Final days in Japan

On Saturday we had our only wet weather for the trip. It started raining as we returned home last night from dinner and did not stop raining until 3pm when we were shortly heading off for the airport. Luckily we'd seen most of the places we wanted to as it was bucketing down. So after checking out we took a taxi to Midtown and watched the only English-language movie that was playing - Stardust.

Then came back to the apartment, picked up the bags and headed off to the airport.

Day 8 – Friday

This morning we went to Akasuka to see the various Shinto shrines and gardens. We also wanted to see the famous Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate), which is the entrance to an old-fashioned market which has been operating for over 200 years. Beyond that is Senso-Ji shrine. Outside the shrine there is a place to check your fortune from a bamboo box of sticks. Unfortunately both Mark and I got ‘Bad Fortune’ comments. There are apparently ‘Great Fortune’, ‘Moderately Good Fortune’, ‘Good Fortune’, Moderately Bad Fortune’ and our one. After trying to enter the Hidden Garden, which was unfortunately closed we walked through the backstreets of Akasuka and found the wholesale food district and bought some fake food for home! They sure pay a lot of fake food. Most of this goes into the windows of restaurants and café’s so you know what you’re ordering. As an example, a full dish of soup with pork, prawns, noodles and vegetables might cost about 150,000 Yen ($150 AUD) or more to put together.

From there we walked to Ueno Park about 2 suburbs along, which has a huge pond which is so covered in tall lotus flowers that you can’t see the water. We found the Shitamachi Museum which was operated by volunteers. The woman at the counter offered to explain the sites to us in English. We saw examples of both the merchants’ houses and the tenement houses that would have existed since the 17^th C in Edo (Tokyo). She spent nearly 45-mins with us and we did another fortune reading and both of us got ‘Good Fortune’ readings. Then we went for a walk through the park and saw some of the other structures including a 5 level temple and various other museum buildings.

For dinner we went to Restaurant Tanga (about 10-mins from the apartment) for a ridiculously expensive Private Dining experience. We had a space that was as nig as our bedroom/ lounge room in the apartment. This would be considered very substantial and luxurious but we saw there was actually another private dining suite that was at least 3 times as big. Everything is very discreet and subtle. We had 2 waiters serving us and they spoke quite good English. Even though we ordered off the ‘a la carte’ menu (entrée, main, dessert for Mark and main, dessert for me), they still served us a palette cleanser (Japanese apple), an amuse guele (fondant of fish & potato and a shot glass of aerated potato and pumpkin mousse). After dessert they also served us 2 trays of petit fours as well, which we struggled to eat. It was all lovely food and Mark thought he’s had the best pork dish of his life. Over all, the quality was great but not as strong as Era Ora in Copenhagen which we ate at two years ago for another stupidly expensive and luxurious meal. At least this time we didn’t get the currency conversion wrong. In fact, the price came in cheaper than we thought. Although I wouldn’t know as I never saw a price, we realized as I was having coffee that my menu had no prices but Mark’s did. At the end, they handed the bill to Mark for about 5-secs under the table top and when he came back with the credit card slip, it was enclosed within a lovely little envelope which had the detailed bill in English to take home.

Even though we’d eaten and drunk more than enough (one glass of lovely French Non Vintage Champagne and a bottle of French Pinot Gris 2002), we took a taxi to Akasaka Grand Prince Hotel for a cocktail at ‘Top of Akasaka’ Cocktail lounge on the 40^th floor. We had a great view and then eventually arrived home about 12.30am and off to bed. Tomorrow’s our last day and then home.

NOV - JAPAN (pt 4)

Day 7 – Thursday

We traveled to Shinjuku today to explore the area. The highlight was the little rabbit warren of six-person bars, there’s about 100 different places in one block and apparently they are about to be torn down to make way for new apartments, larger bars and other new industries. Unfortunately we were there too early to actually go into any of them. This area is in direct contrast to the gleaming towers across the other side of the railway tracks, a mere 5 minute walk away.

Walking around we found a gallery doing a retrospective on Berthe Morisot who was Manet’s wife and a very prolific artist in her own right in the Impressionist time. This nis the gallery of the Japanese company which spent an exorbitant amount purchasing Van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting. They also have a Paul Gauguin and Paul Cezanne pictures in the same highly protected room. It also featured a very interesting Japanese artist who was inspired by Pablo Picasso and actually went to both Spain and France during his younger years before returning to Japan and becoming an Art Professor and curator of a major art award in Japan (which he also won many times). They also featured a black American painter called Grandma Moses who was the 3^rd child of 10 and had 10 children of her own (of which 5 died before the age of 2) and didn’t start painting until she was 58 yrs old. She had her last exhibition around the age of 95 and lived until she was 101! Amazing life and quite good work too.

We saw a few fancy shopping complexes and unlike in Australia – obviously Bulgari, Chanel and Cartier have no problem being represented in 3 or 4 major department stores around town. We went to Isetan and Odakyu (which has its own train line!) and got a few presents and wandered around, just like at home.

Starving, we eventually had a late lunch at ‘Pepper Lunch’ where you go to a vending machine and choose your meal from a very tiny picture. We had quite a nice lunch for only 1500 yen for 2 of us.

We got home in time to change and pick up the tickets for our Baseball Match. The Konami Cup Asia Series 2007 game between the Tokyo Dragons and the South Korea Wyverns. We were two of 20,000 attendants for a very noisy and dramatic match but boy does baseball take a long time! For those of you uninitiated, it has 9 innings each side which take anywhere from 20-30mins per team. Last night’s match took 3h34m to be completed. At one point we thought the Japanese team might not score and be very embarrassed but they got 3 runs. South Korea had a really great match and they got 1 home run and 6 runs all up. The enthusiasm of the fans is amazing and we captured some on video as well. However they seem very polite as each cheer squad who are very loud, only cheer when their team is batting, rather than in Australian Rules and Australian Basketball, you might actually cheer when the other team is going for a goal to put them off! They had musical instruments, those straight balloons that you clap together, clackers and all manner of flags and special signs. It was a whole production. We thought maybe South Korea might only have a token effort but NO, they had a full contingent. We later found out there was a rally in Tokyo by the Koreans about getting full visa/ voting rights if they are long term residents of Japan on Wednesday, so it tied in nicely for a trip across the ocean.

Day 8 – Friday

This morning we went to Akasuka to see the various Shinto shrines and gardens. We also wanted to see the famous Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate), which is the entrance to an old-fashioned market which has been operating for over 200 years. Beyond that is Senso-Ji shrine. Outside the shrine there is a place to check your fortune from a bamboo box of sticks. Unfortunately both Mark and I got ‘Bad Fortune’ comments. There are apparently ‘Great Fortune’, ‘Moderately Good Fortune’, ‘Good Fortune’, Moderately Bad Fortune’ and our one.

After trying to enter the Hidden Garden, which was unfortunately closed we walked through the backstreets of Akasuka and found the wholesale food district and bought some fake food for home! They sure pay a lot of fake food. Most of this goes into the windows of restaurants and café’s so you know what you’re ordering. As an example, a full dish of soup with pork, prawns, noodles and vegetables might cost about 150,000 Yen ($150 AUD) or more to put together.

Mark was also happy as he got to see the Asahi building which was designed by Philippe Starck.

From there we walked to Ueno Park about 2 suburbs along, which has a huge pond which is so covered in tall lotus flowers that you can’t see the water. We found the Shitamachi Museum which was operated by volunteers. The woman at the counter offered to explain the sites to us in English. We saw examples of both the merchants’ houses and the tenement houses that would have existed since the 17^th C in Edo (Tokyo). She spent nearly 45-mins with us and we did another fortune reading and both of us got ‘Good Fortune’ readings. Then we went for a walk through the park and saw some of the other structures including a 5 level temple and various other museum buildings.

For dinner we went to Restaurant Tanga (about 10-mins from the apartment) for a ridiculously expensive Private Dining experience. We had a space that was as nig as our bedroom/ lounge room in the apartment. This would be considered very substantial and luxurious but we saw there was actually another private dining suite that was at least 3 times as big. Everything is very discreet and subtle. We had 2 waiters serving us and they spoke quite good English. Even though we ordered off the ‘a la carte’ menu (entrée, main, dessert for Mark and main, dessert for me), they still served us a palette cleanser (Japanese apple), an amuse guele (fondant of fish & potato and a shot glass of aerated potato and pumpkin mousse). After dessert they also served us 2 trays of petit fours as well, which we struggled to eat. It was all lovely food and Mark thought he’s had the best pork dish of his life. Over all, the quality was great but not as strong as Era Ora in Copenhagen which we ate at two years ago for another stupidly expensive and luxurious meal. At least this time we didn’t get the currency conversion wrong. In fact, the price came in cheaper than we thought. Although I wouldn’t know as I never saw a price, we realized as I was having coffee that my menu had no prices but Mark’s did. At the end, they handed the bill to Mark for about 5-secs under the table top and when he came back with the credit card slip, it was enclosed within a lovely little envelope which had the detailed bill in English to take home.

Even though we’d eaten and drunk more than enough (one glass of lovely French Non Vintage Champagne and a bottle of French Pinot Gris 2002), we took a taxi to Akasaka Grand Prince Hotel for a cocktail at ‘Top of Akasaka’ Cocktail lounge on the 40^th floor. We had a great view and then eventually arrived home about 12.30am and off to bed. Tomorrow’s our last day and then home.

NOV - JAPAN (pt 3)

Day 6 – Wednesday

It’s the Happiest Place on Earth or so says Walt Disney. Mark also agrees. He’s been a fanatic for Disneyland since before I knew him and we had to go to the original Disneyland on our honeymoon, so we couldn’t pass by Tokyo Disney, just for the craziness factor. Having gone to LA Disney twice, Futuroscope (Western France) once and now Tokyo Disney, I’d have to say it’s amazing how many people they had on a random mid-week day in autumn. We had spectacular weather till about 4.30pm when the sun started to go down and get cool. Disneyland here is open until about 10.30pm at night, so we didn’t arrive until 1pm as Mark wanted to see some of the parades which happened at 4pm and 7.45pm. I had to go before the 8.30pm fireworks as I was freezing by then and exhausted.

The Japanese sure love to shop and they are a sucker for crazy toys even for teenagers and adults, which in Australia or America would NEVER wear these things. We saw 20 yr old boys with extremely cool / put together outfits, wearing soft fabric hats with tigger or Donald duck on their heads! Nearly every girl in the place either had a hat (2400 yen) or a headband with ears or something on it. They also had this super-expensive popcorn in a plastic tub with a strap. Normal popcorn cost 260 yen but in the tub/strap (1100 yen) and I saw some parents buying one each for their 3 kids! That’s $33 AUD on popcorn.

We went on most of the rides we wanted to except for Splash Mountain which was closed and a few others. Disneyland has introduced a Fast Pass which is a great idea. For rides like Space Mountain and others which are super popular, you can place your Disney Passport into a time slot and get a return time at which time you can go straight to the top of the line. When we got ours for Space Mountain at 1.40pm, we had to wait until 3.35pm to use it! The program says that you can only have 1 Fast Pass valid at any one time, so when we tried for Buzz Lightyear at about 4pm, the earliest we could get was 8.20pm, needless to say, we didn’t hang around for that one.

After a massive walk from the JR line Tokyo station to the subway line, we eventually got home around 10pm.

Day 5 – Tuesday

Today we weren’t really sure what was the plan but knew we had to go to Ginza as everyone raves about it. We took the train there and whilst we found a few interesting places in the backstreets, we were either there at the wrong time (i.e. day vs night) or at the wrong part of Ginza as we didn’t think it was ‘all that’. Quite by chance we found the Shiseido Headquarters which runs several galleries and other non-cosmetics businesses. They had a dual feature about Women (and empowerment we assume) and Cinema in Japan. We saw a 30-mins Japanese film about 2 girls (maybe 15yrs old) visiting Ginza for the first time and obviously happening upon either an ex-Geisha or a famous lady of some sort who was about 30 yrs old. They discreetly followed her to a geisha fabric supply shop, an haute couture fashion shop and several other destinations around town. However, even though they were in awe of her, they couldn’t approach her. They still had a fabulous day taking lots of happy-snaps.

From Ginza we moved onto Electric Town which is a few more stops on the subway line. Again, not bad and we found several massive Comic book and Anime shops as well as the Tokyo Anime Centre which has only just recently opened. One of the Anime shops had about 4 floors of Japanese Porn comic books – lots of white panties on the covers. Even though we couldn’t understand the content, it certainly looked raunchy from the pictures!

7 plus floors of comic book porn (and there's two buildings of it!)

We had planned to meet up with Phil & Frank from the bus trip yesterday but due to communication breakdown and tiredness, it didn’t happen. Instead Mark and I found a great BBQ place (Kabto) in Ebisu and had some of the best meat we’ve had on the trip. It was a serious private dining, BBQ it yourself on the charcoal grill. I even managed to order some veggies to balance out the meat content. Mark did eat 3 slices of sweet potato and 2 slices of pumpkin. We got back about 10.30pm to find out my sister has had her second child, a girl, about 1 week late. Fingers crossed for the next few days that everything goes alright. At least Mum is there to help out with my other niece.

Day 4 – Monday

Today was the only planned event for the week – a JTB tour organized from Melbourne. It was an all-day affair from Tokyo by bus to Mt Fuji and then onto Hakone (Lake Asi) and finally back to Tokyo via Shinkensen (Bullet train). After waking up early, we met at the ANA Intercontinental Hotel which seemed like international businessman heaven and then took a bus to Mt Fuji (about 2 hrs away including local traffic). From there we got extremely lucky as although it was only 5 degrees there, we had blue skies and sunny patches. At one point the breeze even stopped for a few mins. We stayed there admiring the magnificent view for about 40-mins and naturally taking plenty of snaps. Mt Fuji is 3776m above sea level. We managed to drive up to the 5^th station at 2400m above sea level, from there it’s a 5-7 hr walk to the summit. Apparently in July/August 300,000 people climb to the top!

On the trip we had a real mixed bag of tour members, from a Danish CEO of a shipping company and his son, to a couple of graphic designers from Milwaukee to a family from Sydney, some Spanish, French and Malaysians. We had a really cool Japanese guide who had a set of jokes that he said completely deadpan and very amusing, especially his marriage and mother-in-law ones.

Within the next 3-4 weeks, we would not have been able to travel this high with the bus, probably only 1200m above sea level, so we really lucked out. We also got to see some amazing colours on the trees as we’re getting the first flush of autumn. Hakone is on the other side of the Mt Fuji mountain range and the weather was completely different, fog, cold and overcast. We drove for 40-mins to Lake Asi to take a very chilly 15-mins boat ride and then travel the extremely crowded Cable Car above the cloud/ fog line. It made the 40-mins pause at the top both freezing and a waste of time. However, because the only people there were on organized tours like ours, we couldn’t go any faster. So I had a really awful coffee from a vending machine and tried to keep warm before we could cable car back down. It’s meant to be fantastic to look back at Mt Fuji from the other side, but we’ll have to trust the postcards in the shop.

Eventually we got to Odewara station and then took a Bullet train back to Tokyo (only 30-mins). It was absolutely out of this world. Whilst waiting 10-mins for our train to come, Mark managed to video a couple of trains going in the other direction and it went lightning fast. Bullet trains are capable of travel up to 300km/h but due to noise pollution, only travel at a maximum of 270 km/h although in some routes as slow as 180 km/h based on curves in the path or stops at various stations. I must say it was very smooth – you don’t feel sick or jerky like something that’s moving at a very rapid pace.

Afterwards we went from the Tokyo Station (JR line) to the metro and back home. We found a ‘cook your own’ Mongolian BBQ place with no-one else in it. We ended up having a variety of lamb and mutton cuts with sesame oil sauce, onions and alfalfa sprouts. It sounds weird but was actually really nice and only $40 including a beer.

We ate in the place advertised far right on level 1F

Japan is very reasonably priced and if anything, a little cheaper than Melbourne (although we are yet to have our normal fancy or should we say expensive meal at one of the top restaurants yet).

NOV - JAPAN (pt 2)

Day 3 – Sunday

Today we planned to head towards Meiji-Shrine for the Emperor’s National Holiday and the festivities, only to find out that we were one day late! Oops – I guess that’s what happens when you’re on holidays. Anyway, it seemed like there was still heaps on. We visited the Shinto shrine which is pretty amazing – apparently it’s the most authentic restoration of one of these shrines in Japan. We hit a beautiful sunny patch and it was actually hot enough to walk around in just a t-shirt for a good part of the day. (Top temperature expected 19 degrees).

We saw quite a few ladies and their daughters dressed in traditional kimonos (geisha-style) with the socks and thongs as well. We wanted to be discreet and not make a fuss of them. It seemed as if people came here almost like going to church (although there was no service happening). In fact there was a wedding procession happening at one point where virtually the whole guest list wore Black!

After exploring the shrine, we walked around the gardens and then went to see the famous Harajuku girls, see below.

We also chanced upon a phenomenon not mentioned in any of the guide books – battle of the bands along a strip skinnier than The St Kilda Esplanade in Melbourne! There were at least 20 bands who had set up with full gear – drum kits from scratch, amplifiers, speakers on stands, own power source, cables, microphones on stands – everything. They were each playing there own style of thrashy, heavy pop or backstreet boys style of music.

The high light was the Dub act on the far corner – we saw them setting up around 12pm and thought – wow, how much stuff have they got? Easily 5 times as much as all the others – then came back around 2.30pm and saw why. There was about 5 DJ’s and numerous groupies listening to their dub, reggae and ska with a ‘wicked’ sound system (pa stack over 2 metres high). We hung around for about 1hr.

In between we explored the Jingimae area which has a blend of down-home flea markets as well as ultra premium haute couture clothing shops. We found Fujimama’s which was listed in the Lonely Planet and had a slightly overpriced lunch, although not too bad. We came home around 4.15pm exhausted as usual but enjoyed the day enormously.

After watching ‘Bullit' on DVD for our English fix (great car chase scene) we ventured out again for dinner locally before heading back to Shibuya to see the main crossing at night (busy but nothing compared to either Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City!).

We had a bit more of a wander and both of us came away victorious. Mark found a Ska/Dancehall vinyl record store (level 4 but you could hear the bass in the lift from level 1) which resulted in only one purchase whilst Tam found a crepe store (not as satisfying as the crepes in France in winter but France didn’t have 50 odd plastic varieties out the front making your choice easier).

NOV - JAPAN

Travel Day - Thursday

Well after a frantic and short week at work, Mark and I finally did the best handover we could, completed our final pack and put everything in order (that we could) around the house. We had an excited but fitful sleep and then woke at 5.45am to leave in time for the airport. We got on the Melbourne-Sydney flight without worries, but our 10.30am flight out of Sydney was originally delayed until 11.30am and then didn’t depart until 12.50pm!

Eventually at 11pm Melbourne time (9pm in Tokyo) we arrived at the airport, to get our bags in the space of 3 mins, Unheard of efficiency!! However, we’d just missed the bus to Akasaka and so had to wait another 50-mins – bugger.

That trip took 2 hours to get to our serviced apartment as we were a 5 mins taxi ride from the last stop. By the time we arrived at the apartment, we’d been up and traveling for 22 hours! Boy was I tired – I was struggling to keep my eyes open on the bus ride to see Tokyo by night!

One good thing for the day was that the Sydney to Tokyo flight was virtually 70% empty so I had 4 seats to myself! I watched 3 movies and several American & British TV shows which are only on cable at home so that was great!

Our apartment building with our room being third from the top on the left

Day 1 Tokyo - Friday

After a reasonable night’s sleep, Mark was first to try to figure out the shower. It worked eventually and I must say we both loved the heated toilet seat – although still have no idea what most of the buttons are for! Some have music symbols on them (in restaurants or shopping centres) but no noise as yet. Will keep you posted on my success!

We set out first of all to explore the area (Akasaka), get a few basics from the local supermarket and have a quick breakfast in the lobby. At 10am with a vague plan to explore Akasaka, Roppongi and several art galleries and shops in the area. We walked for 5 hrs and saw the Tokyo City View 52^nd floor (Observation Tower) which is similar in concept to Rialto and the Mori Art Museum on 53^rd floor (1500 Yen each). We spent about 2.5hrs there was were most impressed to have caught the Future Beats in Contemporary Arts in Japan show which only happens every 3 yrs. There was some really amazing avant garde art. Unfortunately we couldn’t photograph anything, although we did manage to do one of this metal view of the city. All of the pieces are actually scrap picked up by the artist and many of them are machinery tools which have been fashioned into parts of the cityscape. There was everything from painting, sculpture, porcelain, video installations, very abstract images and craft work on display.

About 1/100th of Tokyo

We traveled the streets of Roppongi Hills and Azabu before finding a place I’d be comfortable with. We’d been told by others to look out for places that have pictures of the food with plastic food, but couldn’t find any. We took a risk because our tummies were seriously grumbling by now and walked into a 2 level place. It was full downstairs so we went upstairs but walked into the main area before realizing we should have taken our shoes off! Oops, off to a good start. Then we realized this is a very ‘local’ place and there was no printed menu, only tokens on the wall in Japanese characters and the waitress didn’t speak much English. To top it off, we’d left the travel guide which had the phrases, including menu items at the apartment! We muddled through and I had friend chicken with rice, whilst Mark had grilled salmon. Both came with tea, miso soup, some pickled veggies and rice. All for 1400 Yen which seemed very reasonable.

Lunch venue no. one


After lunch, we continued through to the ‘famous’ Roppongi Complex which is a 5-storey arts collective area but unfortunately all areas bar 2 were locked or changing their exhibitions. Through the backstreets, we found a design collective (T & G Arts, Link @ Tokyo (www.link-design.org) which had some great pieces, including a very substantial tatami table which folded up into a sideboard (a fantastic space saving device).

Eventually we made our way back to the apartment after walking through Akasaka Park and seeing a stone carved sculpture exhibition and playing table tennis (extremely badly) on a beautiful stone/ marble table. Exhausted we crashed out watching a very old, B-grade movie with Kim Basinger and Val Kilmer and then sorted out where we might go for dinner.

We went for a walk before dinner and ended up at a little basement jazz bar (old record covers on the wall such as Thelonius Monk, Art Barkly etc) and had a couple of beers.

We then ended up at a noodle bar where we had a noodle soup each (miso and soy sauce base) and a plate of gyoza for $20.00 total. Very tasty and good value. For an extra $5.50 we could have had a long neck of beer, excellent value.

A big thumbs up for day one.

Day 2 – Saturday

Today we thought we’d be clever and take our time in the morning as we discovered that most shops, museums or activities don’t commence before 11am. Therefore, we left at 10.30am and thought we’d attempt the Japanese metro system. First of all, we had to figure out how to buy a PassNet Ticket which is a multiple trip ticket for 1000 Yen. We tried at our train station (Asakasa) but in the first instance we bought a 160 Yen single trip ticket and the second time around we bought a Pasmo ticket for me, which is a rechargeable one that residents use. Whilst we bought it for 1000 Yen , it only has 500 Yen value as the card costs 500! Finally we bought the right one for Mark. I then managed to stick the Pasmo plastic card into the slot meant for paper PassNet and single trip cards. Luckily there was a station attendant (who giggled at us) but managed to fish out the Pasmo virtually unscathed. You swipe a Pasmo, in case you hadn’t figured it out by now.

Finally we got on the train (every 4 mins on a Saturday), which is very efficient and quite clean, we ended up at Shibuya station, which is the famous crazy street crossing everyone sees on travel shows about Tokyo. We thought actually for 11.15am on a Saturday that it was quite manageable, not nearly as chaotic as expected. Then we just wandered through the Shibuya 109 building (which has 2 parts about 100m away from each other). One of the buildings has 9 floors of fashion for 15 – 19yr old girls. The style at the moment is very short denim shorts with opaque or sheer stockings, knee high boots and knitted or fabric soft hat. You can add in some colour at times, although they prefer black, an expensive and large handbag and very rarely your boyfriend. We only saw 2 or 3 boyfriends trawling after their girlfriends (assumption of relationship). Lots of it was garish but some of it was really nice. Then we had a very expensive coffee (me) and dry ginger ale (Mark) at Segafredo coffee shop on the street and watched the world go by for about 40-mins, passing judgment on all the Japanese fashion. It’s extremely rare to see tables on the street so quite a novelty. For those of you who’ve traveled to Europe, you can appreciate that the coffee cost nearly $4 AUD, whereas most others are at least $1-2 cheaper.

We walked for ages up one particular street to try to find Spiral Records (www.spiral.co.jp) which Mark had read about in the Wallpaper guide to Tokyo. Naturally distances look a lot closer on the page. After about a 40-mins walk, we found it and bought some Japanese Dub just for fun and then discovered the trendy furniture / homewares store on the next floor and then onto the Spiral Market, which is actually a very upmarket design and craft shop. We found ourselves a nice present each.

After a few hours and a nothing lunch, we attempted to circumnavigate the Metro so we didn’t need to use the JR line which we hadn’t paid for. By only going 4 stops backwards, changing lines and then 4 stops back towards the right direction – we found Ebisu which is about 2 suburbs south of Shibuya. There, again we walked around but this seemed to be more of a ‘locals only’ area which was good. Wandering the backstreets, we found ‘We Nod Records’ (www.wenod.com) one floor up in a residential street. It was about the same size as our apartment lounge room (3m x 3m), crammed full of mix CD’s, international and Japanese vinyl, some creative t-shirts and stickers. We found a good CD by ‘Count Bass D’.

How are you meant to know this is the entrance to the record store?

We’re now listening to both CD’s which have a nice chill out sound (much needed as my lower back is killing from nearly 6hrs walking).

We went back to Ebisu for dinner last night and found a cool place next door to Passover sneaker store, yes Mum there obviously are Jews in Tokyo! We went up for a drink but it turned out to be a 4 floor restaurant which we ended up on the 4^th floor in a very squeazy place. We were lucky enough to have a slightly English and Japanese menu, the reason I say slightly is that there might be a 1-word description and for example, one of the things was described as ‘ysm’ which we assumed must be yam. I ordered a Red Eye off the cocktail menu and was most unimpressed to find out it was beer and tomato juice! Yuck, I managed to drink about two-thirds of it before ordering a Gin & Tonic instead. It seemed to be more of a food place, than a stop for a drink and by the sounds of appreciation from the trendy patrons on either side, we thought we’d better join in. We ordered a mix of Yakitori (skewers) in chicken, mince balls, ysm and gingko nuts. Mark also tried sea urchin with rice.

Then we went out into the night to check out some possible dessert and instead found ‘Guapos’ a cool Spanish inspired bar which, although painted mid-orange, really reminded us on Melbourne. It was absolutely tiny but had managed to cram in about 20 people at one point. They featured about 4 different Spanish red wines by the glass (between 500 – 800 Yen each) and gave an appetizer of sardines which wasn’t really necessary for us as we’d just had dinner. There was really cool music and an excellent vibe, a great young bartender and their menu was in Japanese and Spanish. I ordered in Spanish which was fun but I’m not sure the bartender or waitress really understood. We saw chocolate postre on the menu (which if memory serves is pastry). We assumed it wasn’t going to be churros which are Mark’s favourite but we were extremely pleased to find out that it was 4 sugar cube sized pieces of premium chocolate ganache in a small sherry glass. You ate it with a toothpick. Absolutely melt in your mouth gorgeous.

We took the train home and went off to bed

It's Party Time and I'm not crying

I've been very spoilt this year for my birthday. We had a crazy week last week going out 6 nights in a row which was not ideal but lots of fun. Then this week, my birthday week, I had my family party on Sunday night at Maxy's Elsternwick. It's been quite a while since I've been there, probably since Jessie's 18th but it's not as good as Limor's I have to say.

Mum, Dad, Aaron and my aunt Dorka came along. It was nice to see Dorka after several months and it sounds like she's been very busy with trips to country Victoria. I even commented that we'd seen a film recently where one of the actors was called Dorka. She was most impressed. The film was 'Irina Palm' which was fun and brought up some interesting ideas about how far a parent or grandparent would go to save their child.

On Wednesday night for the special day, Mark had organised a surprise party for me. I had suspected something but not how big or anything like how wonderful it was. Mark had found out about Gill's Diner, an extension of a new bakery-cafe that only opened 3 mths ago. He managed to get a private dining room (essentially) for about 15 friends for the night.

It was amazing to see all of my friends there, including Lori & Markus from Warbuton, on a 'school night' and virtually everyone stayed till 12 midnite! It was really fantastic with beautiful wines and we had a choice of 2 soups (chicken & leek or chicken & corn), 2 entrees (roast quail wrapped in prosciutto or potato terrine with capers and pesto) and 3 mains (rabbit in white wine sauce, kingfish with crusted nuts or pea & mint risotto). Then after all this we had a lovelty and surprisingly light Chocolate Gateau baked by Gill's Diner.

After finally getting to bed at approx. 1.15am and then working the next day, we travelled to Bayswater to have a family borthday with Mark's parents. September is a very busy month in Mark's family as there is a sister and nephew on the 4th, uncle on the 12th, father on the 14th, niece on the 18th, Tam on the 26th, Mum on the 27th and step-Dad on 29th September!
So the family birthday celebrations covered about 6 birthday's.

Finally festivities are over for another year, now we're planning for Mark's big day in a few months.

Winter 2007

It's been a real winter for a change in Melbourne this year which is great for a self confessed 'winter baby' like me. We've had gloriously bright days and very chilly mornings/ days. Victoria has had it's best snow season in about 7 yrs and it's only the second time I've been skiing in the last 4yrs which is very sad.

Growing up the family used to go to Mt Hotham (the best Victorian ski mountain) for one full week and two weekends every year. There was no TV at the lodge and we always had a great time, skiing for virtually the whole 8-hrs available.

We've also finally had some rain in the last 2 months which has been really important for the water levels in the state. Many parts of the state are in Level 4 Water Restrictions which is very severe, however not as bad as Brisbane which got to Level 5!

The great excitement has been skiing - I went for a single day in early August and then a full weekend in the second week of August. Mark didn't come as it's his busiest time at work - his version of the Grand Final for the 4 weeks of August.

However, the best laid plans of mice & men, don't always work out. On the single ski day, we had a virtual white out and could only ski for about 3 hrs over a 4.5 hr period and we only spent that long on mountain because we couldn't see enough to determine which was up and which was down! Finally we got back to the car park exhausted and freezing cold.

On the weekend we had another mixed bag - a white out, 18-hrs of straight rain (never good for snow resort) and a 3-hr power black out as well as 2hrs of sunshine before another white out (all in 72 hrs!) We managed to get 2 half-days in over the weekend.

On well we're planning a trip next year and fingers crossed for better weather.

One of the other brilliant activities in Melbourne in Winter is the Melbourne International Film Festival (www.melbournefilmfestival.com) . This is 19-days of amazing films. Unfortunately this year we didn't get to go but we're planning a mini pass (10-films) for next year.

Final piece of news is a new role for Mark starting in Septermber.