鳥千 (とりせん)

Dropped by 鳥千for a late lunch after visiting the bank with S. No free time for him as he had to call the gas, electric and water company for me during lunch. 

Chicken nanban set (890yen) that comes with rice and miso soup. 

Very juicy chicken matched with a very good nanban sauce! This goes really well with rice! 

Chicken karaage set (820yen)

Rice looks more here because it's oomori.

We ordered the set that came with 6 pieces of soy sauce flavoured fried chicken. Again very juicy and crunchy!

To thank him for all his help and the trouble that I've put him through, I treated him to lunch. It's not much. but it's my way of showing my appreciation.

Temporary apartment

My temporary apartment when I arrive was this fully-furnished one room~

I like the fact that it is furnished with a kettle, proper desk and TV! I kinda miss the TV now that I don't have one in my own place~ Plus there's a bed! So I didn't have to sleep on the floor.

But a place of your own is of course much more comfortable because you get to customize things to things that you like.

Plus it came with hangers for when you do your laundry too as this apartment doesn't come with a balcony for laundry,

Then there's a mini cabinet with a  microwave on top.

The small little kitchen unit that came with a tiny fridge, an induction plate and there's a kettle too.

The view from the window~

From here, you can see that next to the kitchen unit, there is a huge closet and opposite that a shoe cabinet.

The mini toilet unit, but I'm thankful that it came with really good hot water!

While I've only stayed there for 17 days, thank you for taking care of me before I found my own place~

:)

Tokyo Midtown Yozakura

Was supposed to head to Ueno for night sakura but as it was already quite late in the evening, we decided to head to Roppongi instead as S called and found that they still had light ups even after 9pm.

The sakuras were stunning!!

 

I was super happy to see this view that even though it was drizzling, I wanted to go out for a walk.

I took this shot while I was doing a test shot to see if I should use flash to get a nice picture of myself with the sakura.

While I had a horrible model who couldn't keep his eyes open, I still managed to get a pretty decent shot.

But my photographer??? HORRIBLE TO THE MAX!!! Below are the 2 shots he took! 

Could it be any worse that these 2? Lesson learnt! The next time I want to go and get a nice picture of myself, I'm gonna find a better camera person!

Well, at least the yozakura were beautiful~

After the night sakura, we stopped by Dean & Deluca at Roppongi Midtown Galleria building, where I got this Gorgonzola cheese quiche (620yen) which I thought was really special because I've not tried this before. This was really good when it was warm but I guess because of the cheese......the taste gets really salty near the end.

My small strawberry juice (450yen)~ which was really good! S said "ahh...jyoshi da ne!" Honestly, this heng dai really forgets that I'm a girl most of the time.

S' chamomile lemon tea (420yen)

The store at Roppongi is really small with only a few seats in the store and a few more seats outside. But because of the area it is in, it was definitely a very "atas" supper!

Bake Lumine Est, Shinjuku

After lunch, Mish suggested that I try BAKE, which is famous for their cheese tarts.....and it's the only thing they have in their store!

heehee...I just had to capture one with Mish's face in the picture.

Mish said that there is usually a very long line for it. So I had to try it!

BAKE by Kinotoya, from Hokkaido! Cheese mouse made from 3 different types of cream cheese. 

The tart looks like this....and true enough, it was super delicious even though I only had them hours after buying them! 
I would absolutely revisit to buy more next time!!!

I love the crust and that cream cheese.....just perfection! At 216yen each, I really regretted buying only one. I've paid the same price for something that was half par before so I will definitely be buying at least half a dozen of them the next time!

We bought ours from Bake at Lumine Est.

Address: Lumine Est 1F, 3-38-1 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0022

Access: Nearest station Shinjuku

Sakura at Meguro River

Met up with Mish on the 9th for hanami at Meguro River. The weather was cold and gloomy but that didn't stop us from going to the hanami. We met at Meguro station at 12.30pm and as one of Mish's friend was late, we went to grab lunch first at Hotel Abest, which served reasonably priced set lunches.

The salad, drinks, buns and rice were free flow. Here's my salad bowl as I try to be healthy! heehee....

Garlic bread and croissant. Those were the best garlic bread I've ever had in Japan!

The three of us ordered the same main, which was the salmon dish. While the girls seated on the table next to us had their with rice. We skipped the rice~

Definitely a very good meal and for just slightly more than 1000yen!

Next up was Meguro river which was the main purpose of our trip. The view was spectacular. It feels amazing every time a gust of wind releases a shower of petals called a hana fubuki (flower blown snow).

Look at the fully bloomed flowers up close!

When you looks up, it seems as if the sky was covered with sakura~

Even as you look down towards the river, you see sakura.

The crowd was huge on the day we were there as it was mankai~

I just love the view every single time I look up.

Hahaha....here's one of Mish, YH and K busy snapping away.

The way the sakura tree branches hang down gives a sad feeling.....but maybe it's just how I'm feeling on the inside. Otherwise, with that many trees, it's definitely a good dating spot~

The sakura just goes on and on.....

There's light up too at night but I didn't get to see them.

After that, it was time for some ice cream~ We went to 31 (or better known as Baskin Robbins in Malaysia). I ordered 2 of their limited edition Spring menu - sakura and Rock 'n Pop swirl sherbet (470 yen). I love the sakura flavoured ice cream. 

That Rock 'n Pop swirl sherbet is a little weird for me. While I like the popping effect, I couldn't taste any distinctive difference in flavours between the green and purple portions. They were supposed to be green grape-flavored sherbet and purple green-apple flavored sherbet.

Chanabe, Shibuya

Is there no shop with no queue at Shibuya? hahaha....

Arrived at Chanabe, Shibuya Outlet at Shibuya Mark City, West Mall and while it's tea time, there's still a queue outside the restaurant.

As we already had brunch, we only ordered desserts.

Matcha chocolate fondue set

The matcha fondue was really good....thick and rich in flavour! A must try if you are a fan of matcha~

Saryo Parfait 
(Matcha Milk Pudding, warabi mochi, sweet potato sticks, Castella cakes, bran flakes, red bean, mochi dango and vanilla ice cream).

This was good too, I like how well the bran flakes went with the red bean and ice cream.

Matcha Mont Blanc Tart

The vanilla ice cream was super good! While I'm not a huge fan of vanilla ice cream, I really enjoyed this. While the Mont Blanc Tart itself is creamy and tasty, the bottom tart felt a bit dry on the throat. Hence, it was good to have the vanilla ice cream there! Plus it went really well with the tart.

Getting a local SIM card

Never thought that it would be that difficult to get a proper SIM card with voice call and data in Japan. Totally my fault on this part as I did not survey properly. Before going to Japan, I thought that the prepaid SIM cards that I had surveyed all offered voice call function and that they could be easily paid by cash. But no, they were data only. And those that did come with a voice call function, could not be bought with just cash.

After days of trying to look for a prepaid voice call function SIM to no avail, S brought me to the Rakuten mobile shop in Ginza to check out the requirements of applying for a SIM card for my phone. Apparently, I would require a working japanese credit card and my current Japanese address to be registered before I could get one. 

Since I didn't have a Japanese credit card, I couldn't get one. Plus I haven't registered my address then. But that's also when I found out that it is common for the companies to request for a japanese credit card.

During the weekend, I went to Big Camera at Shibuya and found some prepaid data SIM but none with a working phone number, so nope...not getting that again. It was also the same for many different companies.

When I thought that I will just have to wait a month or 2 to get a proper working number and to get just a data SIM for now, S volunteered to sign one for me! I couldn't be happier and thank him enough!!!!  Of course, I will be paying him back every month. 

On that day, we were super productive. We got my bank account settled, SIM card, applied for credit card, settled the water and electricity for my place. Plus, we got the gas company guy to come over to set up the gas. Later in the evening, we even got all the major electronics for my place!!! :D

Among all the phone plans that I have surveyed, I'm actually most tempted to get the AEON SIM card due to it's cheap price and large data. While they go up to 50GB, I want to get their 12GB one. But unfortunately, I can't get my SIM card on the spot, so we opted for IIJmio instead with 10GB data for 3260 yen per month. That's quite a competitive price to pay as more and more companies are coming out with plans like this.

Other than the cheap price, many companies also offer plans that allows you to carry forward and unused data to the next month. So no wastage~

As I was desperate for a SIM card, I couldn't be happier that I could get one immediately on the spot! I paid 3240yen for the package and will have to pay separately every month for the card.

So after 2 weeks of not having data and a working SIM with me, I had forgotten how convenient it was to have data 24/7! Not something to be taken granted for again! No data means that I couldn't use google map or check for trains/ buses nearby! Plus that meant that I had no means of communication with other people once I'm out of the apartment.

Sarue Onoshi Koen 猿江恩賜公園

Half-day hanami party with colleagues at Sarue Onoshi Park.

Location: Sumiyoshi 2-chome, Mori 2-chome, Koto Ward 

Contact information: 03-3631-9732 

Transport: 2-minute walk from A3 exit of Sumiyoshi (Shinjuku line, Hanzomon line) or 

15-minute walk from Kinshicho (JR Sobu line).

It was April fools on that day, and it was also our hanami day. We worked in the morning and had the afternoon off.

First hanami with an actual mat! hahaha.....but sadly, the weather was gloomy the whole day.

We were seated next to a bunch of ojiisan and obaasan who had a karaoke system with them. Of course, my colleagues joined in the fun too with a japanese enka song~!!!

Some of the gang around the matt area and our food...

A colleague was asked to sing an English song but the ojiisan and obaasan heehee.....

Another colleague belting her heart out to Little mermaid's part of your world.....which gained a lot of attention from little girls in the park.

The sakura at full-bloom~ :D

There were some pretty tulips in the area too.

Only one food stall but it's ok.....the sakuras are the most important thing,

If only I lived near the park, I could've cycled there too.

The area here below the trees were initially all occupied by people before they left.

Due to the bad weather, people were all starting to leave. It's really nice that we get to enjoy such beautiful sakura at a not so crowded park.