21Dec / 2022

Din Tai Fung – Ginza, Japan

Another country, another Din Tai Fung. I can’t help myself and my friend had never tried them before so we just had to right? I think I am slowly getting over my Din Tai Fung obsession, it wasn’t a great experience.

Spicy Pickled Cucumbers | ¥550

Good, not great? Not as pickled as I would have liked.

Pork Chop with Fried Rice | ¥1600

My favorite dish of the meal. I really liked their fried rice, had a good taste of MSG. Hahaha MSG gets a bad rep, I like when I can taste it in fried rice.

Steamed Shrimp and Pork Shiaomai (4 pc) | ¥800

Ehhh, if I compare it to the siumai from home. Thumbs down.

Pork XiaoLongBao (4 pc) | ¥660

My friend says he was disappointed because they weren’t as big or soupy as he expected. I don’t blame him for the disappointment. It was just alright. I think the better deal they had going was their lunch specials. For a pretty good price, you could get a noodle dish and side XLB. We weren’t that hungry since we had breakfast that morning so we only ordered this much. I would come back to order their meal set!

Here’s the restaurant being fancy just to be fancy. I should have put my jacket on the same chair as my purse, because they used two big cloth napkins to cover my purse and my jacket. I guess they are trying to protect it from any potential spills? I don’t know. A little extra in my mind, lol.

Post Views: 1,105

Permalink 1 Comment

20Dec / 2022

Japan Glasses & Wifi

Hi folks! Just a quick side post for some things I found neat! My eye doctor mentioned that I could get glasses in Japan for cheaper – and that the frames are better made for Asian faces, are lightweight and can be done quick. SOLD. I am due for a new pair of glasses anyway. Thank you so much to kat for answering all my random questions and sharing this place with me! There was a JINS in Ginza so I checked them out!

A pretty painless process! They have all the frames out for you to look at, when you are ready, you bring the frame to them and show them your prescription. I asked how long it would take since I am a tourist and they said it would depend on the power I needed. If they have the lens in stock, it would take 30 MINUTES. I was like dumbfounded. I showed them my prescription and they had it! So they did something real quick with a machine and my face and took to work.

You pay for your glasses and they give you a ticket telling you what time to return. Yup, it was ready in 30 minutes. When I came back, they showed me the glasses and then had me put them on so they could adjust the frames to fit my face perfectly. The glasses also come with a free hard case. I almost wish I got another pair! Highly recommend!

Do you folks have a preferred wifi provider in Japan? I’ve been using Global Advanced Communications for all the years I’ve been traveling to Japan. This is not an ad, no one is paying me anything. I just think they are reliable and the cost is pretty good! Just wanted to show you what you get – and the package with all of this is waiting for me when I checked into my hotel. I could use this unit all through Japan and they give you a pre-paid envelope to return everything in when you’re at the airport. It was great. This wifi pocket is a pretty old unit, I mean, I am pretty sure this is the same one I got the last time I was in Japan like 3 years ago lol. It’s okay, it worked great.

I also used an IC card for the first time this trip, what a breeze. Why didn’t I do this earlier? I actually went to a JR station to look for the Welcome Suica card made for travelers. Why not? I didn’t have to pay a deposit and it has a cute cherry blossom design. Using that card to just scan my way through all the train stations was great, it works at basically all the subway and train stations. It also worked in both Tokyo and Osaka and it’s very easy to refill the card at all stations.

Post Views: 1,067

Permalink 3 Comments

19Dec / 2022

2022 Japan – Day 1

Hi everyone! I am back! I am soo happy and relieved to report that I did not get sick once during my trip. Sick as in travel sick. I did incredibly well on the plane rides/train rides/bus rides. It might be a mixture of things but I also tried Bonine this time around and since I did well this trip, I guess Bonine will be the thing I take from here on out.

My flight in and out of Japan was through Hawaiian Airlines. They had a killer deal flying in and out of Narita so we had to snatch it up! It was around $687 round trip? Sounds good to me! We decided to do half the trip in Tokyo and half the trip in Osaka, instead of train-ing it, we decided to take a domestic flight. That was an interesting trip. Maybe I’ll do a side post on it.

For our first night, we threw down our stuff and headed to grab some dinner before resting for the night. I was actually looking for Ippudo and this place was closer so we just went for it. It was okay. We got tripped up by the machine because it was all in Japanese and only a few buttons had pictures lol.

Well first off, the char siu is hard as a rock. They slice it up ice cold and just throw it on top of the ramen. Who wants hard pieces of meat? The egg and noodles were good. The broth was…RICH. All in all, I wouldn’t go back again but was nice to start the trip off with some ramen!

Just another example of how Japan does everything better. This is their Starbucks Reserve. Our hotel was in Ginza so we spent the first day of the trip just staying within Ginza. This Starbucks was super close to our hotel. It was a bit confusing for me, you order downstairs and then go upstairs for seating. My drink was prepared upstairs but the sandwich I asked for was served to me on a tray downstairs. Their English wasn’t great haha.

I got the Winter Cinnamon Latte! I just couldn’t resist. I just noticed I paid ¥940 for a cup of coffee. What is blended? Oops! I just went for it.

Look at how cute the coffee is! The design, the whole cinnamon stick. The drink was lovely. Nice and mild, not bitter and just a nice touch of cinnamon.

Just a deli meat sandwich. Very dry. No mayo at all. It was okay, not great.

My friend’s plate! And look! They have the lemon loaf cake in Japan too! Very different. Very dense – it’s not bad but not great. I wouldn’t get it again, just stick to the one in Hawaii. I don’t wanna clog this post up with too many pictures! More posts to come!

Post Views: 1,032

Permalink 3 Comments

19Feb / 2020

IPPUDO – Tokyo Disney, Japan

IPPUDO is another famous ramen restaurant in Japan. Well is it? I only say that because I know they have a branch in New York and if that isn’t fancy, I don’t know what is. This brings back wonderful memories because I first had IPPUDO in New York and it was a fantastic meal. We decided to check this place out before our first day in Disney. Have you been to this Ikspiari mall? Their lunch menu is pretty much set so I couldn’t try too many different dishes. A lot of people seemed to have the same idea as us, they ate here before heading out to Disney.

Mentaiko Rice and Gyoza Add-on Set | ¥200 (plus tax)

This picture is a bit misleading, we both got add-on sets and they served both our gyozas on the same serving dish. The ramen, gyoza and rice was good. I still prefer Ichiran, sorry. It would be nice if Ichiran would serve gyoza too but I’ll just eat the ramen if I need to.

Post Views: 3,062

Permalink 2 Comments

17Feb / 2020

Genki Sushi – Shibuya, Japan

Genki Sushi in Japan. Of course I had to try it and of course they are better than Hawaii. Well, the ordering system and variety is! It was missing spicy tuna which is totally my jam but I enjoyed it nonetheless. This Genki Sushi is super busy but very fast. I didn’t take a picture of every single dish but you can bet I ordered weird stuff.

Yup, that’s hamburger with mayo on rice. I ordered this because I am five years old. It wasn’t even that good, meh!

LOL, I don’t have an excuse for this order whatsoever. I just wanted cheesy fries. Well, it looks good but it did not taste good. How do you screw up fries? Just gotta fry it up and add salt. Well, it was cold and no more salt. Even the cheese sauce was bland. Thumbs down.

Tamago. Gosh, I can’t even remember this. I am sure I only ordered it because it was dashi tamagoyaki, I don’t do the sweet omelette stuff.

Mmm, reminds me of the salmon here with the rayu and onions. This was good and look, yellow plate!

Post Views: 1,937

Permalink 1 Comment

14Feb / 2020

Yakiniku-Kirakuen – Asakusa, Japan

A long travel and walking day ends with a meal very close to our hotel. Also a craving for high quality meat (not me). Short post today…Yakiniku Kirakuen!

Kirakuen Set | ¥3,680 (plus tax)
*a helping of various kinds of dishes of five kinds of meat (lol, they tried with the English)*

So the kalbi soup and bibimbap was mine. Didn’t feel much like meat that night and this soup and rice combo really called to me. And it really hit the spot too! And…the $15 for this was well worth it. Delicious.

Funny story about this restaurant. Well first, the wait staff were all Chinese but fluent in Japanese (this was a common occurrence this trip) but one of them was also fluent in English. Three languages! Talent.

On the other end of the restaurant had a table with 3 young foreign guys, possibly military? Different ethnicities and next to them was a table of 3 quite randy Chinese ladies. The ladies were probably drunk and kept asking the guys to “join us” at whatever location they were going to after dinner. It was quite amusing to see. Sounded like a joke at first but the join us statement happened a…lot.

Post Views: 2,037

Permalink 2 Comments

11Feb / 2020

Asakusa View Hotel – Tokyo, Japan

Do you folks want to see hotel pics? Well, I didn’t get much of my Osaka hotel but I did of the Tokyo one! So here it is, Asakusa View Hotel!

The toilet and the bath area are separated and the main sink is outside of the bathroom. There is a shower and it’s located in the same room as the bathtub and the floor is the drain. It’s a trip! Big bathroom in this hotel, the bathroom in Osaka was HUGE. Like such the opposite of my past experiences, especially in Airbnbs. The thing I missed the most though? Washer and dryers from the Airbnbs! This was a longer trip too so I really had to stretch some clothes…good thing the weather was cold.

Beautiful city views from the hotel! We didn’t pay enough for the Skytree view from our room. Ah well, I don’t really need it. What was nice was that they had a viewing room in the hotel, it was on the 20-something floor and it had a very nice view of the Skytree. Why pay when it’s free? Haha, anyway…it was a nice hotel. I liked that the hotel limousine stops right at the hotel. I do feel like Asakusa was situated a bit away from just about everything…but that’s okay. I don’t mind walking around and catching transport in chilly weather.

Oh wait, I have a funny story to tell. So the first night of our stay, my body full of Denny’s sangria came back to a very warm hotel room. I kept tinkering with the AC to no relief. Then we noticed our fancy Japanese toilet was broken. Ugh. We called the front desk about it and they sent a very nice worker up. I think she was Filipino but fluent in English and Japanese of course. I asked her why they room was so hot. Here’s the Hawaii girl, apparently it’s so cold that the heater kicks on. No AC. I was not happy. She asked if we wanted her to open the window. Sure.

So here I am looking like a freak with my head practically out the window to get some nice chilly air. Then I ask about the humidifier in the room, it was blinking a red light and I didn’t know how to fix that. She mentions casually that I just need to fill it with water. Well, I was already kind of irritated and never worked a humidifier before so I ask her to help with it. We had a humidifier in the Osaka hotel but the maid staff must have been refilling it for us every night. Well it did not happen in this hotel, I had to refill it every night.

She offered to bring a fan into the room and we took her up on the offer. They fixed the battery in the toilet and she mentions that when we want the window closed, we just need to call down to the front desk because they have to close it with a key. Well, I just told her to close it already because I didn’t want to have to call down to close it later. After we cooled down a bit after our showers, I actually just turned off the “heater” that read air conditioner and the room cooled down considerably. It was quite nice with no heater on in the room. I never had this before, I could always just control the temperature in the room…didn’t realize we had to deal with a heater only. Glad we found a fix in the end though!

Post Views: 2,602

Permalink 4 Comments

10Feb / 2020

Denny’s – Tokyo, Japan

There’s a Denny’s restaurant right down the street from our Tokyo hotel. Yes, we had to go. I know American restaurants in Japan are always so different from…America that I had to check it out! Let’s dig in!

Absolutely delicious! Well worth the 8 bucks. It’s easy to become an alcoholic at these prices…lol.

Wait a minute, this salad was like the cost of the alcohol! Looks good ah? It was good! Was nice to nosh into a fresh salad in Japan.

Soy Marinated Tuna Rice Bowl | ¥1,149
*served with miso soup & goma (sesame) tofu*

Demi Glace Stewed Hamburger Steak with Truffle Cream | ¥899
A Set (Rice and Corn Potage) | ¥300

I don’t have a lot of corn potage experiences but really liked it. So smooth and mild, it’s delicious!

Looks pretty…dark yeah? It was pretty good. I think we came here after our long wait at the airport for our airport limousine. It wasn’t stellar customer service but it was still better than many experiences here. We didn’t get a set that included drinks at their drink bar but the sangria was plenty good.

Post Views: 2,151

Permalink Leave a comment

07Feb / 2020

Yuki-Akari Ramen – Tokyo, Japan

So I had all these worries about our domestic flight from Osaka to Tokyo. I made sure I didn’t buy much from Osaka so that my luggage would stay within weight limit for the domestic flight (smaller weight limit compared to international). We got to the airport pretty early but well, not necessary because there is no real security check. Nothing serious anyway. You can keep your shoes on as long as they’re not high tops.

The flight is about an hour and I had an aisle seat. A Japanese businessman had the middle seat and he kept going to the bathroom. At least twice. On a one hour flight. It was totally fine with me but it was one hour!

Anyway, we got to Haneda, grabbed our luggage and headed to the Airport Limousine ticketing right away. We couldn’t believe our eyes, the next available bus was in HOURS. We weren’t about to take a taxi so we bit it and took the earliest ride we could get. We were both hungry so we decided to eat at the airport. Usually a no no right? Well in Hawaii that is…but the food was not bad (both taste and price)! Check it out.

Zangi (Hokkaido-style deep fried chicken) | ¥520 (plus tax)

Fancy description, tasted good. It’s basically chicken karaage, nothing special.

Tsukemen (spicy sesame) | ¥900 (plus tax)

Shio White Leek Ramen | ¥800 (plus tax)
Add egg | ¥100 (plus tax)
Gyoza (6 pieces) | ¥450 (plus tax)

My ramen. Pretty good! I do enjoy a cleaner broth from time to time so it was nice. Good egg as you can see, perfect yolk! Too bad I had to pay for the egg. The gyoza was good too. It was nice to have a seat in a casual restaurant to eat. We were able to rest a bit after finishing our food, no real rush from them for us to leave. Although, it was not a busy period. Haha

Post Views: 2,654

Permalink 6 Comments

18Jan / 2020