Going to a family friends dinner at a restaurant of their choice, I felt like I was walking into a dorama. Not only were there beautifully dressed couples, but the restaurant setting was beautiful. The restaurant itself was somewhere in South East Tokyo.

I was shocked to see 7 forks and 5 knives at the setting. I don’t think I’ve ever had a dinner with that much cutlery. At the tokyo sushi restaurant we used our fingers :p

There was the awesome food.

I was first introduced to Iberian Pig in the dorama Hotaru no Hikari, starring Ayase Haruka. It looked yum, but then the food in doramas always does. So when I was presented with the opportunity to eat Iberian Kobuta, I jumped at it.

Nodame Cantabile is another favourite drama. There was live music at the restaurant. Does he remind you of anyone?

Beef sushi was another amazing dish. It reminded me of when we ate raw beef in Tokyo last year. But yummier.

This was an expensive kind of fish. Tasty, but I forgot the name >.<

The appetisers were nicely and the variety was amazing.

This pasta dish was presented in an interesting manner, hiding under some dough. Half the fun was in eating the dish.

The other option for main, other than Iberian Kobuta, was Duck. I got to taste some, and it was also super yummy, but the Iberian Kobuta won out

And what dinner is complete without dessert. Truffle icecream!

Interestingly enough, this was the first Christmas dinner I’ve spent with a priest. There were a few more yummy courses and some nice cocktails, but the photos weren’t that great.

It was a great way to spend Christmas day, and dinner, in Tokyo. Also, a great start to our short Tokyo trip. I hope everyone else had an awesome Christmas.

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I recently blogged about the sushi restaurant we went to in Tokyo where the minimum spend was AUD/USD$240, and each piece of sushi was effectively around $12 each. It was amazingly good.

Imagine our surprise when we saw the restaurant and taishou on TV.

He was showcasing his special rice and sushi preparation methods. Good restaurant choice ne!

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Due to unforeseen time constraints, namely someone dying on the Tokyo railway and delaying trains, and then having to go early to the ‘exquisite sushi’ dinner, we only had a handful of hours to spend at Disneysea, which meant that we didn’t get to spend as much time, and go on as many rides, as we had planned.

The ‘Tower of Terror’ in Tokyo Disneysea has a different story to its American siblings, however, like the others, it is a free-fall attraction with…surprises.

Harrison Hightower, pictured in the mosaic below, was an intrepid traveller who “liberated” many artifacts from around the world. His ‘motto’ is somehow appropriate.

In this badly taken photo, you can see Hightower flying off in a hot air balloon with some Egyptian artifacts, and on the right, some locals are chasing him (unsuccessfully) with weapons. There are a series of such pictures, showing him taking from the aztecs, some other ruins (probably egyptian), the nordics and some jungle locations.

The hotel itself is laid out meticulously and the detail is amazing. The wait for the ride (we waited 90mins) was well worth it, as the queue through the hotel itself is an enjoyable experience.

We also went to 20,000 leagues under the Sea, which was a nice exploration below the sea.

Again, the attention to detail was amazing. Within the ride itself, you are in a ‘submersible’

We also passed by the Little Mermaid’s magical home.

Although it was filled with kids carnival rides, it was quite the visual feast. Unfortunately my Galaxy Tab doesn’t do well in low lighting situations.

We stopped for a super late lunch at Aladdin’s palace, before heading over to the sushi restaurant (see previous post).

Doing Tokyo Disneysea and Disneyland is definitely something on my ‘to do again (and properly)’. Maybe even try to stay at one of the Disney hotels to save on travel time.

No doubt there are numerous places to have monjya yaki, but one of the most famous is “SAKURATEI” in the trendy area of Harajuku, which makes it the perfect place to have lunch or dinner after all that shopping and visual kei/cosplay gawking and photo taking.

Sakuratei is located inside the Design Festa gallery, and the staff are mostly artists working to make money. The artwork varies and is worth a browse. The gallery/restaurant is accessible from two roads, and one of them has a very colorful scaffolding
The menu is pretty extensive, and they do have an all-you-can-eat special during lunch (11;30-15;00), which is/was￥1050 and　included one free drink.

I’ve been there twice (once in 2009 and early in 2010) and it gets quite packed during lunch (when their all you can eat special is on), so it might pay off to jump in ahead and get your name down on the list, or call ahead to reserve. The restaurant itself is open 11:30 to 23:00.

The restaurant has a website: www.sakuratei.co.jp/en which can give you a map and their latest menu/prices (and they`ve recently updated it with great english explanations and pictures). But for reference Sakuratei is at 3-20-1 Jingu-Mae, Shibuya Tokyo, Tel: 03-3479-0039.

Well worth a visit

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I have a lot of catching up to do. Yes, I know you’re all waiting for some pictures of the anime stuff I’ve bought, but you’ll have to be patient just a little longer. I haven’t had a chance to take the photos yet (and I want to try something that might turn out cool).

The Tokyo subway system is pretty awesome, but SO complicated. You really have to plan out your journey and figure out where to change before you start your journey.

We went to Shibuya and this is the super-famous crossing that you always see on TV etc. It wasn’t as busy as it could have been.

This is the famous dog called Hachiko that is often mentioned in animes. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the story is that he would meet his owner at the train station everyday after work , and that after the owner died, he kept going to the station to wait.

Random pic of Shibuya.

And here’s some cosplay from Harajuku. Eye cancer included.

There wasn’t as much cosplay as I expected, but then the whole trip Tokyo wasn’t as packed as expected/normal.

The best cosplay, to be honest, were the girls who were just walking around Harajuku in maid costumes, pretty dresses and such. Made it a bit hard to take photos.

Live music was included though. And it wasn’t even that bad.

This poor neko was being mauled by a..well, not sure what to call him. He had a massive camera and after every shot he would adjust the girl’s arm/pose, to get the perfect shot.

Half the cosplay wasn’t even really cosplay imho. Just funkily dressed ppl.

I want to go back to Tokyo when it’s a bit busier and take a lot more photos.

But failing that, can always just buy the costumes and get my gf to dress up

Lots of funky art around. This place had an Tokyo Okonomiyaki restaurant inside which is really popular. We had to wait an hour for seats.

Which brings us onto the topic of food.

This:

Becomes:

Which then becaome this as we decided to make one massive one rather than two small ones:

Which becomes this:

It’s actually really yummy. I prefer it over Osaka Okonomiyaki, but nothing beats Hiroshima Okonomiyaki. This is a heart. Because I love my gf.

Oh, and I can’t forget dessert can I. Someone tell me if you can get Haagen Dazs in Australia, because I’ve never seen it around.

Blogging catch up begins NOW!

My brief visit to Japan’s South Island over, it was time to hit the train tracks and take the Shinkansen up to Tokyo. This time, I got to travel on 3 different shinkansens.

The journey itself took about 5 hours.

The insides of the train are similar to a coach bus. The cushiony seats are reclinable, there’s plenty of leg room (even for me) and you can put stuff above you.  They have different configurations, 2-2seats and 2-3 seats.

The scenery and views on the journey was an interesting glimpse into Japan.

Within an hour, we were in snowfields, and I was sooo tempted to get off the train just to play around in it.

Japan is pretty mountainous, which makes for amazing scenes and contrasts.

The ‘scenery’ highlight on the train ride was definitely seeing this mountain.

Mount Fuji. Pretty slick eh.

Tokyo station was a seething mass of people, however it is under massive construction, due to be finished in 2010 or 2012, so wasn’t really that picture worthy. There are lots of random scultuptures and such around though.

This is the “Peace Clock”. Not sure what about it represents peace, but there you have it. It should also be noted that Tokyo is a candidate city for the 2016 Olympic Games.

After checking into our super-tiny hotel room, we decided to try something fun and go restaurant hopping for dinner.

The aim was for a round of drinks and small dishes at each one. Sake was at the first restaurant.

I guess it’s getting a bit old me showing all these photos of food, so I’ll “select” a few from the second restaurant. Scallops anyone?

Or how about a yoghurt-ish shaka shaka drink?

At a lot of restaurants (ones I saw anyway), after the 25th of December, they raise their prices in anticipation of New Years. So it wasn’t as cheap as it could have been. As a result, we decided to raid 7/11 and take the party back home.

My best friend Haagen-dazs was there as well. I’ve only ever had Haagen-Dazs when I was in China, and afaik, it’s not available in Sydney. Heaven knows why. I mean, we have TWO lindt cafes! Why not Haagen-Dazs.

This post is being cut a little short, in order to meet publishing deadlines, (and because I want to sleep now.) (And if you didn’t realise, that was my birthday dinner above =p)

So I’ll leave you with this little gem I found on the Tokyo subway.

Juicy Tokyo photos and more tomorrow!

Stay Tuned~