Lots of food

I would like to declare my love to eating food. 

From $10 Chicken Schnitzel in a local pub

To home made 'bento' lunch. None are as pretty as bentos in instagram, but still..

Pic 1: Rice with chicken mince, rolled omelette, stir fry veggies

Pic 2: Fried salmon, rice with furikake, rolled omelette, steamed veg

Pic 3: leftover spicy beef, karaage chicken, rice with furikake, umeboshi and some japanese pickled cucumber

Went back to Lorrainne's pattiserie for the famed cheesecake. at $9 it's a pretty expensive cheesecake, but it is worth it. It's lemony and very light and fluffy, you won't realise that you have eaten the whole cake yourself. 

On Thursday I had dinner with the parents at Menya ramen. Good as always

Took the parents to Blue Mountains on Saturday. My mom have been here 100x but my dad have never been, so going to see the three sisters is obligatory. We had brunch at Fresh Espresso & it was great. I didn't take pic because I was really hungry & have demolished my meal before I thought of taking a picture. I & my dad had the Fresh Breakfast which is excellent, Mom had their King Prawn risotto & the Mr got the slow cooked pork sandwich. They acknowledged the Mr's dairy intolerance & made coleslaw from scratch which is awesome.. Excellent service I tell you. 

Rolling hills on the way to Jenolan Caves. I can stare at them the whole day

We went to the Imperial Cave on our trip. It's so hard to capture the beauty of the caves! You gotta come and see it yourself to actually appreciate the prettiness. There is an underground river thing in this cave which is lovely.

We ended the day by getting El Jannah roasted chicken of course. With the whole lot. My parents loved it & joined in the El Jannah fan club

The Mr ran the City to Surf yesterday & finished just under 1.5 hr mark. Not the fastest but awesome on him (he's not the super fit gym type & only trained 3 weeks prior). The beach was packed to the rafters but it doesn't stop us from having a great day out. Can't wait until it's properly warm so I can come to the beach more often.

Hope you all had a great week! Christmas (!!!!) is coming soonn

wanderlust

It's been really cold in Sydney in the past 2 days and looking at these pictures made me feel a bit warmer already.





















My friends have been planning on an epic Europe trip lately, but I have a strong feeling that it is not going to happen (lack of organisation, my visa issue etc). It came to my mind yesterday that I should go explore South East Asia, my home region, instead of Europe next year. It's cheap and I won't need to apply for visas to visit, being ASEAN and all. In my list are Bali (in style), Lombok, and Batam in Indonesia, then Ho Chi Min, Hanoi and Halong Bay in Vietnam, and then Cambodia for Angkor Wat.  At the moment I'm looking to go for 4 weeks... depending on the amount of leave I would accumulate from work I guess.

Have anyone been to Vietnam & Cambodia and have any tips to share? x

TOKYO Part 2: Ginza, Tsukiji and Imperial Palace

We depend on trains to get us around Tokyo when we were there. Our hostel is really close to the Ginza line station in Asakusa, so we catch this train almost everyday to attractions like Shibuya and Ginza. Tokyo rail network is really confusing because it is operated by a couple of companies instead of just one. We find it cheaper to buy the daily metro rail pass, which is 1000 yen, as this gives us unlimited use of the Ginza line and most of the subway lines in Tokyo. We can't use this to go on the JR line though, but this is not a problem because the Tokyo Metro usually operates another train line that is close to wherever JR line station you want to go to (for example, you can go to Akihabara station if you have the JR pass, but if you only have the Tokyo Metro Pass you can stop at Suehirocho, which is basically just 500m away from Akihabahara station). 

Only in Japan does train/railway attendant look so neat and fancy (and always happy to help!)

Ginza line takes us to Ginza (of course). We went there a couple of times during our stay in Tokyo. It's basically just one street full of high end fashion stores. Nothing too interesting here so did not take much pictures. 

 Tsukiji fish market is close to Ginza, but you do need to change trains to get here. 

 We came to Tsukiji at around 8am - did not bother to go to Tuna auction as it is impossible for us to wake up at 5am. When we got to Tsukiji we were not allowed to get in, as it is only open to public after 9am. So we decided to go eat breakfast at a sushi restaurant in the complex...

We looked up Sushi Dai first, but it was full of people and there's so much people queuing up outside to get in. I did some further googling and we went to Ryu sushi, which in a different block but not too far away. No lines here! 

The sashimi are nothing short of fabulous.  We ordered the seasonal special menu & they are all so fresh and tasty. They are pretty expensive though, I think we spent about 6000 yen for both of us. I think it is worth it though.

 I almost got hit by this mini car/trolley thing a couple of times when I was there.. what a hectic place!

 Not sure if they are mussels or what. So fricking huge!

We went to the Imperial palace (Tokyo station stop) after Tsukiji. Lots of office buildings, parks and fountains. We can see a bit of the palace but was not allowed to get in. We did get into some parts of the park though.....

Next stop: Odaiba and giant Gundam (I think..) x

TOKYO part 1: Asakusa and Shibuya

So as I mentioned in my last post, I went away to Tokyo for a week. We stayed in Asakusa area for the whole week. Our hostel (Khaosan Tokyo Original) is super tiny but it is clean and located very conveniently close to the two train stations in Asakusa. The manager, Kenta was great and very helpful as well. We spent only about 350,000 yen for our stay for the whole week, which I think was fantastic value. I rate the place 10/10, but if I had to go back I'll probably choose the other Khaosan that's closer to Tawaramachi station, because it looks newer.




The Tokyo Skytree is quite close, but not really from our hostel. They have a really big shopping mall underneath the tower, and the whole complex lights up at night. Beautiful. I wish I had gone up to the top.






Went to check out Nakamise Dori early at 9 am is and most of the stores are still close. I note that they start a bit late in Japan (around 10am).





Good Fortune!! hurrah

Mr got a bad luck thing so this is tied down to this fence thing. I read only recently that you're only meant to tie down your bad luck paper but I tied down mine (good luck) too fml


I wish I could stay in Shibuya but hotels there are super expensive!! Well probably just on par with Sydney's hotel but since I'll only be using them for sleeping then what's the point. Luckily Shibuya is an easy train ride from Asakusa, via the Ginza line, and it only takes about 30 minutes or so. Shibuya just looks like the regular old shopping district on steroids in the morning

But it comes alive at night. the Shibuya crossing is surprisingly not as big as what I thought it would be. It's probably only 1.5x the big Town hall intersection in Sydney.



Had lunch in Genki sushi (its a sushi chain!!) in Shibuya. They are good value & taste great too. The food came on this robotic thing

Wall of eyelashes in Don Quixote Shibuya. I LOVE DON QUIXOTE

Shibuya is definitely my favourite district in Tokyo.. so much shops. I went to Shibuya 109 and they live up to my expectations - the clothes are pretty out there and the girls who works there are outstandingly pretty. I didn't shop there because they were EXPENSIVEEEEE (yes it's so expensive it deserves to be written in caps) and also they're just too frilly for me. Got my H&M fix in Shibuya though. Why can't we have H&M in Sydney??! WHY?!

Next stop: Shinjuku & Harajuku :)