Dorm at York U)  a quaint shoebox.

We lazed around a bit, then Andrea told me to contact Hiro. So I was calling Hiro, and practicing a practical joke like, “Konchiwa, Kumagai San deska?” (Hello may I speak to Mr. Kumagai),

Phone rings..

Hiro : “Yea.”

Me: “um..hello?”

Hiro: “Yea.”

wow. amazing, so much for my amusing phone manners. I have this visual memory of Hiro, in his winter wear, all geared up, grey, green and black winter jacket, with his rimmed glasses and with a shy posture. We met him downstairs at the lobby at 7, and our baby Hiro (he was our Junior) stood in front of us, still tall and handsome as always, and in a business suit, with a brief case, and sans his lunettes.

I didn’t know it, but our evening started off with a walking tour. Hiro walked everywhere, up and down streets, left right, straight, curved roads. We were just being led through crowds. Then some guy offered me a book, and Hiro told me it was a hostess book, some book that list where I could get a job as a hostess.

EW. Why would I want that book, plus it was quite chunky and weighed 1/4 of a pound, so I was contemplating keeping it or not, and decided to politely leave it in a bicycle basket. Hiro gave me heck for doing that! Why didn’t I want to keep it, it’d be an interesting story, if he was in a foreign country and someone gave him a rare book like that he’d keep it….and that rambled on for at least five minutes. And everywhere we went, Hiro was pointing ”do you see that person, that person is a hostess, that person is a host”

I don’t really get what a host means, does it mean that they ‘entertain’ by sleeping with you…or…

Hiro said that basically they keep you company for drinks, talk to you, play drinking games, basically keep you entertained. Um, isn’t that what friends are for? Do people not have friends to go drinking with, or to go..playing with?

It’s a truly foreign concept for me, because to me, a hostess = a hooker (not entertainer) and to this day I still don’t understand it.

Andrea and I standing in the middle of Shinjuku!

We took the UNDERGROUND transit for the first time, and the system is really mad. There is something called JR, and then something called Subway. Hiro was an awesome teacher, he taught by forcing us to buy the tickets ourselves. We had to go to Shibuya (which i like to pronounce as Shh Boo Yah!, shih bu yah jamaica la la la) but its actually pronounced Shibiya (then why not just spell it like that.) 

 

Hiro and I in Shibiya (aka Shh Boo Yah!)

So went there and round about, he was awesome to show us where the hot night spots were, the only problem was that he walked around without any structure, like up a lane, turn left, down another lane, turn left again…and only when we were in our hotel rooms, Andrea told me that he was trying to show us as much as Tokyo as possible – did I really appreciate what he did. I have to admit, I was a confused follower at the time.

 

Oh, I was really looking forward to a sit down dinner with Hiro to catch up, and so for dinner he walked us down some narrow stairs, and in front of us was a machine. He pressed a few buttons, paid 750 Yen, tada, moved aside and it was my turn.

He took us to eat ramen in booths. When he told me booths, I originally thought, yay like a comfy booths. He used the wrong word. He should had said, cubicles. It was the most bizarre dinner I’ve ever had.

 

 

After another hour of walking, we sat down to have Sake! (yay!) chilled is the only way to have it, and we chose the sake with more ‘kick’. Hmm, being the retired alcoholic, I really dislike drinking, so just sipped it.

One thing I don’t like about Tokyo is that people are allowed to smoke indoors, so its quite difficult to enjoy food, but we managed to. Hiro ordered us some sticky glutinous rice thingy on sticks, they were quite good, but here is where I found out that Andrea doesn’t like sticky texture things, good thing to note at the beginning of a trip.

The three of us after Sake + Supper

We laughed and catched up on old times, so at the end of the day, we got the proper reunion chat that I wanted, so I was really happy about that. And when Hiro dropped us off at the underground, he was the same sweetheart from York, I looked behind after we entered the station, and he was standing there waving! Aw!!!!

I hope it won’t be another 6 years until I see him again!
Stacy

Fabulous Japan – Enroute –

Dear Readers,

Being on the relatively tight budget, I decided to fly to Tokyo using North West Airlines. My seat was 23J – A good sign, Jamie’s birthday. Got on the plane, it was an early morning flight, 7 am? I basically struggled my way to the gate, saw my seat, sat down and slept.

One thing I was quite shocked about was how small the plane was, the layout was 2 3 2, so requesting for the window seat has quite little meaning (because there is no middle seat.)

The seats are quite small, and their reclining function is top class.  Here is a demonstration of the reclining seats (filmed by Andrea, while on our way to Tokyo from Kyoto, please ignore my manly croaking voice)

Anyways, I just couldn’t believe how ghetto the service was. No offense to the airhostess in charge of my area, but she was one hell of a grouchy lady.

Episode 1: Pork, Beef or Nunnery?

So imagine this, its the dinner service, and I hear her snapping at the passengers in front, “PORK or BEEF?” 
Hahahaha – ? Just previous night before, Vick was telling me how she speaks to the passengers, “Excuse me, would you like chicken masala or chicken tikka?”

So I sit up, choose pork (and live to regret it.)  And in front of me, I see alot of orange cloth.

Shit.

For those of you who are unaccustomed to Thai culture. It is a huge social taboo for a woman to sit in a near proximity to a monk. I don’t really understand why it is a social taboo? Maybe we’d seduce them, or maybe they’d be tempted to jump us. (hahahah i’m so horrible.) But anyhoo, the point I was getting to, was that I was assigned a seat BEHIND a monk, and thus this implies another X amount of years of damnation to the nunnery. CURSED TO THE NUNNERY!!! Fabulous!

Episode 2: Football-Pass Croissant

So I went back to sleep, but before doing so, I put on my diva shades (to block the light, and to also act as a Do Not Distrub sign).  And I usually sleep on my side, so I was sleeping towards the window, I hear the stewardess saying, “You want?, You want?”, I turn my body more to centre of my seat, facing now towards the left, I hear another “You want?” and I look up briefly and see a croissant being HURLED towards me!

The most miraculous thing was that I actually CAUGHT the croissant, with like a football pass!!! With my left hand!

Hahahaha!!!!

For people who know me, this was a feat in itself because I am very athletically challenged.

New tag line for North West

I will give the North West Airlines marketing Team new tag lines.

“There is never a boring moment when you fly with  North West Airlines”

or

“There is always a fun story to tell with North West Airlines”

I refuse to claim frequent flyer points with that Airline, it would imply future travels with them.

I’m an Emirates girl now,

Stacy

I gave myself Anthrax again…

Dear Readers,

It is most fitting for an episode like this to happen to me while Andrea is in town. Rewind 7 years to October 2001, at York there were a few anthrax scares. And having a roommate from BC implied that when it was 16 degrees, she’d be HOT and so I woke up one morning (FREEZING) with the windows wide open.

I went over to close the window, and right in front of me, I see a fire truck outside Winters Residence – another Anthrax scare.

And you know how Anthrax spreads – air borne. There I am standing directly in front (around 1 km distance apart..) with the window wide open and the breezy wind on my face.

So naturally, I thought I caught Anthrax. I TOTALLY FREAKED OUT. I called my Aunt, told her the whole thing, asked her if I could please come over to stay during the weekend because I was scared of staying at York. And she politely told me that she and my uncle were busy that weekend. How kind and sweet of her.

It was a particularly long weekend, and all my friends left to go back home. I rushed to see Heather – she was with her bf and mom, just leaving the dorm, and I’m like I HAVE ANTHRAX! I remember her mom giving me the strangest glare. Haha, and when I told Andrea, she said, “you don’t have anthrax!” and kept her distance from me. haha

I developed a high fever, broke out in hives, little bumps all over my face, arms, whole body – extremely itchy. I didn’t have my canadian medicare card yet, but went to see the doctor. 8 minutes for 40CAD.

The appointment went like this…

Me: I think I have anthrax because anthrax dust flew in my window.

Female Doctor: No you don’t have anthrax

Me: Aren’t the symptoms little bumps, because I searched that on the net

Female Doctor: You don’t have anthrax, you would look much different if you did now.

Me: what. are you sure, then what about these things.

Female Doctor : those are self-induced. Let me prescribe you cream…

And there was the fastest money she’s ever made in her life. It sucks to live in Canada without health care.

Anyways that was my 2001 Anthrax story.

My 2008 Anthrax story goes like this…

Thought I had a rash because of the cream, but I’ve been scratching my rash alot (its so ITCHY!) and now my whole arm, neck and legs are itchy, my face too! I think it has something to do with seeing a fortune teller yesterday because..

1. I broke my promise/resolution of 2008.

2. what she told me was/is extremely stressful and disappointing.

So I worried myself into having Anthrax all over again. I can’t believe Andrea is here to share this experience with me yet again!

I need to meditate,

Stacy

Cream goes bad in the sun.

Surin Beach is very very Pretty!

Dear Readers,

Goodness me, I have sooooooooooo many blog entries to catch up on! but my main priority is to finish writing (handwriting) in my travel journal, so I will have to tell you all the amazingly FABULOUS stories at another date.

Andrea is still here, YAY! I realised how lovely it is to laugh ALL THE TIME – serious laughter, not chuckles.

But quickly, I just wanted to warn everyone not to bring moisturiser while on the beach. Because, now my arms are bright tomato red. Not from sun burns – but from CHEMICAL BURNS!!!! I went Island hopping, my arms were a bit red from the sun. That night when I went to sleep I put on my clinque coco butter (because I thought it would be the most moisturising…) But I woke up with so many little bumps on my arms, and my arms are burning, sore and extremely itchy!

Dad looked at them and shook his head, “you overdid your tanning…”

Say what! 

In FACT I was extremely good, I am now just a shade darker. ONE SHADE ONLY!

At first we thought it was because of the sun tanning lotion I bought (lasting golden tan!! SPF TWO – the only way to go) But we noticed that only half my arms were all bumpy and a small part of my neck. These are areas I put the perfumed lotion. (because I forgot to pack my portable Lovely flasks) Mom saved the day yet again, bought me Chamomile lotion (the same lotion you use for chicken pocks) and I feel so much better now. Hurray for Mommy!

Phuket was fabulous! Especially when Rita came, Andrea wasn’t expecting her, and it was so fun having us 3 girls together again, really wished Heather was with us too.

Andrea has 4 more days left here, its a bit difficult juggling time to spend with her, and work. This week they bombarded my schedule like mad! I wish she could stay LONGER and I wish I didn’t need to work at all.

My travel journal beckons, argh, I don’t really like handwriting, because I write chicken scratch. Damn keyboard technology – I am now totally incompetent when it comes to basic handwriting skills!

I type faster than I write and talk, something is seriously wrong with that.

Type soon,

Stacy