Healthy Living in Singapore

OSAKA/ TOKYO AUTUMN ITINERARY 2014: Shopping haul

Back in Singapore and sorting through all my gifts for people (and myself!). Too many to go through and most are food anyway, so I’m just going to pick a few of the ones I really like! 😀

The Arinco roll cooler bag I now use to bring my lunch out. Haha

Farmers’ Market finds- high quality green tea leaves and sesame flakes for salad toppings. It was really cool because they were pressing the sesame with a really old school machine right at the farmer’s market itself!

Assorted snacks from Family mart because I really like these panda faces.

Tea strainers I bought from Tokyu Hands. Really sad because the packaging had a picture of METAL tea strainers and I bought it thinking it was metal but they turned out to be plastic!

I really like buying Cure- Natural Aqua Gel for my friends from Japan because they love it and it’s more than half priced in Japan. Even comes with a free gift! How nice 😀

My favourite buys from Loft. A new wooden lunchbox and a new smoothie/ soup cup! So pretty aren’t they 😀

I’m a huge fan of Frixon pens because I like that they are erasable so I can use them for my organizer and make plans without worrying about having to cancel and make a mess.

Loads of stickers for my organizer. I like Sumikko Gurashi if you can’t tell. Haha.

This is the next big thing in Japan- the Ohyama Method Body Make Pad Premium Pro- apparently it helps you to ‘burn fat’ and straighten your posture by pressing a specific accupoint in your toe. I came to know about it because my friend wanted me to get one for her. I’m not sure if it’s working for her but if you are interested, I can help you ask her. Haha. It’s not cheap though. It’s almost $30SGD I think. They even have books published on this but my Japanese is so poor I gave up after struggling through the first page. I only could make it past the fact that apparently it lengthens some sort of tendon and this increases blood circulation or flow or something. Whatever it is, use these as tools okay! Nothing will ever be better than a healthy mindset, a good diet and some exercise! 😀

My new goal in 2015 is not to use any products with little micro beads in them because they pollute the waters and harm the organisms living in them. But my skin needs some exfoliating sometimes so I’m going to do it the old fashioned way HAHA. I actually bought 2 because I heard dry brushing is good for the body too but so far, I’ve been too lazy to try. The metal curve rod though, is great after a day of hunching over the computer! 😀

Bento cookbooks for lunchbox inspiration! 😀 I’ll modify it to suit the ingredients we can find in Singapore, then share it with you guys! 😀

And lastly, the cleansing oil I purchased from ‘Three’ cosmetics in Aoyama!

Phew! I am FINALLY done with the Japan trip! YAY!

Hope everything has been helpful! Do email me if you need any other sort of information! 😀

xx.

OSAKA/ TOKYO AUTUMN ITINERARY 2014: DAY 10: Last day! Healthy food at Revive Kitchen in Aoyama!

We had one last meal in Tokyo before heading to the airport and I was so sick of heavy eating already that I nagged persuaded my friends to eat at Revive Kitchen. I WAS DYING FOR A GREEN SMOOTHIE, DO YOU KNOW HOW THAT FEELS. Hahahaha!

Kudos to my friends who agreed though not without much skepticism. (These are the same friends I’m proud to announce have now (in 2015) bought their own blenders and are lean mean daily green smoothie chugging machines now too!) YES!

I love plain water. Mhmmmmm.

A green smoothie, FINALLY, FINALLY. *weeps tears of joy.

We are after all, still on holiday. Haha. Gluten free treats.

 
I dislike raw, cold soups and tomatoes so this gazpacho was not to my fancy AT ALL. 

French toasts and lamb cutlets! Really unique!

To be honest, I’d say there were some hits and misses. I enjoyed the lamb coins with the bread, surprisingly, but the gluten free pancakes were strange and starchy. The best was the green smoothie but overall it was a decent meal and my friends actually enjoyed it though I think at that point I would have been happy just eating grass and a couple of bananas. Haha. I would go there again because I think the ambiance is nice and if I’m desperate for a lighter, fresher meal and crunched for time. If not for the time constraint, I would probably just buy all the amazing fruits in the supermarket and have a massively delightful fruit feast at home. 😀

And with that, it marks the end of my Osaka/ Tokyo trip. Would I be back in Japan again this year? You betcha. D and I have been making places to go back for our honeymoon in December but this time, we’ll be going to check out the onsens and ryokans! If you have any recommendation for any honeymoon- worthy ones; we are looking for private onsens with a view of snow capped mountains, then please mail me or drop a comment! 😀

Till then,

stay happy and healthy!

xx

OSAKA/ TOKYO AUTUMN ITINERARY 2014: DAY 9: Tokyo: Midori Sushi, Aoyama- healthy, fresh food in Japan & a Farmer’s Market!

It’s the second last day of our stay in Tokyo! We decided to split up today as the girls wanted to wander and the boys wanted to do their own things like take a nap and exercise or go to the Museum of Natural History. which according to the Geographer in the group, is a fantastic place.

But before that! Breakfast as always! Today we wander into Mark City at Shibuya!

My fiance would trade me for bread loves bread

I love bakeries in Tokyo even though I’m not a fan of bread (I think they dissolve into a strange and horrible paste in my mouth) but I think Jap bread is really good!

The only reason why we ended up there was because we were starving and the queue to where we REALLY wanted to go was SO LONG.

Midori sushi, along with Joel Robuchon, is my Must Visit every time I go visit Japan. To be honest, I think only the Aburi Sushi platter is worth eating but my friends seem to like the rest. So okay 😀

OH YES.

I prefer the Ginza outlet but Mark City was the closest to us and the most convenient to get to (It was literally at the foot of our accommodation)

After breakfast (number 2), the boys went off to do their own thing while the girls FINALLY had some time to slow down and just wander (and exclaim over cute, impractical things haha)

One stop away from Shibuya is Aoyama and if you’ve never been to Aoyama, eschewing it for the big names like Shibuya and Shinjuku, then YOU MUST GO VISIT THE PLACE. Especially if you are just visiting Tokyo with a girlfriend and you (like me) dislike partying night life scenes and the like, then Aoyama would be PERFECT for you. If Shibuya and Harajuku is representative of the Tokyo teen blazing through fashion and rock, then Aoyama is the Tokyo girl grown up with a newfound appreciation of the slower, finer things in life like good healthy food, quality makeup and a more minimalist refined take on life.

Our first stop was to Japanese “Three” which is a Japanese cosmetics brand that I like for their very minimalist yet classy branding. I’m not into make up or clothes so I tend not to be too adventurous in this aspect. When I do find products I like, I just always kinda stick to them especially if I feel they are not harsh or filled with a bunch of chemical junk.

I ended up helping friends purchase some items and getting a bottle of makeup remover which I’ll show you in another post! I am in love with the oil. It just smells SO good and works so well but I have this sinking feeling if I just used normal coconut/ olive oil it would have the same results. Haha.

Next to ‘Three’ cosmetics is Revive Kitchen! Tell me more about it in the next post! 😀 If you are searching for healthy food in Tokyo like green smoothies, gluten free pancakes etc, then Revive kitchen is definitely for you!

Next,  a walk down Aoyama.

Puppies!

Daylesford is another organic cafe/ supermarket. I told you Aoyama is heaven for people like me! Haha.

And just right next door is a cold pressed juice/ smoothie place! And they do green juice/ smoothies too! And even hot smoothies! Which is really rare in Singapore! (Some people believe those with impaired digestions should drink their drinks warms to aid digestion!)

Then we stumbled upon a farmer’s market YAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!

Everything was so gorgeous and beautiful and I bought whatever I could bring back to SG but what I really really wanted to buy were all the fruits and veggies! Look at the radish!!!! And only $2 for that beauty! UGH!

It was a lovely lovely time just walking from Aoyama back to Shibuya to meet the boys.

Next is Shabu Shabu time! 

Was decent enough I guess though definitely not as high grade as the best Japan can offer. But for the price it was okay. By this time I was really sick of heavy food already so this dish of udon, veg and meat was a welcome relief! 😀

OSAKA/ TOKYO AUTUMN ITINERARY 2014: DAY 8: Joel Robuchon Roppongi/ HARBS/ Freshness Burger

We are back at Joel Robuchon at Roppongi today! A trip to Tokyo is never complete without a lunch at my favourite restaurant!

We got the Menu of the day with the Wagu beef flank steak. Same as always but with different appetizers. I’ve been to Joel Robuchon a couple of times now but I think THIS TIME, the man (or his chef) has really outdone himself. This meal was out of this world fantastic. There was such mastery over the ingredients and such creativity, it was truly an enjoyable experience.

 
Bet this picture looks familiar. Always ask for the Brioche when you get there! It’s not included in the bread basket but it’s the BEST.

Layered smoke salmon with lime scented cream. THIS was the prelude of many happy things to come. I can’t even describe this. It was.. it is.. (insert adjective)

If I thought the smoked salmon couldn’t be outdone, Joel Robuchon proved me wrong yet again. The mushroom and prawn with parsley coulis was so smooth and creamy with the crunch of a translucent hint still fragrant with a slight smokiness. This was so so so good and so pretty.

This was Daniels’ main which was excellent of course but …

my beef flank and mash is unbeatable!

Palate cleanser before dessert. I dislike sour items so I didn’t touch this.

How gorgeous is this?! The plate is lovingly and painstaking coated in CHOCOLATE. Like real chocolate! I thought it was the design of the plate and uh… dripped water on it causing it to smudge :/ I felt so bad! But can we all just please take a moment to appreciate just finesse?!

And that was the end of a very, very satisfying lunch. 😀

For the rest of the day, we had no other agenda except to eat our way through Tokyo and find another Shabu Shabu place. I’ve been to several really good ones but it was near the end of the trip and we were running low on yen so we decided to check out a shabu shabu buffet instead. But first, my crazy friends wanted to go back to harbs (insert pained face. Noooooooooo. I hate cake. )

But Harbs’ green tea is DA BOMB

Although this time I ordered the ‘Wedding’ tea because I’m a Bride to Be (hehheh) and wanted to find out what I was supposed to be feeling. But eh, this just tasted really floral.

Daniel ordered Assam and silly me thought it’d taste … spicy. (Like asam fish! HAHAHAA) But actually, ASSAM tea just means black tea -.-

Everyone had cake while I had the best thing on Harbs’ menu- The prawn sandwich. If you are wandering if we ate all these right after Joel Robuchon, yes we did. Don’t judge. We are growing people. Haha.

Ended the night at Freshness burger. Do you love Freshness burger?! I LOVE THE NUGGETS and THE ONION RINGS. and the FISH BURGER. Everywhere was impossible to get to because it was Halloween so we just sat at Freshness whilst around us sales assistants finishing their last shift went into the fast food joint’s toilet and emerged as a dolled up maid, or maleficent or a nurse and the whole of Shibuya was swarmed with boys and girls dressed as beer bottles and other crazy fun characters. 😀

OSAKA/ TOKYO AUTUMN ITINERARY 2014: DAY 7- TOKYO! Coco Ichibanya/ Asakusa/ Kappabashi/ Tokyo Skytree & the worst meal I’ve had in Tokyo

AHHHHHH!!!!

It’s day 7 in Tokyo and we’re up and well rested after a taxing time the day before. As the sunlight streams into the place, it looks small and cosy instead of dark and dingy and we emerge freshly showered and hungry right into the heart of Shibuya. A hop, skip and jump and we find ourselves right at my favourite place in the whole of Tokyo– the junction where Loft meets Forever 21 (down the road leads to Tokyu Hands and 3 coins) and right infront of us is Coco Ichibanya.

My customized curry plate is shrimp cutlet with eggplant and corn! 😀

Look at the shrimp 😀

We spent the rest of the day wandering Asakusa and taking in the quaint ‘historical’ streets of Tokyo!

T’was was a gorgeously bright and beautiful day 😀

I’d spend a large part of the trip coercing encouraging my fellow companions to visit Kappabashi with me! If you are into food or kitchen ware, you MUST visit kappabashi- dori! It’s AMAZING. I want to live there! Haha

We even found a really industrial- minimalist chic cafe in the heart of all the steel utensils and catering trays!

Really cool because it’s actually an architecture office merged with a cafe!

There banana muffins were the best I’ve EVER had.
(And I’ve had many chocolate banana muffins in my life)

The second floor is full of cool designs and styling.

Back to wandering Kapapbashi after coffee, muffins and ice cream!

Does it not look insanely real?!!!

Fake pumpkin! *gasp!

So many beautiful white tableware for SUCH reasonable prices. When I get my new place, I’m going to come back right here and buy out the place.

Pretty store retailing honey and tea that my friends wanted to buy souvenirs at so I wandered down the road because I caught sight of a…

FRUIT AND VEG STORE!!! Look at the veg! They are just so insanely beautiful and bright and makes you feel so good just LOOKING at them. Imagine how good they’d be for your body! And to be honest, it’s been almost a week of (too) good food and I was longing for something simpler and fresh already. Haha.

After wandering around a little more, I brought my friends to Daikokoya for Tempura because this place is really famous and I wanted my friends to experience it even though I don’t really like it. Hahaha. I like my tempura freshly fried and totally crisp and dry but the ‘traditional’ way of eating it here is soaked in the sauce. It’s still good but I like the crunch of fried food! Haha My friends loved it though so I guess it’s just me. 🙁

By the time we were done with dinner, the sun had set which left us just a little bit of time to wander a little bit more, buy more souvenirs and head to our last stop of the day!

This was really un-yummy. Don’t waste your money on it.

Our last stop for the day is Tokyo Sky Tree! We went there to buy souvenirs coz it’s a haven for it + they have a whole bunch of really cool stores there! One of my favourites is Burrows and Sun which is a Scandinavian- designed store carrying lots of zakka products and other apparels!

There is also a huge grocery store on the top level selling the prettiest looking fruits and veg for really reasonable prices! MAN, if I lived next to such a store!

I recommend buying Tokyo Milk Cheese Factory biscuits as souvenirs! They are yum!

ANOTHER KITCHEN AND HOME APPLIANCE STORE. I LOVEEEEEEEE

Hello strange but cute things. The bookstore there is fun and fantastic too 😀 Totally worth checking out!

Moomin Cafe is there too, if you are into those characters! It was hilarious seeing ‘lonely’ patrons feel not so lonely because they were sitting next to a mega moomin character at their table!

Back at Shibuya we were craving Shabu-shabu so we went in search of one!

I stopped eating 2 mouthfuls into the meal because the soup was clearly just ajinomoto and water and my tastebuds were screaming suicide. This has got to be the worst meal I’ve ever had in Japan. I’m not trying to be racist or anything but this restaurant was clearly run by Chinese nationals and tasted more like a Chinese buffet (and hence catered towards Chinese tastes, perhaps?) rather than the more delicate flavourings I’ve come to associate Japan with. Bleargh. Just thinking about the meal now makes me feel a little sick.. and thirsty. Haha.

It was the night before Halloween so Shibuya was crazy! The roads were packed and everyone was totally dressed up and it wasn’t even Halloween yet! What an opportunity to experience Shibuya during Halloween!

OSAKA/ TOKYO AUTUMN ITINERARY 2014: DAY 6- Of hiccups and other little things.

Day 6!

Today we left Osaka for Tokyo. The first part of our Tokyo
trip was an adventure in itself! For one, we went to the WRONG airport**
in the morning so we had to reschedule our flight and make our way to
other airport, effectively burning up the whole day. Fortunately it was a
very free and easy itinerary so everyone was quite chill about it.
(Super thankful for the best (and most forgiving haha) traveling
companions ever!) Instead of arriving in Tokyo in the morning as
scheduled, we only arrived in the late evening– totally exhausted.
Because my brother no longer stays in Tokyo, we’d booked another airbnb apartment in the heart of Shibuya (great location, really!) but the
house was wayyyyyy smaller than we thought/ could tell from its pics!

So
imagine 4 exhausted travellers turning up at Shibuya, walking past all
the swanky hotels, trudging up love hotel hill (haha!) and reaching our
apartment which was a dingy little place, opening the door only to find
that the place looked like it could hardly fit 2, much less 4 and to my
horror, was dirty beyond belief. 🙁 The floor was so grimy and the
mattresses looked very worn and old 🙁

If there is one
thing I really cannot take, is a dirty sleeping area that I’m not
prepared for. I’m totally cool if I have to sleep in the forest in a
tent and there may be bugs and stuff because at the very least, I’ll be
prepared to rough it out but I certainly didn’t expect to pay good money
and rough it out in Tokyo! I honestly wanted to just forfeit the
payment, pack up and suggest we shift to a hotel nearby. Fortunately for
me, the people that I traveled with aren’t the complaining sort. If
there is a problem, we would fix it. So we put on our Bob the Builder
hats and trudged determinedly to the nearest Don Quixote and bought
cleaning supplies. What an adventure right! I’ve never bought THAT many
cleaning supplies from a store in Tokyo EVER (Whoo! Experience! :D) And
as we put on some loud music and scrubbed away at the floors and shifted
the furniture to make space, I felt my longing to be back at Roppongi
in my brother’s swanky apartment slowly ebb away. By the time we were
done, we’d scrubbed the floor in time to the whole of Taylor Swift’s
album (we are tweens at heart haha), grimaced at the state of the rags
and grinned with satisfaction at the squeaky clean floors. Looking back,
these little hiccups are honestly what makes a trip, a trip and I’m
eternally grateful for grumble-free, super positive traveling companions 🙂

That night, we slept really well. Whether it was from pure exhaustion of the day’s events or from the food induced coma (HAHA), I wouldn’t know. But I like to think that the sleep was sweet because we’d earned it and we really happy that night 🙂

 P.s I’m including the links to the airbnb apartment because I think that if you are a traveller concerned only about location, it still is a great place to stay. To be fair, the apartment owner also refunded our cleaning fees and tried to be as polite and accommodating as possible, so definitely no issues about that.

OSAKA/ TOKYO AUTUMN ITINERARY 2014: DAY 4 (PART II)- What we ate + Best Korean BBQ in Osaka!

Didn’t want to ruin the Nara deer park pics with photos of our dinner because both Nara Deer Park and our dinner deserve their own posts! So here’s what we ate on day 4 (continued) and in my humble opinion, the BEST Korean BBQ in Osaka (disclaimer: I’ve only tried one other HAHAHA)

On the way back from Nara, we stopped by this store selling pork cutlets at the Nara train station and it was SO GOOD. I didn’t take a picture of it because it was GONE SO FAST. I don’t even know the name of the place but it’s a pork cutlet store near the entrance of the Nara station.

Anyway, we make our way back to Namba and because this morning’s Unagi don was SO good, we had MASSIVE cravings for good quality Unagi don so we went in search of a dedicated store selling Unagi. I mean, if a random store sells great unagi, a dedicated store specialising in nothing BUT Unagi must be out of this world right?!

Prices are pretty steep but we really wanted good quality unagi!

Ungai Tamgo! Decent but not crazy wow.

The ultimate unagi set with tempura and other sides! The soup was really good!

Surprisingly, this unagi set wasn’t as good as the humble simple little one we ate that morning from a random store 🙁 I mean it was good but it was … kinda on par with the simple one from that morning. 🙁 (I think my standards are too high in Japan haha) Perhaps it was just an off day for that store that day? We would never know but I left feeling like that money was kinda wasted 🙁

Anyway, we decide to go drown our sorrows in PABLO cheesecake which in my opinion, is also highly overrated. Or maybe it’s just impossible to appreciate a whole quarter of cheesecake each. Hahah. The cheese biscuits were not bad though!

We wander around Dontonburi Shopping District trying to find something appealing (read: hot and filing) to eat for dinner and stumbled upon this crowded little shop with bright red air vents!

Friend is obviously very happy. Haha.

Anyway! The food here is amazing! It’s so good we actually went back TWICE in our 5 days in Osaka! I’ll let the pictures do the talking in a bit but the beef here is of such high quality and the kimchi… it’s my favourite in the world! Watered down bland versions sold in foodcourts in Singapore, I’m looking at you >:( The kimchi here is lovingly coated with the red pepper paste and tastes fantastic on its own or grilled!

Kimchi was so good we ordered another bowl of it!

I know I said I don’t want to go back to Osaka and would prefer to stay in Kyoto but if anything were to draw me back, it’ll be this store!
STAMP OF APPROVAL x 10000000 times indeed! 😀

Osaka/ Tokyo Itinerary Autumn 2014

Another reason for my hiatus was that I was away in Osaka and Tokyo for a week!

I know lots of you guys are planning a trip there as well so hopefully these pictures and suggested itineraries will help in putting your trip together! I also brought back a couple of maps and suggested walks/ guides from the Tourist Bureau in Osaka/ Tokyo which I’ll make available at the end of the entire post on Japan (I’ll be publishing a post a day!)! If you can’t wait till then, just email me and I’ll be happy to scan/ photocopy and email/ mail you the maps and guides!

Here’s an overview of my trip:

Day 1: Flight from Changi Airport to Osaka
Day 2: Osaka Castle and the surrounding area
Day 3: Day trip to Arashiyama Monkey Park + Bamboo groves (Highly recommended!)
Day 4: Day trip to Nara Deer Park (Highly recommended!)
Day 5: Instant Ramen Museum & Osaka Aquarium (no pictures coz I ran out of batt haha)
Day 6: Flight to Tokyo
Day 7: Asakusa + Kappabashi! (Highly recommended if you are crazy over kitchenware like I am!) + Tokyo Sky tree
Day 8: Roppongi (Joel Robuchon)
Day 9: Omotesando + Healthy food/ Cafe in Tokyo!
Day 10: Flight back to Singapore

As you can see, we did more of the ‘touristy’ things in Osaka and in Tokyo we basically just chilled, ATE and wandered which made up for a perfect holiday. Seriously, we ate so much, out of 700+ pictures we took, I think 600+ were food photos. Can’t wait to share though! And can’t wait to share my budget + reset meal plan once I came back as well. Really enjoyed for one week and came back to Singapore to EAT GRASS. Haha! NO REGRETS though! Although I think if I ever do go back to Japan, I’ll skip Osaka entirely and spend a week in Kyoto. Kyoto is gorgeous and beautiful and I’m totally bummed I didn’t spend more time there.

xx

p.s if you are looking for more inspiration for your Japan trip, click the here to read last year’s trips to Japan! Hope it helps! 😀

See you tmr! <3

Tokyo Autumn Trip 2013: Shibuya + Shopping Haul

Last day in Tokyo! T.T

No pictures coz I spent the whole day in Loft and Tokyu Hands. Happiness!!!

This is how my poor boyfriend looked like at the end of the night HAHAHA

This may be totally out of point but I REALLY REALLY wanted to buy this totally impractical label maker. IT PRINTS ON RIBBONS! How cool is that?! And comes in the prettiest of pastel pink.


I didn’t buy it though and 1 year later, I’m STILL thinking about it.
Man, my list of things I want to get in Tokyo is every growing. Oh by
the way, if you guys want anything (SMALL!) from Tokyo (I’ll be going in
Nov), drop me an email or comment. I really wouldn’t mind getting it
for you if it’s convenient. Maybe I’ll buy some little stuff (my
favourite sporks maybe?) and do a giveaway with them or something then
you can share my Japan joy as well! Haha

My current list is just growing and growing meh. I am dying to buy the Coharu Washi Tape Printer but it’s so impractical. Do you guys have the same problem? I always have such long shopping lists before I go somewhere but when I get there, I just can’t bring myself to spend on the stuff. Haha.

Ending off the night with Freshness Burger.


I love the nuggets! And they have spam burger! I LOVE LOVE LOVE the onion rings!

At Narita airport the next day, my boyfriend was using MY cat to chat up pretty retail staff at the airport. Haha, okay no, not really. D takes pains to make sure I always feel like his one and only so I mustn’t joke about such things. Hehheh. In actual fact,  he was wheeling my cat around while I was looking at duty free and all the sales assistants were gushing over the cat and saying it was so kawaii. He did look very pleased though. Like people fawning over his son! -.-

Airport food is surprisingly good. Only at Narita Aiport (and Hongkong Airport!). Haha.

and here’s some of the stuff I bought from the trip! I bought heaps of chocolate, snacks and other souvenirs as well but no pictures because they are gifts!

Muji mini segmented lunchbox | Corn scraper (doesn’t really work 🙁 | Seaweed stamp punchers! |
Furry Cony pouch that my boyfriend insisted we get hurhur |
THE BEST FOLDABLE SPORK IN THE WORLD | Organizer stickers from Loft & Tokyu Hands | Rice Molds | Onigiri case ( I use it to put granola HAHA |
Apple slicer ( Either I don’t know how to use it properly or it doesn’t work) |
SUPER DUPER CHEAP SHU UEMURA eyelash curler | Zojirushi thermal bottle (less than $30) | Laneige water sleeping pack from Changi Airport’s duty free

Geez, you guys made it through all that garble. Well done!

And that sums up my Tokyo Autumn Trip in 2013! Tokyo Autumn 2014, here we go! 😀

Till next time,

xx

Tokyo Autumn Trip 2013: Tsukiji | Garden Walks

We were supposed to all go to Tsukiji Fish Market today. Unfortunately, a friend was feeling unwell so d and I left to just take a stroll and wander.

 
 I don’t know how Japanese bakeries do it but their breads are always so soft and amazing. My favourite is their chocolate chip bread which is this amazing chocolate bread with SQUARES of chocolate in them. Don’t eat it on the spot after buying it though. Bring it home and toast it a little. The bread gets warm and slightly crispy and the squares of chocolate transform into these little pieces of gooey melty heaven. Mhmm. 
  
Another favourite place of mine in Tokyo is Ootoya Restaurant. I’ve tried it’s outlets in Singapore and it’s TOTALLY not the same. For one, the Singapore branches don’t sell my favourite dessert (picture top right) which is basically FRIED Hokkaido milk bread with matcha ice cream. It sounds terrible like that (think:oily and gross) but it isn’t! The breadsticks are crisp on the outside and soft and fluffy inside and not greasy at all . I also ordered a salad although we were just looking for dessert coz as healthy as Japanese food is made out to be, that was my first (and only) bowl of greens I had in my 9 days there. Haha
We decided to stroll down the street near Marunouchi Station which is kinda like Singapore’s Shenton Way- lots of government/parliament buildings etc and it was lovely to be able to be tourists and meander slowly, admiring the turn of the autumn colours whilst all these Important People in Black Suits hurried down the train and walked Very Fast to their office before 9am.

Tokyo is full of zen gardens and the weather is great for walking and admiring. It was nice to just leave the hustle and bustle of sightseeing and just wander with a loved talking about everything and nothing at all 🙂

We headed for Tsukiji next because d had never been there and I was excited to show him but it turned out to be not much because everyone was out in full force (and the inner markets were all closed and cleaning up already) and we ended up having really sucky sushi because  I refused to wait 3 hours for sushi at the more ‘famous’ places. WE ARE IN TOKYO!! There is AMAZING sushi EVERYWHERE!

I honestly think that out of 254357353459 stalls in Tsukiji where you can have sushi possibly only 1 or 2 would have not-so-nice sushi. And as luck would have it, we had not very nice sushi. Hur. I’ve been to Tsukiji 4 times now and each time, none of the sushi places have ever served me anything less than fresh and spectacular. I’m not sure if it was a one off incident but the sushi tasted like the kind you can buy at the supermarket. Rice was cold and hard and the fish was rubbery and not fresh at all 🙁 It was a total bummer because I was really looking to The Best Sushi Ever at Tsukiji! On a brighter notes, the miso soup was super yummy and presentation was not bad, haha.

Hello crab with with long legs. You don’t look very meaty.

Lucky Tsukiji is filled with more than just sushi! If you go, do take the time to wander and try the beef bowls, the oden and lots of little stalls selling interesting things. I really like tamagoyaki so I always eat this when I am there 🙂

I know of friends who went to Tsukiji super excited to eat sushi there and after touring the markets, couldn’t bring themselves to eat anymore fish. So if you are squeamish, you might want to head straight for sushi first! The next time I go, I will probably revisit the ones that are not bad or I might, just might be totally Singaporean and go queue for Sushi Daiwa. MAYBE 😉

Till next time,

xx