#tanjastravels

[hangryandlazy]

tokyo oct 22 - part 2

Continuing from Oct 31 in Yokohama:

We left the aquarium soon, it was just a very uneasy and underwhelming experience. The most fun was had was taking these photos.

There was absolutely nothing interesting in this mall either. I think we got coffee once again, got a few souvenirs from a shop that sold Betty Boop items, and then we were off once again.

We went to the model train museum, which I was looking forward to bringing my dad to the entire trip, but it turned out much much smaller than anticipated. There were only 2 rooms with a moving miniature railway, and they were much larger in size than the beautifully intricate exhibits we had seen at Small Worlds a few days ago. Maybe it's also because we've been to a proper miniature railway museum in Germany, so we were quite disappointed by this one. It was too educational for our taste, mainly showcasing smaller versions of real trains and lots of reading and learning. There was not much in the souvenir shop that interested my dad either. Absolute bummer.

We stopped by another mall after this, just to pick up more stock of the placenta and vitamin c lip balm that I had gifted to my mom. She loved it, and ended up buying many other items at the store haha. We didn't end up trying the takoyaki shop on the way back that I had wanted to, so Alan and I got dropped off at a specialty grocery shop near our hotel and my parents went back to their room first.

Not much interested me at the grocery shop, I was starting to get really bummed that the day was unsuccessful... We walked back to Aman, decompressed a little bit, and then headed out once again to meet Sayo for dinner. It's been 3 years since we last talked or hung out! The previous time I had seen Sayo was in Tokyo as well, when we last visited her. She brought us to a yummy and high class soba restaurant hahaha where she and Alan decided to do a sort of sake buffet tasting. Each time they ordered sake, 3 glasses from different brands would arrive. I guess that was our Halloween haha, very tame now.

After dinner, we walked around a little bit together, just chatting and catching up and shooting the shit. It was lovely to get to see her again, and I will miss the little monkey! We went back to our hotel and decompressed properly for our last day in Tokyo.

Nov 1:

First item on our agenda today was PIGNIC CAFE. This is in all caps because it was a dream come true hahahah. It's a pig cafe close to Yoyogi Park, where we are allowed to hang out with pigs in a small private room. It was sooo much fun to be in there, although the pigs really squeal and they like to nibble. One of them bit through the corner of my mom's t-shirt hahahha. Alan was an expert pig masseuse, and at one point, both piggies climbed on to my lap and I was in heaven.

The piggies are sooo well-trained, they know to go to their little litter box corner to do their business. There were also baby pigs sleeping in a little corner, huddling with one another and overlapping each other much like dogs do.

Chaos hahahhaha Peep that piggy in the background trying to bite my phone strap

This little munchkin climbed on to my mom's lap and spent 80% of our session sleeping there. 🥺 So sweet! I was unabashedly jealous.

After the pig cafe, we went our separate ways to do some shopping. Alan and I went to Rikugien Garden that was a little out of the way because I wanted to look for amazake, a delicious and sweet fermented rice drink that is not as popular as I think it deserves to be! There is a really famous place to have amazake, but unfortunately it is closed on Tuesdays and I missed this vital piece of information! So we found a gorgeous park that supposedly also sells amazake at one of its food stalls.

Look how beautiful!

We went in, walked around and noticed immediately how much more beautiful it was than the park we visited in Yokohama. I noted to Alan that I wish we just brought my parents here instead of making them sit for an hour-long ride to Yokohama. The first food stall that we walked into only served matcha and sweets, so we ordered a small set each and sat there enjoying the view. I was VERY disappointed that amazake was not available, and was super annoyed at myself for not having planned better. But Alan helped keep me calm and made sure I enjoyed the rest of the day anyway.

We enjoyed the matcha and sweets in this peaceful setting.

We walked around the rest of the park, since we had made it all the way to this part of town. We saw a really cool, bright orange-colored tree, and then from the corner of my eye I noticed another food stall. I told Alan it looked familiar (from the photos I had seen on Google when I was searching for amazake) and as we walked closer I knew we had the jackpot. To say I was elated was an understatement. Amazake was perfect for this weather, and we had found it!!! This was Alan's first time trying it, and I think he was pleasantly surprised. We ordered another tea set, this time of konjac jelly with miso sauce. Delightful.

We enjoyed this afternoon snack in another part of the park. Wonder why the other stall did not point us in this direction when we were asking about amazake, maybe they're competitors...?

Soooo happy! Yummy in my tummy <3

We went to a Sanrio / Hello Kitty store in Asakusa next, the third Sanrio-themed store on this trip to look for the handkerchiefs that Alan's mom asked us to get for her. They weren't available yet again... So we got her some larger towels and a cute Hello Kitty headband instead.

We took this photo to prove to her that we had really tried our best.

I went to another store to try looking for furikake, but to no avail, so we called an Uber and made our way back to a Sembikiya store close to our hotel, where we bought fruits as souvenirs for Alan's family. It took a LONG time to package, but I can confirm that it was worth the waiting. Those are the best grapes I've ever eaten in my life!!!!

We dropped everything off at the hotel, had a little down time and then we met up with my parents in the lobby to go to our dinner destination. I booked a very traditional kaiseki restaurant for our last meal in Tokyo, called Akasaka Kikunoi. This meal was delicious from beginning to end, with my one and only complaint being that the sea bream sashimi was sliced a bit too thick, so it was tough. Perhaps my only other complaint would be the portion size, again I think it's perfectly acceptable to give tiny portions if there are around 10 courses.... I don't want to waste my quota eating a larger piece of grilled fish when there were still so many dishes to come!

Here are some highlights from our meal :)

Incredible tofu dish. Annoyed that my dad did not give it a chance just because he knew it was tofu... He has definitely eaten tofu before when I withheld that information from him and he finished it, smacking his lips

Incredibly beautiful and intricate kaiseki. The duck liver pate was the best! Along with the monk liver and "mother-in-law chips"

This toro and egg yolk sauce was the highlight of my night! The toro melted in my mouth, and the sauce is to die for. I really wanted to ask if they would package some up for me to bring home....

Lots of soups and hot foods this meal. Perfect for me, but not so perfect for people who are not used to all the indoor heating! It wasn't even that cold yet in the country, very confused about the heating everywhere because it was a bit much.

This was the dish I was referring to when I said smaller portions are ok... It's a grilled piece of fish. Yummy, but I wanted more space and quota for the other dishes after.

Loved this! Persimmon is in season, I wasn't sure if it was supposed to just be a vessel to hold the "salad" but I ate the big persimmon "bowl" as well haha.

This soup was soooo delicious, very thick and full of collagen. It included shark's fin, which I normally wouldn't eat..... But it was already served, it would have broken my heart more if it had just gone into the trash. I also had to eat my mom's portion because she was stuffed by this point.

Maitake rice! We took the leftovers home with us and I actually ate it on the plane the next day hahahh.

Goodbye, Tokyo! You were a real one.

An absolute gem for our first trip since covid. And a truly memorable one. Loved every second (except that one day in Yokohama lol)

Oh, we actually thought we might not be able to fly on Nov 2 due to a typhoon in Hong Kong. Signal #8 was hoisted, which is the second highest possible rating for typhoons. Weirdly enough, there was barely any tolerance on the way back. We also mananged to get this stunning view of Mt Fuji shortly after takeoff!

The PCR tests and daily RAT tests were bearable.... Nothing too difficult. Restrictions are slowly easing up even more now, I'm so excited for things to get back to normal and to travel more again!

[hangryandlazy]

tokyo oct 22 - part 1

After 3 years of isolation from the rest of the world, it's finally our turn in Hong Kong to take a breather and go on a trip! Technically, we were always allowed to leave the city and return, but the quarantine restrictions were so suffocating and almost abusive that we didn't even consider travelling. It went from 21 days of quarantine in a hotel room, usually without windows, to 3 days of home "quarantine" but we're allowed to go out and about, just not to places where we are required to scan the LeaveHomeSafe app. To us, this is already a HUGE improvement, so we leapt at the chance to experience a foreign country and smell international air.

I knew that Jack and Vivian were going to go to Tokyo during these dates, so when my parents were toying with the idea of organizing a family trip, I convinced them to go to Tokyo around those dates as well. We counted down the days to the trip and BAM, the day finally arrived!!!

Almost exactly three years since the last time we'd done so, we boarded an airplane again. It felt both foreign and familiar to be back at the airport, checking in our luggages and making our way to the boarding gate.

It had felt even more foreign to pack my suitcase several days prior, not knowing how many jackets I'd need to bring along for the weather, or whether I'd need full-sized bottles of creams and cosmetics. I swear it took much longer than it should have, but I wanted to make sure I didn't forget anything. And I love organizing, so I was savoring the time it took to pack everything up. The weather apps and websites were also giving me a very large range of temperatures for Japanese weather, so I wasn't really sure what I needed to bring... I knew I didn't want to be cold though, as I've had many unfortunate experiences that left me grumpy and having to buy jackets and coats while on holiday. I told myself I wouldn't be buying clothes on this trip because 1) I don't need more clothes and 2) Japanese sizes are tricky. (Spoiler alert: I ended up packing far too much, but hey! Better to overpack and have everything I need and more, rather than underpack and then scramble to look for things when I want to be spending that time doing other activities.

After disorganizing and then reorganizing my closet by way of creating valleys and peaks of clothes on the floor, I managed to get my luggage packed and soon we were calling an Uber to bring us to the airport.

Oct 25:

Alan and I checked in our luggages and walked over to the lounge to meet my parents. Our flight was at 1130am, but my dad wanted to make sure we boarded early enough to get comfortable and settle in properly, so he hurried us to the gate. It felt strange to be on an airplane again, and I was so busy settling in that I didn't sanitize or wipe down my seat properly. It was nice to forget about the pandemic, just for a little bit.

It felt so freeing to be back up in the clouds &lt;3 Like life was going to be normal again.

Obviously, that bliss didn't last long, because we were reminded via the airplane PA system that while we were still in Hong Kong airspace, we were expected to abide by HK law. In other words, we were to keep our masks on at all times apart from when eating or drinking. I didn't really want to take my mask off, being in an enclosed space with limited ventilation and with so many strangers, but not having the option to exert free will was frustrating.

The plane ride over was fine, nothing overly exciting about it. There was a bit of turbulence, a feeling that I had not missed at all. I managed to get some stuff done on the laptop and soon we landed in Tokyo. Because we'd downloaded the MySOS app prior to travelling to Japan, immigration was a breeze and the longest wait we had to do at the airport was for Alan's and my luggages from the carousel. After we finally got our very recognizable, sticker-filled suitcases off the conveyor belt, we took a private van to our hotel.

We stayed at Aman Tokyo once again, this time in a corner suite––a honeymoon treat from my parents. To be very frank, a regular room would have sufficed. Alan and I both didn't feel that we got what the hefty price tag should have been able to guarantee. It was a lot of useless space wasted on two people who didn't invite anyone over for drinks. Don't get me wrong, it was very nice and spacious and the view was to die for, but I would have saved that sum of money to be spent elsewhere, if I'd known. Now I understand why floor plans are provided sometimes for hotel room; we live and learn.

After we checked in, we had a very chill dinner in my parents' hotel room. We had to make use of the room somehow, right?! The food was alright, I didn't think it was anything amazing, but it was nice to unwind and decompress together without the pressure of getting ready and hailing cabs etc.

Oct 26:

We woke up *early* today. Like, 7am early. We wanted to beat the morning rush hour traffic to make it to our tattoo appointment, and it was pretty out of the way to get there. I'd found this girl online who responded super quickly to my messages and who spoke English very well, so I was happy to book in our tattoos with her before we even flew over.

We got our family tattoo done in Japan! Lots of people asked me why I chose to use our valuable vacation time to get our tattoos done, and the answer is simple for me. I'll always be able to remember this trip when I look at the permanent art on my body. I love having tattoos from around the world on myself, and I love that I'm able to transport myself to that time and place and relive some memories and feelings.

My dad was freaking out when we arrived, so obviously he had to go first. He was so nervous that he did not bother really choosing where he wanted it to be placed, he just stuck his arm out and closed his eyes and held his breath. Hahahha. My mom and I got ours in a similar position, on the outside of our arms, close to our wrists, but mine is on my right arm while hers is on her left.

When we were done, both my mom and dad said it was not as painful as they had expected. My mom even said she found the tattoo too small and wanted to get more done! I would never have thought that she'd feel the adrenaline rush like that or that she might get addicted. Hoping she will actually get more so that we can be tattoo sisters hahahahah

Look how cute!!! Our family tattoo is a smiley face. My mom got a smiley with heart eyes, my dad of a smiley with crosses for eyes, so obviously my smiley has one heart eye and one cross eye. ¨̮

After that, we made our way back to the city. We were a tad bit early to lunch, so we made a detour and took a quick walk along the avenue of ginkgo trees that supposedly is quite well-known? I'd just wanted to take a walk by the park and enjoy nature. (Un)Fortunately, the ginkgo season had not fully arrived yet, so the trees weren't very yellow, but it also meant the nuts had not yet fallen all over the path and gotten crushed by people's shoes. Ginkgo nuts are known to be quite smelly.

This is the ginkgo avenue. Not too smelly yet!

When it was finally noon, we arrived at our first restaurant of the trip, Narisawa. The experience was great, and I thought it was quite reasonably priced for a Michelin-starred restaurant. The restaurant itself was not that big, but very clean and modern. I'm glad we went for the half course menu, and during lunch as well, because we were all STUFFED by the end. I guess we also ate quite quickly though, as I noticed guests who had been at the restaurant already when we arrived were still taking their time eating as we left.

After lunch, we walked to a coffee shop that's very highly rated and cannot be missed. I only learned later that there is a branch in K11 in Hong Kong as well hahahah. But it was still well worth the visit! We walked to Koffee Mameya in Omotesando, but unfortunately my parents had already had their coffee at Narisawa, so they didn't want to have another one. I shared an African dark roast coffee with Alan and it was honestly one of the best coffees I'd ever tasted in my life. And I'm not a coffee person at all. It was smooth and silky, and had a sort of creaminess to it, even though nothing had been added. It was soo delicious.

We walked around Omotesando, there are many small shops nearby. I had originally wanted to check out a vintage bag store, called Amore, but the sales assistants were quite off-putting. They just don't smile, they don't seem friendly, they have an arrogant vibe and are not welcoming at all. So I just walked out.

We went for a coffee at a random cafe so that my dad could use the restroom, and then we headed back to the hotel to rest before our separate dinners. Coincidentally, my parents' friends Chiharu and Stephane were also in Tokyo for an art show that they were hosting, so I felt less bad about ditching them to meet our friends.

Our second Michelin-starred restaurant of the trip was called Toriki. It's a small yakitori restaurant. At this age, I really don't prefer stuffing my face to the brim, so it was a bit much for me... It was super delicious, but if each portion was a bit smaller then it would have been more enjoyable, as the point was to try more varieties. They had chicken ovaries at the end that I actually wanted to try, but by that point I really almost felt like I wanted to vomit.

We talked to the Tokyo Skytree after dinner, chatting and enjoying the lovely weather. (I'm going to mention many times in this post that the weather was amazing) Surprisingly, we didn't go anywhere else afterwards, and went back to our separate hotels. Surprising because I recall this group to be very wild and enjoy staying up late and partying, just a few years back. But also unsurprising because Jack and Viv had just landed that afternoon, and we all had itineraries that required waking up at normal hours and showing up to places on time.

Oct 27:

We slept in a little bit, but I didn't really sleep that well. Aman has these insanely large pillows that aren't comfortable, and I swear the thread count of their bedsheets must be low because they just didn't feel that luxurious at all. I had even asked for a new pillow, which made it slightly better, but overall I missed my bed already on the first night. I was a bit disappointed by this, especially because of the hefty price tag of our room.

We just barely made it to Jack's birthday lunch at Ishibashi, a cute little eel kaiseki restaurant. It felt like we were the only people there for lunch? It was Thursday though. We managed to be seated together and had a great meal. My favorite was the tofu appetizer, it was the softest, creamiest, best tofu I've ever had in my life. The rest of the meal was delicious too, but once again, I don't prefer eating so much. Quality is more important to me than quantity, and I really would have been okay with smaller portions of everything. Do Japanese people really eat like this?! And to be very honest, I quite prefer the eel meal we had eaten on our last trip to Tokyo several years ago. Alan and I had stumbled upon an eel restaurant that wasn't as pricey but was VERY delicious.

After lunch, we walked to the Yayoi Kusama museum which wasn't too far away. The weather was GREAT so it was a lovely walk in the brisk autumn air. The museum itself was very weird for my taste. Much smaller than I had anticipated, and very unrelatable or interesting. The only thing I enjoyed was learning that Kusama took psychedelics.

Even the bathroom was covered in dots lol

We then went to Harajuku for coffee and window shopping, and then we parted ways once again to go to separate dinners. Alan and I met up with my parents at the hotel first, and then we headed together to Sushi Hiroya. This was my FAVORITE meal of the trip. It was by far the coziest and most memorable one of our stay in Tokyo. The chef spoke broken English, but he tried very hard to make us feel comfortable and kept making conversation with us, even if we had to use sign language or translation apps on our phones.

The restaurant itself is quite small and cozy, as well as both literally and figuratively warm. We even had to slide the door and leave a small gap to let fresh air in, especially at the beginning when the chef was smoking some fish. The service was impeccable and I cannot recommend this place more.

The entire meal tasted AMAZING, and we even got to try a special Snowman sake that we later learned was quite rare and difficult to come by! Alan and I both decided that swordfish is now our new favorite type of sushi hahaha. For the last course, instead of dessert, we were given quite a strong sake as well as a piece of tamago, which is steamed or cooked egg. We were instructed to take a bite of the tamago, then take a swig of sake and mix it all together in our mouths. I mean, not my favorite hahaha but it was fun and new and I loved the experience overall.

After dinner, my parents dropped us off in Ginza, where we met our friends for a round of chill drinks to celebrate Jack's birthday. The bar we ended up going to had no menu, and nobody spoke English. We just pointed at fruit and asked them to make cocktails. They tasted good, a bit too sweet for my taste but I'm also not much of a drinker so who cares what I think hahahah. When we first arrived, they removed a poker table setting from the bar table for us. I couldn't help but note how tame our birthday celebrations are now, and that we were old and boring hahaha.

Oct 28:

Yay! Another day of sleeping in a tad bit. Today we made our way to the Ramen Festa, which was a little bit out of the way, but worth it (for us!) I'm not really a ramen person myself, but it was nice to bring my parents to try it out and see all the different types of ramen available. For some reason, I finished my WHOLE bowl of ramen... I thought it was the right thing to do since we were in Japan and I didn't want to be rude. I should have let Alan help me out a bit, but I knew he was going to be having two bowls by himself already.

Courtesy of our friend who is a food blogger

I'd been talking about trying kakigori even before we landed in Tokyo, but because of the cool weather I decided against it. There was a stall selling kakigori at the ramen festival though, so I decided to try out the milky mango-flavored one. It was yummy, but eating a bunch of ice is not really my thing, and I was so stuffed from the noodles that I didn't finish it (should have been the other way round, ugh!)

I was disappointed how little fruit actually came with this sad kakigori lollll

We had met up with friends at the ramen festival, but we all went our separate ways afterwards to chill out and shop. We had intended to meet up around 430pm at a coffee shop, but I just wanted to hang out with my parents in the end.

We made our way back to town, and wanted to grab coffee somewhere. Alan found a very cool place called Cafe Monochrome in Harajuku, but it was full so we sat outside in small seats of the stairway corridor. The aesthetic drinks more than made up for it though and they didn't taste half bad! We also got a charcoal cake to share.

Absolutely gorgeous! From top left: Iced caffe latte, iced matcha coffee, iced black coffee, hot matcha

We walked around some more, and my dad randomly noticed a Bearbrick store in a window up above. We went right into that mall and ended up finding the missing clear crystal Baccarat Bearbrick to complete our set, as well as a beautiful striped wooden Baby Milo Bearbrick. Must say, I was and still am very pleased with these purchases, especially as the yen is currently quite low so it feels like we got them at a bargain!

Despite all the walking we did, I still was not feeling at all hungry, but we eventually made our way to dinner at 81. We were late again, unfortunately, and I had a feeling we were causing other people to have to wait because someone came to pick us up on the side of the road. We were then quickly ushered in to a museum, which was very weird. I saw the people sitting around giving us looks, but I tried not to think too much of it, even though I nudged Alan to tell him we were probably the reason why dinner had to start late.

Then the people started disappearing. We were ushered in, group by group, into a dark room where we were served our welcome drinks, and then into another slightly less dark room with a U-shaped table and ambient lighting. There was a total of 8 of us that night. This was a very unique dining experience overall, very theatrical and choreographed. The servers would walk over to our table in sync with one another, and each dish and drink came with its own in-depth explanation. The chef tried very hard to converse with each of us, which I thought was very sweet and thoughtful.

My dad mentioned that "81" is code for Hell's Angels, because H and A are the 8th and 1st letters of of the alphabet, respectively. It seemed fitting to the theme of the night. I really wish I had a better appetite because the food actually tasted great, and some courses were interactive and required us to take part! The most memorable two were the homemade carbonara, where we had to smash an egg and mix it up with the cheese, and the dessert amazake, where we were asked to whisk our drink until it was frothy. Truly a fun and unique experience! We wish the chef all the best of luck in his future endeavors, as he told us we were one of the last groups to experience this concept in Tokyo, and he was moving to Niseko.

After dinner, we went to a Sega building because my parents said they had never heard of it before. We showed them how the claw machines worked, and we took the escalator up to the floors above to check the other games out. I showed them our favorite game (my favorite game lol) which is the Taiko drumming game, but we chose a very slow song and it was a bit boring hahaha. My mom and dad tried out a boxing game too. We then went back downstairs to try our luck at 2 claw machines, in which were a Dragonite toy and... some other Pokemon, I really don't remember. We tried for 15 minutes, all of us, but it just wasn't happening, so we gave up and left.

As we were about to cross the road, someone shouted behind us. Two strangers had won the Dragonite and wanted to gift it to us! We were too stunned to ask for a photo for them, it was such a sweet and touching gesture! Very cute.

We didn't end up meeting our friends after dinner, as we will be seeing them soon again in Hong Kong anyway, and I was just too tired.

Oct 29:

We had another slow start today. We woke up quite late, then we just took our time getting ready, sooo slowly that we were almost late for our second tattoo appointment with the same girl. We looked for a convenience store nearby to grab some food, because I didn't want to risk fainting again, so we got some onigiri from a shop very close by after we had arrived. I shovelled the rice into my mouth, and knocked on her door.

Her printer wasn't working, so we sat in her studio with her French son while we waited for her to print Alan's design out. He was continuing with the space theme on his left thigh, where he has a matching tattoo with me. On this trip, he wanted to get a rock (he insisted that Alan stands for "stone") with a shooting star going through it (representing me). Very unique, very cute idea, and it was executed beautifully. It looks beautiful and I know Alan loves it. I'm glad he took part in getting a holiday tattoo, and he even said he wanted to get his thigh sleeved up.

I had wanted to get a bracelet tattoo done, but she refused to promise me what I wanted, and kept insisting she could just draw on me and freehand it. I felt my maturity when I declined politely, because the old me would have felt obliged to go through with it anyway, despite not loving it 100%. I instead tried to make conversation with her, and I hope we left on a good note.

We went to Harajuku after that to get some takoyaki, which Alan had really been craving. I thought it was just alright, we learned later that traditional takoyaki is softer and mushier, while the type of takoyaki that I prefer is a more modern, crispier take.

We were waiting around that area for 5pm, which is the time I had booked us in to meet otters. Our friends had gone to an otter cafe the day before, and sent us photos in the group chat––I instantly fell in love! However, the cafe we ended up going to seemed a little bit sketch???? I don't think I was over-thinking anything, the animals seemed a bit frantic and frenzied, especially the otters... I found it disturbing that the keepers would lower a towel into the otter enclosure and then airlift an otter out after it latches itself onto the towel by its mouth. It was just overall not the most pleasant experience, but I did enjoy holding the otter and examining its oddly-shaped tail. Would most certainly love meeting an otter properly under other less cringe-worthy circumstances though.

There was still time before Alan's beef omakase dinner (I had opted out) so he joined me and my parents in going to a museum called Small Worlds. Essentially, it's a miniatures museum, exhibiting busy and interesting scenes in small cities. Oh, and they also have buttons dotted all over that trigger the exhibits to move or make noises or shine lights... It's very cute and interactive and fun!

For example, in one of the exhibited worlds was a button that said "I need to pee!" and when pushed, a stream of "pee" starts to blink from a small man's crotch. That one is my absolute favorite hahahah There was also a miniature version of an airport, with moving luggage conveyor belts that looked different between the domestic and international terminals. There are model planes that keep moving along a track to simulate the takeoff, taxi and landing cycles of actual airplanes at airports. (The track even simulates the plane lifting off into the air!)

We also met one of the master designers/makers of the museum. We didn't think anyone was around, as it was already around 6:30pm in the early evening. We were taking a look around the studio workshop, and he walked over to let us know that they were hosting a Halloween event, and that they would start a Christmas-themed workshop starting in November.

Alan had to leave at this point for his dinner, so my parents and I saw him off to Jack and Viv's rental car as we waited for our Uber. It was a 20 minute walk but a 5-ish minute car ride to our next museum, Teamlab Planets. This was the one place I knew I really really wanted to bring my parents to because I had been there with Alan, Vivian and Jack a couple years back when it had first opened and we LOVED it. I have to admit that it seemed a little more used and a tad less clean this time round, but it was enjoyable nonetheless to experience it together with them.

It had occurred to me briefly but it slipped my mind thereafter that the first room had lumpy beanbags for a floor. It also didn't really cross my mind that it might be difficult for my parents to make their way across the room.... Luckily they were able to get there, slowly but surely, with only a few tumbles along the way... They didn't seem very amused when I revealed to them my dream of designing my future theater room in such fashion.

The other rooms were just as beautiful as I remembered them. Just slightly more used. Some rooms had knee-deep water that we had to wade through, and most if not all rooms had some version of light installations and digital art. If we weren't so hungry, we may have stayed longer just to stare at and enjoy the art. It was pretty funny to see the stark differences between the two of my parents: my dad is impatient, and only needs to spend 2-3 minutes per exhibit, while my mom likes to linger and loiter and take a million photos. I'm in the middle––I think it's nice to savor the moment and enjoy the shows, especially when it's not just the same thing repeating itself over and over, but I also find it a bit tedious to hang around for a thousand photos when I know the first hundred suffice.

Another stark realization I had when we were done looking at the Teamlab exhibits was how much my parents have aged. My mom is still quite active and able to walk around and enjoy, but my dad is starting to have trouble with his mobility. He is also not the most patient person (which hasn't changed, but it seems to be getting worse with time). When I asked for a chair from the staff, we placed it close to the lockers and he sat down and started to put his shoes on. We didn't realize that it was still a no-shoes zone, and when the staff started frantically waving at us and speaking to us in Japanese, we were confused and he started to get annoyed. Only when she brought the chair closer to the exit did we realize it was not that he wasn't allowed to use the chair, but that it was a barefoot zone. Watching him ease his way on and off the chair, groaning and creaking, was sort of heartbreaking.

Aside from that, my dad is starting to have an issue walking for more than 10 minutes. We experienced this on another night as well, when we walked 20 minutes to a cigar bar. He was huffing and puffing like he'd just run a marathon, but we had only walked slowly to the hotel in brisk and lovely weather. While we had to wait for seats, he was still in a huff and got quite heated when he saw other people able to enter the cigar bar, claiming they had arrived after us and should not be allowed in. It was only after he had lit up his cigar and gotten some alcohol into his system that he calmed down and mellowed out. Also, side note, people in Japan are really timely. We were told that 11pm was the last order time at the bar, and that they would close at 1130pm. Around 11pm, most of the other parties asked for their checks and stood up to leave.

Anyway, after we left Teamlab Planets, we took a cab to Ginza. Maybe stupid on my part, especially with it being a Saturday, I had not made any dinner plans as I was not sure what time we'd be done. And also Ginza is not exactly a busy nightlife area, so all of the restaurants that we stepped into turned us away and said they only accept customers with reservations. We finally found a Korean restaurant that would take us in, and I tricked my dad into eating tofu (he still does not know till this day).

I met up with Alan, Jack and Viv after our dinners, and we went for chill drinks and they drove us back to our hotel. It was nice to get some good sleep after a long day.

Oct 30:

We had a car booked for today, with a drive who spoke perfect English. We first drove for 1-1.5 hours to Kamakura, an area that the hotel had suggested us to visit.

We first went to the Zeniarai Benten Shrine, a popular shrine in Western Kamakura in which people wash their money, literally. First we lit up some candles and placed them on spikes as an offering, then we took our bamboo baskets, placed coins and notes inside, and poured the shrine's spring water over it to "wash" it. Zeniarai apparently means "coin washing" in Japanese, and supposedly the money that's been washed there will double. We were also told that the money should not be hoarded or kept, but should be spent on valuable or positive pursuits.

Us after literally laundering our money.

Afterwards, we didn't want to walk uphill back to the car, so we told our driver that we would just walk towards Komachi-dori street ourselves, a touristy street with many little food stalls and souvenir shops. On the way there, we saw a very cute little coffee truck, so of course we stopped for some hand-dripped coffee. At this point, my parents and Alan all mentioned how slow Japanese people are, whether due to their quality of service or their attention to detail. It hadn't really crossed my mind before this, but then I realized how accurate their reading was. It did not bother me one bit, but I'm not sure if it's just because I'm extra chilled while on holiday mode? Maybe it'd annoy me more if I called this place home and I had a tight schedule to adhere to?

The cutest little coffee truck! Such delicious joe.

We then continued walking towards Komachi-dori street, where we ended up trying different street foods, like fishcakes, omelette-wrapped eel, ume onigiri, waffles, and dango. There were also many souvenir shops, animal cafes, and restaurants.. It would totally be possible to spend an entire day there, we barely scraped the tip of the iceberg! But we had places to be hahaha so we moved on soon after we were done eating.

We got back on the car and headed to Hokokuji temple, which was luckily just nearby. There was supposedly a small bamboo forest to visit. It ended up not being that spectacular, but I must admit the zen garden was very beautiful, and it would be a very relaxing place to zen out if there weren't so many other visitors taking photos and walking around nearby. We also forgot to purchase the tickets that included a matcha drink, so we really just went in to walk around for 10 minutes, and then we were off again.

The sunset in Tokyo is quite early already by this time of year, so we started our journey back to the city. The last touristy spot of the day was Carrot Tower, which is a free observation tower overlooking the city of Tokyo. I wanted to make it there by sunset to enjoy the views. It was pretty! (Although the observation deck was smaller than I had anticipated, and it was indoors as well)

Alan and I were then dropped off at a store in Shibuya that I wanted to buy the placenta and vitamin c lip balm from. Luckily my parents did not ask to get off the car to go shop with us, as this district was incredibly crowded! The famous Shibuya crossing was SOOO packed, I actually did get a little bit scared. However, we made it out safely and continued walking towards a quieter part of town before hailing a cab to our dinner location.

We booked Imahan for tonight's dinner, a famous shabu shabu and sukiyaki chain. Chiharu and Stephane joined us as well, albeit a bit later, because they had went to a completely different branch! We all had a good laugh about it. The food was amazing, and the best part was that we did not need to cook anything ourselves, two servers made sure we all had food right in front of us at all times.

We each also got a raw egg to dip our cooked sukiyaki meats in. (Not pictured, but insanely delicious and decadent)

This was the final dish to our dinner--a runny cooked egg mixed with the juicy drippings from our sukiyaki. Absolutely STUNNING.

After dinner, we made it back to Aman for some drinks and chats. Alan and I went to get the adults some sake (jokes, because we are adults ourselves now too) and snacks, and then we hung around for a little bit before retreating back to our own room to get some rest before our next day trip.

Oct 31:

Today's day trip was to Yokohama, but if I am being completely honest, I would have preferred to cancel this one. It was just not as fun or beautiful as Kamakura.

We first made it to Sankeien Garden, which is beautiful, I must admit. Coincidentally, there was also a mini bonsai exhibition, as well as one for chrysanthemum. It was nice to walk around the park and take photos, and we even got some bread to feed the fish and ducks.

I had originally wanted to try the yakitori restaurant right next to the park, but everything was only in Japanese and it just seemed like too much work, so we drove to the Yokohama World Porters mall. We had a quick burger bite at the food court, which seemed to have a Hawaiian theme.

The reason for going to World Porters mall was because they had a space-themed aquarium. However, it was super disappointing because not only was the decoration half-hearted and pathetic, the animals also seemed very sad and isolated. Some were left in tanks with absolutely NOTHING inside, just a small clear box. I felt so bad for the animals there, it really broke my heart that they were getting no stimulation at all.

(I've reached my limit of 30 photos, see next post pls!)

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africa jul 19

wow lol it’s taken me 2 years to actually put this post together. a LOT has changed since then and it makes me immensely happy to recognize how lucky we were that we’d had 2 insane years of travelling right before the pandemic hit. but this post is not to dwell on that, so let’s get on with it!!

this was our amazing 2019 africa trip~

jun 30, 19 ••• we make our way from hong kong to the netherlands on klm airlines. i distinctly remember how impressed i was with the quality of service and the comfort of the 12ish hour flight. after around 16 hours of commute, we just want to stay in and chill, so we order room service and call it a night early. i recall wearing a fun t-shirt that read, “not to be rude, but shut the fuck up” which i personally find hilarious and endearing, but which made the guy at the front desk quite uncomfortable. lollll oops!

jul 1, 19 ••• yay! we had a full day alone in amsterdam. we (i) decided to walk from the hotel to the town center, because it’s fun experience new cities by exploring them on foot!! why not? you come across many things that you just couldn’t have planned to find.

look how beautiful the canals in amsterdam are! anywhere you turn, it’s picturesque.

we had lunch at wagamama because i saw that the avant garde vegan, gaz oakley, had done a collaboration with them at some point, so there are some guaranteed vegan options. we then walk around the bloemenmarkt and find our way to the cannabis college, which had 2 verdampers for rent! yesssss! i was so happy. 

we explored and walked around more, then stopped by a coffee shop to smoke a bit more. there was a lovely vegan cafe right next door, which i’d been eyeing when we went in to smoke, so we had a top up on coffee and matcha there. we saw a cute frenchie across the road and missed the dogs so...

we had dinner at this place called cafe frijdag (which means Friday!) which was delicious! so happy that amsterdam had vegan options for me

jul 2, 19 ••• we got up bright and early to meet my parents for breakfast and we go to the airport to catch our flight to kigali. about 10 hours later, we were buying sim cards at the kigali airport. we then checked in to the radisson for the night, and it was feeling very surreal to be in africa. i remember feeling anxious.

jul 3, 19 ••• today started on a somber note. we went to the kigali genocide memorial. i cried a lot, especially at the exhibit with the photographs of only a fraction of the victims during that time.

then we drove at turtle speed to our next hotel, which was a loooong long way away. we arrived at the lake kivu serena hotel in time for a very late lunch. the cuisine here consists of rice, tortilla-like wraps and papadum-esque crispy rolls.

this fruit tastes disgusting... it looks like a tomato but isn’t sweet at all. i only remember spitting it out, trying another piece from another plate, and still hating it.

thankfully everyone wanted to relax and take it easy, so we ordered in for dinner and spent the rest of the night chilling.

jul 4, 19 ••• we drove out to see the border between rwanda and the democratic republic of congo. we were told to be very careful about taking photos of the police officers there, so we were. it felt strange to take photos of the border, i’m clearly very ignorant of the relations and history. it was a very busy juncture, with a sea of people crossing this way and that, lots of cars bumbling about and a lot of fruit, as i recall. hahah.

we then drove out to see a makeshift hot spring. we were asked if we wanted to take a dip, but none of us wanted to..... felt bad saying no, but really not worth it, sorry.

https://vimeo.com/568059672  (okay, i’m unable to embed more videos so links will have to do until i figure out something better...)

we took a boat ride along the lake, but there wasn’t that much to see around there, it was pretty dirty and murky... reminded me of the hong kong harbor, with trash floating around. it was also freezing, so i wasn’t having any fun at all.

we went to the gym and worked out a little bit because there was a lot of time to kill in between returning to hotel and our private pre-planned bbq dinner on the beach. we were lucky enough to enjoy traditional rwandan dancing which was absolutely gorgeous.

jul 5, 19 ••• we spent most of our morning in the car, having crossed the border to the republic of uganda. we stopped by a cute cafe along the way for lunch, but it was a grueling 4-5 hour car ride to mahogany springs, which was our hotel for the gorilla trekking. we managed to arrive around 715pm, by which time it was pretty dark and scary outside. the other car had broken down twice, once in the dark as well, so spirits were low and there was a lot of muttering and grumbling done under people’s breath. everyone was ravenous by the time dinner was served, but despite how late it was, it was absolutely delicious and i was happy! (also grateful for our car not having broken down)

jul 6, 19 ••• we woke up VERY early in anticipation of gorilla trekking. we waited around the hotel lobby after some coffee and biscuits for breakfast. it was an awful lot of waiting, but i didn’t sense anything wrong until i saw how pissed off our tour guide looked. it turns out our permits had gotten stolen! probably bribes.

here we were mucking around, still anticipating gorilla trekking.

we didn’t let it slow us down though. i actually am grateful for how things turned out because we wouldn’t have gotten to experience uganda like that without this turn of events. we joined a community tour that showed us how tea is harvested, how coffee is grown, harvested and round, as well as how bananas may be used to make juice, beer and gin! very cool

african tea leaves

jackfruit??

these are flowers from the coffee tree

the different stages of the coffee plant

this is henry, he owns this coffee plantation. here, henry shows us how to the use this contraption, the purpose of which is to grind coffee beans into powder

here henry is, sifting the coffee powder

here are my parents, having the time of their life (lol at my dad)

fresh bananas

these are the different stages of a banana’s life: from raw to ripe to fermenting. it can be made into juice and liquor.

we then visited a local school, where we were entertained by kids from kindergarten to 6th grade. we learned about their mission and goals to educate the younger generations by providing classrooms and a dining hall and even dorms for boarding. the singing and dancing was BRILLIANT. loved every single second of it. wish i’d joined in and not cared about what anyone thought.

we stopped by a women’s community center and saw a lot of cool crafts and art. that was on the way to the batwa pgymy tribe. we learned how they integrated with the batwa community. they showed us some dances they have dedicated to the gorillas, for which they are very grateful because it brings tourists in and therefore gives them an income. they showed us how to use a bow and arrow to hunt, and how they weave baskets and make handicrafts.

alan with the leader of the pgymy tribe

one of our guides spotted 2 chameleons, which was super impressive. he even brought the chameleon down close to us so that we could see it. i won’t ever understand how he was able to spot it in the wild, and from so far away as well.

we returned to the lodge and had lunch. the veggie stir fry was pretty dang good. it was served with posho, which is a maize bread, beans, and also matate (???) which reminded me a lot of plantain. back at the hotel, we chilled (without tv or wifi) until dinner. alan fell asleep, and i kept myself busy sorting out photos. dinner was early, and our night was early because we were promised gorilla trekking in the morning!

delicious!

jul 7, 19 ••• we were up and ready to leave by 7am. we were in the clear! we drove a little bit to the bwindi impenetrable national park for some entertainment (dancing and singing) from local students and a hilarious briefing on what to expect and do’s and don’ts of the trek. 

we then had separate meetings within our trekking groups. ours was quite big, with 10 tourists, because michael and our guides had spent HOURS the day before handling our stolen permits. an exception was made to accommodate us all, so our group consisted of the starke’s, alan, kerstin, a couple from oregon, and an english family. we had to get in another car and drive a bit to the mountain, where we met our porters and then began our trek!

the hike up was difficult, and at times i legit feared for my life because the mud/rocks were loose and one wrong step would have had us tumbling down the edge of the mountain... and that was me at age 28!! cannot imagine how my parents were feeling...

alan with meddie

as we made our way to the gorilla family, we encountered a solo young male who was soooo friendly, he cut across our group, like right down the middle, and he even reached out and touched my mom on her jacket! it was wild that a gorilla was that close to us, and then he left as quickly as he had joined.

this is the photo my mom managed to take when the young gorilla male was right next to her

we kept on hiking and found a large. our guide, meddie, told us that we were lucky to have found such a large family doing a whole bunch of different activities: we saw mothers nursing their babies, babies swinging from the trees and playing with one another, sub adult males beating their chests and other members of the family eating and feeding. we even got to watch as a silverback gorilla pulled a very healthy poop out of its butt, and we ran into him snacking again later on.

on the way down, it started raining a little bit. we all slipped at one point or another, but it was especially dangerous for my dad so we all had to slow down our pace a little bit to match his speed. thank god he had a porter there to help him out and save him. 

we returned to the same place as where we had started our morning for a debriefing, and we each received a certificate to show that we had been on this trek. we waited around a little bit for the other group to arrive, and were once again very grateful that our experience was much more pleasant. one lady in the other group had to leave the trek on a stretcher, and the others were caught in the rain on their way to the gorillas, so it must have been a cold and awful experience on their end. 

us after the successful completion of our gorilla trek!!

we headed to a local inn nearby where we had a late lunch and could change into dry clothes. we then drove a bumpy 4 hours to mweya safari lodge, located inside queen elizabeth national park. we made a couple of stops along the way (one of which was in the middle of nowhere so that people could go pee out in the open where animals are potentially roaming around?!?!?) and when we finally arrived, it was already 830/9ish pm.... we insisted to order room service because we were pooped, and we got showered and hit the hay.

this cute sign was outside the lodge!

this super old school cash register was at the lodge too

jul 8, 19 ••• today started off with a game drive, early in the morning! 

we drove around the gorgeous park and saw elephants, warthogs, antelope, eagles, all sorts of bird and butterflies, buffalo and weird-looking lemur or ferret creatures. we thought it was great, but some other members of the group were underwhelmed. 

this is the view from the car we sat in for the safari

this gorgeous tree houses sooo many bird’s nests! do you see them?

cute antelope we saw on the tour

after lunch at the hotel, we went on a boat tour around the kazinga channel. i think it was called lake edward? we saw many animals again, including crocodile, elephants, buffalo, all sorts of birds, and hippos.

favorite photo of my parents ¨̮

we followed a few elephant cuties along the bank. it drizzled for a little bit in between.

dinner was delicious. it was a great buffet, although i was severely grossed out by the ants that joined us on the dining table.

there were so many animals on the grounds of the lodge. don’t be fooled by how cute these guys look, we saw them fight over raw meat at some point! we also saw a warthog stroll around.

jul 9, 19 ••• we were up bright and early today for a quick breakfast before heading right on out. on the way to entebbe, we stopped by a local motel for lunch. the service was SUPER slow (maybe because we had such a huge group together!) but it was delicious and worth the wait! i ordered a coleslaw and avocado vinaigrette (this was THE HUGEST AVOCADO i’ve ever seen in my life?!?!?), a veggie biryani and some of paul’s aloo matar. we then filed back into our cars for several more hours of “african massage” to the next destination. had an early night, i think we ordered room service to the hotel room and tried to get our butts to bed as early as possible because it was another EARLY day the morning after.

we stopped at the equator in uganda to take some photos, of course!

i was sooo happy to be able to order room service! we felt like we were finally back to civilization... 🥺 we had wifi and tv and hot water... ugh it was amazing

jul 10, 19 ••• my alarm was set for 4am this morning.... 🥲😅 we left the hotel at 5am for the airport and obviously i was tired and grumpy and just in a crappy mood overall hahahah. our first flight was barely 45 minutes.... to mbarara i’m guessing?? i was assigned a middle seat on my own originally but no one was in the aisle seat so i moved over woohoo! our first layover was 2-3 hours, not too bad. we hung around at the lounge area. 

our second flight was to harare. alan and i managed to snag 2 joined seats towards the back end of the plane so that we could watch conan’s traevel shows on his ipad. there was a pretty scary drop when we were descending imto harare. i think we just stayed on the plane for about half an hour so some people could get on the plane and join.

we flew about 3 hours more to cape town, and we were EXCITED to arrive. it was a hell of a time checking in, and it was a nicer hotel in a nice area so we decided to just stay in and order room service again. we had a slow night and it was SOOOO needed. cape town felt a lot closer to the first world and we were enjoying and appreciating it to the max. we even started playing pokemon go and its harry potter-themed equivalent (oops forgot the name), but to be fair, we didn’t get cell phone service everywhere we went, so it would cut on and off.

jul 11, 19 ••• eek, cape town was COOOOLD! luckily i brought a jacket along, we really really needed to cover up and stay warm! got to sleep in a bit, we left by 830am to drive to the pebble beach by the water to take some gorgeous photos. we stopped by chapman’s peak for another photo op, then drove to boulders beach in simon’s town to see the penguins!! it was such a dream, loved every second of it.

i believe this was chapman’s peak??

what a model

this was at the pebble beach at the cape of good hope. 

saw a cute ostrich on the way somewhere

next we went to cape point. we took the funicular to the top, then hiked up to the lighthouse. we took pots of great pics but omg it was EVEN MORE freezing there. we had lunch at the two oceans restaurant. fancy and delicious! the calamari was bomb, the arancini was alright, but the main of chickpea and mushrooms was delish. after lunch we headed right on back to the hotel.

when i said it was cold, i wasn’t joking... it was FREEZING at the top. i had a horrible time because i don’t do that well in the cold

alan and i walked over to woolworths to get water and makeup remover and snacks. on the way back we stopped by PLANT for dinner. i was sooo excited to try out their vegan fast food, so i ordered a lot of the menu. we got the quinoa salad, mac and cheez, seitan lasagna, schawarma, pot stickers, siu mai, spag bolognese, tiramisu, milk tart and a bunch of other random vegan snacks. i was in HEAVEN. even though some of the stuff was cold by the time we got back to the hotel and ate, it still tasted DELICIOUS. i was soooo impressed.

this was the lasagna. omfg i need an encore of this restaurant one day!!! wish i knew how to cook like this

jul 12, 19 ••• today we went to a wine blending workshop at grande provence winery. the first step was to blend 3 different mixtures. after tasting them all, we decided the last blend was the winner, with 40% zinfandel, 10% shiraz and 50% cabernet. so then we blended up a big bottle of it, corked it, thew on a hand-signed label, and then walked around the beautiful indoor and outdoor art galleries.

this was our group!

wine blending is literally mixing different wines together in different proportions and figuring out which you like the taste of the best

there was a lot of cute art at the winery! i loved all the dogs and greyhounds around the property. these 3 dancing pigs came a close second

we drove a little way for lunch at another beautiful vineyard. i had a charcoal ciabatta, tomato quinoa salad, root veggie risotto and steamed veggies on the side. we skipped the wine tasting because our lunch overran a bit and our bus driver buford said that the traffic would be pretty heavy on a friday afternoon and it wouldn’t be worth it to be stuck on the bus. so we just walked around the cute little town we were at, franschhoek (??)

there was a lot of cute art and small local shops around this town! we strolled around and got some souvenirs ¨̮

love this

we had a dinner booked way ahead at fyn restaurant. it was stunningly delicious. i loved every single course and was thoroughly impressed.

UGHHHHH just soooo good.

jul 13, 19 ••• FINALLY we had a day to sleep in!!!! we let our group know the night before that we didn’t want to join the walking tour around the city. we woke up and made our way to the company’s garden, which was directly next to our hotel. we played harry potter wizards unite and ran into the tour group. my mom told me later on it was a good decision of ours not to join haha.

we walked to addis in cape for an authentic ethiopian meal experience. we washed our hands at the table, ate the whole meal with our hands, and finally i was able to taste injera. it was 100% teff injera and it did not disappoint. i ordered a vegan platter while alan got a combo. the amount of food was PERFECT for us, we finished every single thing. 

we ordered dessert but the hot berries never showed up and the ice cream was interestingly very gummy and very very sweet. the coffee was strong and served with a beautiful platter.

after that, we needed to walk our full tummies off. we headed to the waterfront, where there were many shops and stalls in indoor and outdoor malls. it was just a really good time walking around there and we saw soooo many things. there was bubble tea in south africa, a yogurt bar that made me sooo happy, dogs were up for adoption, and a bootleg jabbawockeez performance at the city square. we walked back to the hotel after that and got ready for bed.

jul 14, 19 ••• we woke up at 430am to head to the airport by 530am. we caught our first flight from cape town to johannesburg, then transferred to a direct flight back to hong kong. it was a TIRING trip but wow, the memories!! really want to go to back soon

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osaka + kyoto jun 19

ok, it really doesn’t help that i upload these sooooo late lol i can’t fully remember what happened! just know that it was lots of fun, and i hope the video conveys that :)

honestly, not the best editing, but it’s my first video using final cut pro and i’m quite pleased with the end results! like for the million-course omakase, the photos could definitely do with less air time haha but oh well! i’m not bothered to go back and fix it and then reupload it. i’m really happy with my first video an learning how to do some simple effects! i’m definitely going to do more. i’d love to try doing handwritten text!

it was overall such a fun trip with our friends. :) one to remember!