Jan 30, 2011 @ 9:44 PM
Food in Melbourne and Sydney
What's in this post (in order of visit):
1. Koko Black Cafes and Chocolate: http://www.kokoblack.com/
2. Alcohol
3. Sofitel No. 35 : http://www.no35.com.au/
4. Orita's Japanse Fusion Cuisine : http://www.oritas.com.au/
5. Crown's Kitchen Workshop: http://www.crowncasino.com.au/kitchen-workshop
6. A cake from a Cafe in Melbourne. Forgot name.
7. Shoya Melbourne: http://www.shoya.com.au/
8. Yumei Japanese Restaurant (Sydney): http://www.yumei.com.au/
1. KokoBlack: I.e. Lisa's absolute favourite dark chocolate. Every other brand, she eats begrudingly when she's peckish.
The hot choc. I would've uploaded iced choc but it looked disturing after my sister was through with it.
There's a funny story about the 6 blocks of 73% Dark Chocolate KokoBlack bars i ended up with. I'd been whining about wanting to go KokoBlack to up my stock. The result was that my mum, my uncle, and my aunt all separately bought two bars for me without each other knowing. Oops. *Loves* :)2. Alcohol
The champagne that I had on NYE. My favourite so far. Experimented with different alcohols and have come to the conclusion I am fond of sweet alcohols. So sweet varieties of champagne and white wine. Sake is at the bottom of my list x.x3. Sofitel No. 35: So named for being on the 35th floor of the Sofitel Hotel in Melbourne. Only took photos of some of the desserts because its an all you can eat, and taking photos of my horrifically stacked dish would be embarassing. Personally, I think it is overpriced (80$/head) and overrated. I didn't find anything special about the food. However, the restaurant itself is pretty, and the view on the side with the ocean is spectacular according to my aunt.
4. Orita's Japanese Fusion Cuisine: Modern twist to Japanese Cuisine. There's a missing photo of the appetiser. Simple presentation but tastes nice. Unfortunately, after eating at Shoya, all other Japanese fine dining pales in comparison.
5. Crown's Workshop Kitchen: I neglected to take photos oops. Just visit the site. It was pretty good price for an all you can eat. But they were stingy with the seafood. Need to redeem seafood with a voucher (1 per customer). In comparison, seafood at garden buffet at Star City is unlimited, and theres a bigger variety of food there. So yeah.
But it was impressive when sunset came and all the blinds covering the windows at the side came up automatically.
6. Random Cafe: Melbourne has a leisurely lifestyle from what I see. Cafes everywhere, lots of scattered dining places, small winding European-esque streets. It's a very relaxed lifestyle. Enjoyment of food is an art it seems. You finish eating at one place, and then off you go to a nearby cafe for a drink.
6. Random Cafe: Melbourne has a leisurely lifestyle from what I see. Cafes everywhere, lots of scattered dining places, small winding European-esque streets. It's a very relaxed lifestyle. Enjoyment of food is an art it seems. You finish eating at one place, and then off you go to a nearby cafe for a drink.
7. Shoya: The best Japanese food I've ever had (including the food I've had in Japan). Maybe cause there was so much variety in one set meal, so perhaps I should be saying best Japanese dining experience. We spent over 2 hours here I believe. There's a missing beef tataki photo >.<>
The waitress and waiters explain what every dish is when they serve it. Unfortunately, I tuned out sometimes. Can't rant enough about this place o.o
Price: We got two set meals at lunch. One was 39$, which was the most expensive lunch set. We got all listed below (except that the ice ball which was a modification to the order, and the beet tataki which was a separate entree). Besides the 2 mains which are both shown, everything else was doubled because most of the sets were the same. I think....that it is really good in every way.
This is smoked salmon with truffle and a whole array of other things. Unique and delicious taste. (Though I admit I picked out the wasabi cubes).
Some cocktail. I wanted sweet. It was too sweet.
Truffle and egg mix
This...was awesome. I wanted to carry the ice ball home.
Quail egg and mushrooms with lemon? pepper. Surprisingly nice.
The waitress is in the background explaining the dishes.
Yeh, the outside greenery looks a bit too green. But it was really nice with the beef (medium).
The legs of some monster crab from Hokkaido 
Well done beef and chicken main. I am normally really against well done beef but it was still very juicy :)
Mini udon (avoided by moi, the udon hater) and my cousin in the background :D
Dessert. The closest is sea urchin cheesecake o_0 Tasted like normal cheesecake. Green Tea Ice cream
8. Yumei Restaurant
Found in the Capitol building where everyone likes taking sticker photos. Some dishes are expensive, but otherwise, the food me and Jamie had was nice. Forgot to take photo of Jamie's udon before she devoured it.
Seafood saladDec 23, 2010 @ 10:49 PM
Japan
Some select photos of Japan trip =D
Miyajima
Eg of how Laurence likes getting into every shot :) . (Theres many more egs that I shan't upload.)
Experimenting on the ferry to Miyajima
Shukkei-en
I love these guys.
Hosokawa/Gyobu Mansion
Raw Horse Meat
Chabana in Kyoto
Nara
Accomodation in Kyoto (Girls room). There's a suite part which I did not photograph. (Why would you want to see a bathroom and toilet?)
KinkakujiA quick jot down of Japan trip before I go to Melbourne and completely forget about everything. (Editted on 30/1/11).
Participants -> Me, Wendy, Angela, Jenny, Adam, David, Hanson, Laurence. <3>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
6th - Plane left Sydney at 10:30pm or thereabouts. Sat next to the crackhead for 9.5 hours. Our entertainment system didn't work, but because of that me and Wendy got $50 vouchers to spend on the inflight shopping :) I.e. We started shopping over the ocean, before we even landed.
--------------
7th - Land at Narita Airport ----- >Hiroshima (Reino Inn).
The inn was simple but very clean and comfortable living. I got the unfoldable couch to myself most nights except when Jenny fell asleep on it and I was with Angela instead. Angela rolled over at one point and hit me XD.
Okonomiyaki for dinner, at a place with a lot of okonomiyaki restaurants. Couldn't taste it because I was sick and stayed sick for around the next week. It was cold. Very frigid, drizzling rain, cold.
--------------
8th - Ferried it to Miyajima. Spent all day there. They had a lot of very traditional streets and restaurants (oysters seemed to be famous here or something because all the restaurants had them). Played a memory game in the restaurant whereby Laurence failed pretty badly =D.
...and then I failed to climb Mt Misen T_T".
Had some awesome ramen for dinner, in a little shop complete with sliding door and all (so cute). It was cooked in individual bowls and everything was added into it as it was cooking over the fire. Then the whole lot was lifted off and served like that in the same bowl. The best ramen imo on the Japan trip :)
-------------
9th - Hiroshima Peace Museum. Very...enlightening isn't quite the word. Informative. Didn't go through the end part of museum because it was depressing. The couch out the back was much more appealing (I do seem to have a thing for couches). This was also the coldest day of the trip I can remember x.x
Shukkei-en (Garden). Very fun, very large, and very beautiful Japanese garden. Just imagine 8 grown people going crazy cause they almost had the whole place to themselves. It had all the big and mini bridges over a very reflective large pond, those mini wooden pagodas where you have to take your shoes off before going in, and of course, all the plants and trees. There was surprisingly still a lot even though it was Winter. Some of the trees were wrapped up beacuse it was cold. We also made a documentary. Please refer to the video on David's video recorder.
At night, me and Wendyalmost got locked out of the inn since she was using the payphone outisde, and I was her translator/runner to the convenience store so that we could up a supply of 100 yen coins for the machine. (Inn reception closed at 10). Ended up bashing on the glass door until lady came around to the other entrance to let us in.
Consequent adrenaline rush back in room lead to me establishing that David is my pet cow, and Angela establishing that I am a din por.
Interlude: I hereby proclaim my love for Japan's convenience stores, and sadness that there's none like them in Australia. I miss eating onigiri every morning. So many flavours, so little time.
--------------
10th- Hiroshima -----> Kumamoto (Dyeing and Hostel Nakashimaya).
Hostel was really traditional and nice. The common room was homely. This hostel had the best atmosphere out of all of them, and I really liked the rooftop. The stairs leading up to the roof were creepy, but up there (especially at night), you could see so much of the city and the sky was so clear. It was windy every time, so twas very refreshing feeling being up there. The wooden halls in the hostel were lit by automatic lights that came on when you step out of your room and start walking. So cool :3 And the flower displays, goldfish, random framed art and stuff everywhere just made it that much more adorable *hearts*. Oh. And switching peoples lights off while they were showering was easy cause switches were outside. Turning someone them on was so much harder.
We shopped at a nearby street and the first thing you see when you enter the main street is this huge pachinko building, and you hear all the 'bings' and 'dings'. x.x I dragged Angela with me to Animate where I spent a small fortune on drawing materials. To my dismay, I was told there was no SasuNaru doujinshis.
Ramen dinner
:::::WHY DID 2 DAYS DISAPPEAR?!?! Stupid blogger edit D: *Reconstructs 11th and 12th from a failing memory* :::::::::
-----------
11th -
Kumamoto Castle and Hosokawa/Gyobu Mansion. Kumamoto castle was alrght. Was a drizzling day and theres a crazy steep ramp that I thought I would stack it up. Now. Hosokawa mansion I fell in love with. It was gorgeous. It's not mansion as in a huge, luxurious building, but the dwelling of a feudal lord from ages back. I took more photos in there than anywhere else I think, and my favourite photo was also snapped there. (Caught Hanson when he was sitting unsuspectingly on the Engawa - wooden extension part of Japanese House that overlooks the garden. The picture looks like its glowing and its just so calm *spazzes*).
Ate fast food for lunch.
Back at the hostel, we ate raw horse meat (except for Wendy, on whom I got to test my cullinary skills ;) ).
...argh, I can't remember what happened at night. *Slaps blogger*. Only that we went back to the street with Animate.
--------------------------------
12th - Kumamoto ----->Osaka (Hotel Chuo). The only hotel where we were in pairs in rooms rather than in fours. Fours was more lively and more potential for idiotic happenings :)
Shopping *drool* with my fabulous shopping partner, Angela :D
Dinner at an Italian (I think) place.
-------------
13th- Universal Studios. *Speechless*. I was coaxed onto the big rollercoaster a first time because Wendy lead me to believe we were just doing a simulation before the actual thing. She lied. It was the actual thing. She spent the ride laughing at me while I spent it screaming. Apparently, Adam was laughing at Hanson who was screaming in the row in front. Yay for not being alone. (Was later dragged on another 2 times).
The Jurassic water ride was wet. The rain pouring down was wet. The water under the boat was wet. The streams spraying from the dinosaurs were wet. And most of all, the big drop at the end was wet. Adam dodged the blast of water when the end drop happened, and I got the blast. Us girls headed off to the toilets, where we discovered our asses were too big to fit in the hand dryer.
Went on a LOT of rides. A facepalmworthy one was where Laurence screamed fit to scare all the kids on the mini rollercoaster for kids. It was in a huge tent, so I'm pretty sure everyone in there heard him screaming. the. whole. ride. long.
Did I mention it was raining all day and night? Going on the rollercoaster at night felt like getting hit with rocks.
------------
14th- Osaka ---> Kyoto (Kyoto Ryokan Style Guesthouse Budget Inn). Was of Japanese styled suites. TV on the wall in rooms *drool*. Me and Wendy learnt off the beauty channel that its good to slap your face every morning a hundred times. This part of the trip was when we started getting lazy ^^; Waking up late, staying up late, escalating snacking tendncies on my part, etc.
And then we went to Nara, where we aquainted ourselves with the deer. Had lunch walking up to the temples and everything, and also had my favourite snack of the trip. GREEN TEA MOCHI WITH RED BEAN FILLING!!!! Completely different to packaged mochi, it was soft and chewy and warm, floury on the outside and liquidly sweet and textured on the inside and just righttttttttttt. If it wasn't perishable, I would have bought a months supply. But alas, it has to be eaten on the day its made, that's how fresh it was.
Teppanyaki dinner at Chabana~ Budget and yummy.
----------------
15th - Kinkakuji. Laurence couldn't believe he paid to go in and walk a circle in a garden with a temple haha. Tbh, it was more boring than I expected given all the talk, and we got it over with in a couple of hours.
Fushimi Inari Shrine (zomg, another damn mountain which I couldn't climb). The place is filled with all these red tori gates. The whole mountain is covered with them. Wendy's camera has a GPS system or something and it insisted that we were in a cemetery when we were making our way up the mountain, all alone and trapped in a trail of tori gates. We peered between the tori gates and looked around. It kinda did look like a cemetary.
Arashiyama for the Hanatoro: lights festival happening there. The lights were anti-climatic (my bad ^^;), but I guess the whole countryside scenery, bamboo forest and walking through traditional Japanese streets at night was an experience. There was a vendor with cooked green tea mochi =O Yummy. Dinner was at a noodles + donburi restaurant. I don't like udon. There was a painting hanging on the wall above our table at this place. I can't remember what it was SUPPOSED to depict, but I didn't see anything work/child-safe HAHAHA. Wendy probably remembers what it was. Anyway, girls were sitting separately to guys at other end of restaurant cause there weren't seats together, and the guys were just saying how it was quiet and then suddenly, us girls were exploding into laughter. Oops.
(Back at the inn). An interestingly drunken night which had nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with a series of luvo photos that started it all. How does David come into this? He was supposed to come and ask a question. He ended up opening the door to our room and staring in horror at the three manic (cause I certainly wasn't) girls with palm tree hair. Blackmail material was created afterwards. I went to sleep at some point and the next thing I knew when I woke up, three of teh guys were in our room and I was staring a bit too closely at Laurence (who'd stolen Wendy's futon, i.e. the one next to mine.) I was pretty damn disorientated and confused. Ended up joining in the games though. I got stepped on probably three times by everyone walking around and not knowing when people were under futons.
----------------
16th - Kiyomizudera temple. I got my 2nd bad luck fortune. First was at...err...I can't remember. Actually, they transitioned. First was uber bad luck, second was the end of good luck, and third was extreme good luck. >.>
Nishiki Market. Huge food market o.o Had tofu donuts.
Shopping at Teramachi and Shinkogyoku (or something like that). Quite liked this stretch of shops.
Gion --> As we were crossing a large bridge, we suddenly sighted Geishas through the distant windows of a restaurant overlooking the river. We then stalked said Geishas to Pontocho, where the restaurant entrance was. We looked at the price of the food and gave up XD.
Dinner at a Fujiya. Yum.
-----------------
17th - Kyoto ----> Tokyo (Khaosan Kabuki in Asakusa)
At some point in Tokyo, I established that David is also a peach.
*Mind blank about first day*
Shopping at Ueno.
-----------------
18th - Ghibli Museum. Really, really, uber, wonderful, AMAZINGNESS. Spent quite a bit somehow. Bought lil keyrings, a soundtrack, a book, postcards.
Sunshine City ---> We started out in the supposedly amazing shopping mall. We all ended up leaving it at some point cause there was nada. Haha.
Shinjuku. I really honestly cannot remember what was there. It MIGHT have been the place where there was all these ultra expensive department stores. Hmm. Yeah. That sounds about right. Actually. I swear that was after Harajuku. ...I don't remember.
--------------
19th - Harajuku (pizza lunch). Where I did most of my shopping. Most things are rather pricey, but then again, most shops have a few really nice bargains =D Forever 21 became my new best friend. Half my clothes shopping on the trip was from there. Wendy and Jenny actually spent the whole alotted shopping time in there o__0 The whole 2 and a bit hours. And me and angela thought WE were bad. We only made it halfway down the shopping street stretch.
We went Shibuya and had sticker photos with just the girls. Guys are banned from sticker photos in some places. ;D The guys actually weren't with us at all because we stayed in Harajuku after lunch, whilst they skipped to Shibuya first. I can't remember how we met back up with them. Might have been back at the hostel.
Dinner back at Asakusa.
---------------
20th - We woke up very late and ate tsukemen for breakfast.
What happened at lunch is beyond this particular goldfish's memory.
Shibuya again at night, where I went to Mandarake and bought more SasuNaru BL. *rofl: Mandarake can be translated as covered in man. Hoho.* David accompanied me into Mandarake (I can imagine the awkwardness I put him through ^^) and was helping me hold SasuNaru while I flipped through every single SasuNaru doujinshi on the shelves. All three shelves bwahaha. I wish I bought more :( Like...I could sell the doujin I bought from Mandarake on Ebay for 300% of original price. And there was so many!!!!!! ... I just thought they'd be too heavy :( (And I was right -- My luggage was overweight XD)
--------------
21st -Hanson's bday! He never suspected that 2 mysterious disappearances would result in an additional 100 calories or so for everyone.
Sushi train breakfast. So nice. Most expensive meal all trip, since we were living off convenience store brekkies and other budget places. I avoided a lot of dishes though, cause the wasabi was hidden in them >.<>.>. But then again, that photo looks different to the Animate we saw. Grumble. Well if anyone wants maid cafes and shops which I suspect have pornographic material, you'll just have to figure out where this place is XD.
By this point of the trip, I had developed a definite takoyaki addiction which still isn't gone.
Participants -> Me, Wendy, Angela, Jenny, Adam, David, Hanson, Laurence. <3>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
6th - Plane left Sydney at 10:30pm or thereabouts. Sat next to the crackhead for 9.5 hours. Our entertainment system didn't work, but because of that me and Wendy got $50 vouchers to spend on the inflight shopping :) I.e. We started shopping over the ocean, before we even landed.
--------------
7th - Land at Narita Airport ----- >Hiroshima (Reino Inn).
The inn was simple but very clean and comfortable living. I got the unfoldable couch to myself most nights except when Jenny fell asleep on it and I was with Angela instead. Angela rolled over at one point and hit me XD.
Okonomiyaki for dinner, at a place with a lot of okonomiyaki restaurants. Couldn't taste it because I was sick and stayed sick for around the next week. It was cold. Very frigid, drizzling rain, cold.
--------------
8th - Ferried it to Miyajima. Spent all day there. They had a lot of very traditional streets and restaurants (oysters seemed to be famous here or something because all the restaurants had them). Played a memory game in the restaurant whereby Laurence failed pretty badly =D.
...and then I failed to climb Mt Misen T_T".
Had some awesome ramen for dinner, in a little shop complete with sliding door and all (so cute). It was cooked in individual bowls and everything was added into it as it was cooking over the fire. Then the whole lot was lifted off and served like that in the same bowl. The best ramen imo on the Japan trip :)
-------------
9th - Hiroshima Peace Museum. Very...enlightening isn't quite the word. Informative. Didn't go through the end part of museum because it was depressing. The couch out the back was much more appealing (I do seem to have a thing for couches). This was also the coldest day of the trip I can remember x.x
Shukkei-en (Garden). Very fun, very large, and very beautiful Japanese garden.
At night, me and Wendy
Consequent adrenaline rush back in room lead to me establishing that David is my pet cow, and Angela establishing that I am a din por.
Interlude: I hereby proclaim my love for Japan's convenience stores, and sadness that there's none like them in Australia. I miss eating onigiri every morning. So many flavours, so little time.
--------------
10th- Hiroshima -----> Kumamoto (Dyeing and Hostel Nakashimaya).
Hostel was really traditional and nice. The common room was ho
We shopped at a nearby street and the first thing you see when you enter the main street is this huge pachinko building, and you hear all the 'bings' and 'dings'. x.x I dragged Angela with me to Animate where I spent a small fortune on drawing materials. To my dismay, I was told there was no SasuNaru doujinshis.
Ramen dinner
:::::WHY DID 2 DAYS DISAPPEAR?!?! Stupid blogger edit D: *Reconstructs 11th and 12th from a failing memory* :::::::::
-----------
11th -
Kumamoto Castle and Hosokawa/Gyobu Mansion. Kumamoto castle was alrght. Was a drizzling day and theres a crazy steep ramp that I thought I would stack it up. Now. Hosokawa mansion I fell in love with. It was gorgeous. It's not mansion as in a huge, luxurious building, but the dwelling of a feudal lord from ages back. I took more photos in there than anywhere else I think, and my favourite photo was also snapped there. (Caught Hanson when he was sitting unsuspectingly on the Engawa - wooden extension part of Japanese House that overlooks the garden. The picture looks like its glowing and its just so calm *spazzes*).
Ate fast food for lunch.
Back at the hostel, we ate raw horse meat (except for Wendy, on whom I got to test my cullinary skills ;) ).
...argh, I can't remember what happened at night. *Slaps blogger*. Only that we went back to the street with Animate.
--------------------------------
12th - Kumamoto ----->Osaka (Hotel Chuo). The only hotel where we were in pairs in rooms rather than in fours. Fours was more lively and more potential for idiotic happenings :)
Shopping *drool* with my fabulous shopping partner, Angela :D
Dinner at an Italian (I think) place.
-------------
13th- Universal Studios. *Speechless*. I was coaxed onto the big rollercoaster a first time because Wendy lead me to believe we were just doing a simulation before the actual thing. She lied. It was the actual thing. She spent the ride laughing at me while I spent it screaming. Apparently, Adam was laughing at Hanson who was screaming in the row in front. Yay for not being alone. (Was later dragged on another 2 times).
The Jurassic water ride was wet. The rain pouring down was wet. The water under the boat was wet. The streams spraying from the dinosaurs were wet. And most of all, the big drop at the end was wet. Adam dodged the blast of water when the end drop happened, and I got the blast. Us girls headed off to the toilets, where we discovered our asses were too big to fit in the hand dryer.
Went on a LOT of rides. A facepalmworthy one was where Laurence screamed fit to scare all the kids on the mini rollercoaster for kids. It was in a huge tent, so I'm pretty sure everyone in there heard him screaming. the. whole. ride. long.
Did I mention it was raining all day and night? Going on the rollercoaster at night felt like getting hit with rocks.
------------
14th- Osaka ---> Kyoto (Kyoto Ryokan Style Guesthouse Budget Inn). Was of Japanese styled suites. TV on the wall in rooms *drool*. Me and Wendy learnt off the beauty channel that its good to slap your face every morning a hundred times. This part of the trip was when we started getting lazy ^^; Waking up late, staying up late, escalating snacking tendncies on my part, etc.
And then we went to Nara, where we aquainted ourselves with the deer. Had lunch walking up to the temples and everything, and also had my favourite snack of the trip. GREEN TEA MOCHI WITH RED BEAN FILLING!!!! Completely different to packaged mochi, it was soft and chewy and warm, floury on the outside and liquidly sweet and textured on the inside and just righttttttttttt. If it wasn't perishable, I would have bought a months supply. But alas, it has to be eaten on the day its made, that's how fresh it was.
Teppanyaki dinner at Chabana~ Budget and yummy.
----------------
15th - Kinkakuji. Laurence couldn't believe he paid to go in and walk a circle in a garden with a temple haha. Tbh, it was more boring than I expected given all the talk, and we got it over with in a couple of hours.
Fushimi Inari Shrine (zomg, another damn mountain which I couldn't climb). The place is filled with all these red tori gates. The whole mountain is covered with them. Wendy's camera has a GPS system or something and it insisted that we were in a cemetery when we were making our way up the mountain, all alone and trapped in a trail of tori gates. We peered between the tori gates and looked around. It kinda did look like a cemetary.
Arashiyama for the Hanatoro: lights festival happening there. The lights were anti-climatic (my bad ^^;), but I guess the whole countryside scenery, bamboo forest and walking through traditional Japanese streets at night was an experience. There was a vendor with cooked green tea mochi =O Yummy. Dinner was at a noodles + donburi restaurant. I don't like udon. There was a painting hanging on the wall above our table at this place. I can't remember what it was SUPPOSED to depict, but I didn't see anything work/child-safe HAHAHA. Wendy probably remembers what it was. Anyway, girls were sitting separately to guys at other end of restaurant cause there weren't seats together, and the guys were just saying how it was quiet and then suddenly, us girls were exploding into laughter. Oops.
(Back at the inn). An interestingly drunken night which had nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with a series of luvo photos that started it all. How does David come into this? He was supposed to come and ask a question. He ended up opening the door to our room and staring in horror at the three manic (cause I certainly wasn't) girls with palm tree hair. Blackmail material was created afterwards. I went to sleep at some point and the next thing I knew when I woke up, three of teh guys were in our room and I was staring a bit too closely at Laurence (who'd stolen Wendy's futon, i.e. the one next to mine.) I was pretty damn disorientated and confused. Ended up joining in the games though. I got stepped on probably three times by everyone walking around and not knowing when people were under futons.
----------------
16th - Kiyomizudera temple. I got my 2nd bad luck fortune. First was at...err...I can't remember. Actually, they transitioned. First was uber bad luck, second was the end of good luck, and third was extreme good luck. >.>
Nishiki Market. Huge food market o.o Had tofu donuts.
Shopping at Teramachi and Shinkogyoku (or something like that). Quite liked this stretch of shops.
Gion --> As we were crossing a large bridge, we suddenly sighted Geishas through the distant windows of a restaurant overlooking the river. We then stalked said Geishas to Pontocho, where the restaurant entrance was. We looked at the price of the food and gave up XD.
Dinner at a Fujiya. Yum.
-----------------
17th - Kyoto ----> Tokyo (Khaosan Kabuki in Asakusa)
At some point in Tokyo, I established that David is also a peach.
*Mind blank about first day*
Shopping at Ueno.
-----------------
18th - Ghibli Museum. Really, really, uber, wonderful, AMAZINGNESS. Spent quite a bit somehow. Bought lil keyrings, a soundtrack, a book, postcards.
Sunshine City ---> We started out in the supposedly amazing shopping mall. We all ended up leaving it at some point cause there was nada. Haha.
Shinjuku. I really honestly cannot remember what was there. It MIGHT have been the place where there was all these ultra expensive department stores. Hmm. Yeah. That sounds about right. Actually. I swear that was after Harajuku. ...I don't remember.
--------------
19th - Harajuku (pizza lunch). Where I did most of my shopping. Most things are rather pricey, but then again, most shops have a few really nice bargains =D Forever 21 became my new best friend. Half my clothes shopping on the trip was from there. Wendy and Jenny actually spent the whole alotted shopping time in there o__0 The whole 2 and a bit hours. And me and angela thought WE were bad. We only made it halfway down the shopping street stretch.
We went Shibuya and had sticker photos with just the girls. Guys are banned from sticker photos in some places. ;D The guys actually weren't with us at all because we stayed in Harajuku after lunch, whilst they skipped to Shibuya first. I can't remember how we met back up with them. Might have been back at the hostel.
Dinner back at Asakusa.
---------------
20th - We woke up very late and ate tsukemen for breakfast.
What happened at lunch is beyond this particular goldfish's memory.
Shibuya again at night, where I went to Mandarake and bought more SasuNaru BL. *rofl: Mandarake can be translated as covered in man. Hoho.* David accompanied me into Mandarake (I can imagine the awkwardness I put him through ^^) and was helping me hold SasuNaru while I flipped through every single SasuNaru doujinshi on the shelves. All three shelves bwahaha. I wish I bought more :( Like...I could sell the doujin I bought from Mandarake on Ebay for 300% of original price. And there was so many!!!!!! ... I just thought they'd be too heavy :( (And I was right -- My luggage was overweight XD)
--------------
21st -Hanson's bday! He never suspected that 2 mysterious disappearances would result in an additional 100 calories or so for everyone.
Sushi train breakfast. So nice. Most expensive meal all trip, since we were living off convenience store brekkies and other budget places. I avoided a lot of dishes though, cause the wasabi was hidden in them >.<>.>. But then again, that photo looks different to the Animate we saw. Grumble. Well if anyone wants maid cafes and shops which I suspect have pornographic material, you'll just have to figure out where this place is XD.
By this point of the trip, I had developed a definite takoyaki addiction which still isn't gone.
----------------
22nd - Woke at 4:55am. Trained it to airport. Parted with the others at 8 something. [ :( ]. Hung around airport until check-in opened at 5pm (damn you Qantas), hung around outside gate for another 2 ish hours reading my doujinshi and snacking on pocky + my last onigiri + a delightful peach and mango drink.
Plane flew at approx 8pm Japan time.
-----------------
23rd - Landed at Kingsford Airport at 7:34am Australian time.
The beagle at quarantine decided it would like to come back to my handbag a second time and slobber all over it. I only had green tea candies and pocky. I swear :)
22nd - Woke at 4:55am. Trained it to airport. Parted with the others at 8 something. [ :( ]. Hung around airport until check-in opened at 5pm (damn you Qantas), hung around outside gate for another 2 ish hours reading my doujinshi and snacking on pocky + my last onigiri + a delightful peach and mango drink.
Plane flew at approx 8pm Japan time.
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23rd - Landed at Kingsford Airport at 7:34am Australian time.
The beagle at quarantine decided it would like to come back to my handbag a second time and slobber all over it. I only had green tea candies and pocky. I swear :)
Dec 3, 2010 @ 9:44 PM
QUAY Restaurant: Home of the Snow Egg as featured on Masterchef
Quay restaurant. We went today as a treat from my uncle and aunt who are visiting from Melbourne :)
Service and atmosphere was great. Their food was great. The view was great. The price tag...umm, it was actually pretty good, I think, for what we got, because Quay definitely trumped any other restaurant I've been too. And it was also really, really relaxing for me. I've never spent 3 hours having lunch before. It was a nice way to spend time.
I had a great day. And it would have been perfect if not for QANTAs phoning me up. It was kind of like, we are giving you the option to change your flight, and it's completely your choice, but if you don't do it, we do not guarantee you can get on this flight. That's like a shop assistant saying, oh, you can pay for this product, but there's no guarantee it'll work/you'll ever get it. *Waves hands in frustration*. What idiotic service. In complete contrast to Quay.
I want to get married at Quay. LOLOLOL.