Day 2 (4 May) in Tokyo

I visited Shimo-kitazawa a few years ago in my first trip in Japan and I like the place with its interesting shops and it's easy to move around. The cafes there look inviting too. Shimo-kitazawa was a place we had to visit while in Tokyo.

To get to Shimo-kitazawa, we took the JR train from Ikebukuro to Shibuya and switched to the Keio Inokashira line. After browsing around the shops, raving about the nice/cute stuff in some shops (such as T-Four) and buying them, we were hungry and started hunting for a place for our lunch. In the end, we settled for okonomiyaki. Our cousin ordered a beef one,
I had natto one

while sis had a pork cutlet and cheese version.

We found the servings huge and couldn't finish our food.

After lunch, we went in search for Cateriam, a cat cafe. I read about it in kuro.shiro.neko's blog and the cats sound adorable. We managed to find it at another side of the train station and it was above this shop called Jean-Mate. Cousin left her name and contact number with the Cateriam staff who would call her when there were available space for us. We browsed at another interesting shop we found (called Communication Mania) and Sis and I bought more stuff.

The entry fee to Cateriam is 1,000Yen per person for an hour, inclusive of a drink. We ordered ice tea and some fruit juices.


This cat was checking out the shoes, the toys before settling down in a clay bowl and dozing off.

Its sleeping companion :)


Other sleepy heads at different times during our visit were on the shelf,

on the comfy cushion,

under the table,

at the area where we the visitors are required to wash our hands before touching the cats,

in front of the book featuring the cat itself.


This girl looks adorable awake or sleeping.


There was a nice big black cat that Sis and I were attracted to. His name is Zero. I like his big eyes. One moment he was resting on Sis' bags and dozing off.

Then he was walking around or following the Cateriam staff. At one time, he was also high up at one corner of the cafe.

Next, he was briefly in a basket near our table. I like his eyes.


Only once were 2 of the cats curious about the drinks of the other visitors.


The staff would occasionally play with the cats and the cats would spring into action.
Some, like this cat, entertained themselves.

The visitors respected the cats and would quietly watch them play, play with them or take photos of them.

It was an interesting way to spend an afternoon in Tokyo. I felt myself missing my cats back home.

Cat cafes are popular in Tokyo as some of the Japanese who like cats could not keep cats/pets in their apartments. We saw another cat cafe in another part of Shimo-kitazawa. Peeping through the glass panels, Cateriam looks more appealing.

When we left Shimo-kitazawa for Jiyugaoka, I started to feel queasy. I wasn't sure if it was because the oily okonomiyaki didn't agree with me or I didn't get enough sleep the past 2 nights (1st was watching movie on plane and 2 hours of sleep and 2nd was cleaning my luggage due to leaking bottle of cough mixture and 4 hours of sleep). I didn't want to spoil the fun for Sis and Cousin, so I was hoping the sick feeling would go away. While Sis and Cousin did some shopping at Uniqlo at Jiyugaoka, I sat at the cushiony seat and closed my eyes. Cousin suggested resting at Sweet Forest, a place where cake/pastry shops come together and people can order any desserts they want (like our food court but this is a dessert paradise for dessert lovers). Once we reached there, I quickly went to the toilet to puke. I felt much better after that and had some oolong tea while they had strawberry tart and strawberry shortcake. I didn't take photos at that time, so I can't show you Sweet Forest and the cakes. At the same building, there was a interesting shop called Cuoco selling baking equipment and ingredients.

We didn't have dinner with Cousin and Cousin-in-law due to my condition. On the way back, we saw a statue with a cat on top of it at Ikebukuro station and people were taking photos and trying to touch it.

By then, I was well enough to check out the convenience stores near our hotel to get bread for breakfast the next day :)

Day 1 (3 May) in Tokyo

After we left our luggage at Sunshine City Prince Hotel in Ikebukuro, we walked for 15 mins to the JR station and took another 5 mins trying to figure out how to buy the tickets :) We met our cousin at Harajuku station at around 1.15pm.

One of the streets was very crowded. Occasionally, the crowd couldn't move and we went into the shop to browse. I bought some socks from tutuanna and a sling bag and a cat pendant from Zona Liberata.


Since the crepes are supposed to be popular in Harajuku, we each had one. I tried to read the Katagana characters and ordered a double chocolate ice cream crepe for Sis and a strawberry cheese cake for myself. Sis was stifling her laughter behind me as she said I sounded funny but at least they understood my order :) Cousin got her crepe from another stall while we bought ours from Angel Heart. The crepe was quite yummy.

Cousin and her hubby brought us to a restaurant in Roppongi which serves nice udon soup and other dishes.

Cousin-in-law had to queue for more than 30 mins to get a table for us. It was worth the wait. I like my chicken udon soup which had bits of some citrus peel and sis liked her beef udon soup.

The tempura and other fried stuff were good too. It was my 1st time eating a tempura leaf.


It was quite cold that night with the wind blowing, but I was game for ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery. Sis and I shared a berry ice cream in a green tea waffle bowl.

We also saw beautiful flowers blooming along the sides of the roads. I only remembered to take this nice flower display at Roppongi Hills. During the trip, we also saw florist selling nice bouquets of flowers for Mother's Day.

On the plane to Tokyo

Our flight to Tokyo on 2 May (Sat) at 11.30pm was delayed to after 2am on 3 May due to some technical problem. Sis and I went out of the gate and had some comfort food and drinks at Delifrance - quiche and tea. Surprisingly, the flight wasn't full. There were quite a number of empty seats and the other passengers spread out to make themselves more comfortable.

Instead of getting more sleep, I watched Suspect X, a Japanese movie. The story is about a mathematics teacher/genius who helped his next-door neighbour (a lady and her daughter) to cover up the murder of her ex-husband by building an alibi for them. 2 police detectives sought the help of a physicist (who knew the maths genius back in college days) to solve the case. The story is interesting as things are not what they seem to be and even though the geniuses try to use logical thinking, human emotions are unpredictable. I cried at the end and managed to sleep for around 2 hours.

Stripe, the newly sterilised community cat

The gangly noisy male cat has been loitering at the carpark and void deck of a block near mine for the past few months. However, he wasn't seen often especially after I sterilised Monkey, the female cat he was following. Recently, he appeared more frequently and I find him rather friendly despite his strange loud siren-like meowing. He likes me to run his head and neck and he will rub his head against my hand and do a roll over. I decided to try trapping him and get him sterilised.

On Tues, I was on mc as my runny nose and cough didn't go away and I was worried I won't recover by the time I leave for Tokyo this Sat. I wanted to trap him a few days earlier but didn't feel well and he also didn't appear that night. On Tues, I walked around the few blocks he is usually seen but there was no sign of him. Mom and I had finished feeding Fat Cat and White Neck at a corner of the void deck and we were getting ready to leave when we suddenly heard a loud siren meow and Stripe (named by Mom) was running towards us. Mom said it seemed like he wanted the opportunity to be sterilised. I quickly fed him a little dry food, tried whether he was ok to be held by the loose skin at the back of his head. He is really trusting. He smelled the opening of the carrier which I placed near him. Without wasting time, I quickly grabbed him and put him into the carrier. Luckily he's lean and not heavy like Bob.



Last night, Stripe was released at the void deck and I gave him some wet food and dry food before leaving him. Tonight, he came running noisily. It seemed like he recognises me/us. He is very affectionate and I gave him a head and neck rub before giving him some dry food.

Angel and his tiger toy

Seeing Angel together with his tiger toy brought back fond memories when he was as small as the toy :)

Homecooked dinner

Mom prepared the ingredients and guided Dad in cooking the dishes. I was happily drinking the soup in front of me before attacking the other dishes :)

Birthday porridge :)

After feeding the community cats with mom this morning, I suggested we made some brown rice porridge for our lunch. We cooked the porridge in the small rice cooker. I used the Jap dashi stock to make the soup base to add to the brown rice once it was cooked. Coriander, crab stick, long beans and instant oats were the other ingredients. Mom also steamed a corn.

I couldn't help taking a few photos of the simple yummy porridge.

It's nice to be able to take my birthday leave today and be home with my family and cats and have home cooked meals.

Bobby

I call him different names - Bob, Bobby, dear, sweetie, darling and when he is naughty, he becomes "Notty boy" or "Notty Bob".

When he is out of our room, he is quite a sweet cat if he does not try to get past the barricade to the room where Angel is. Sometimes, one of his eyes will look smaller than the other - taking a short break while keeping an eye on his environment? :)

He will hop onto the kitchen cabinet counter at times and sit on it. Look at his leg dangling! Haha.

Don't worry. We don't prepare food there and Mom or any of us will clean the table surface or kitchen sink before we prepare our meals.

Cheese Fondue and Pizza

On Sun morning, a good friend invited me and her friends to her place for a cheese fondue party. I have tried making it with her a few weeks ago to make sure that the cheese fondue will be a success too during the party. We followed the recipe from a library book - pour white wine (table/dry) into a double boiler, stir in corn starch coated cubes of cheeses (gruyere, swiss cheese, cheese depending on your preference), add in some white pepper, continue stirring until it turned creamy.

Her friends helped with the making of the fondue too and we transferred the fondue into a slow cooker to maintain its temperature and consistency while we dipped pieces of capsicum, green apple, bread, cherry tomatoes, cocktail sausages and baguette into it. The fondue is really for cheese lovers. I also made some honey lemon drink as it is refreshing for the hot weather.

As my friend had some ingredients for pizza and we had some leftover cheddar cheese and veggies, she suggested we could make some pizza for dinner. (The cheese fondue was our lunch.) We all had fun making the dough and "decorating" our piece of dough. At 6pm, our pizzas were ready and we tried the different pizzas. Some of the pizzas had the left fondue as toppings. It was really a cheesy day :)

Good food and dessert

After the SAM visit, we girls headed to Keong Saik Rd (Chinatown) and had dinner at Kok Sen Restaurant. It's actually a coffeeshop. We had sweet sour pork (lean and tender), prawn soup (like prawn noodle soup but more potent and minus the noodles), steamed egg with century and salted egg and stir fried kailan. Dinner was yummy.

We walked around Keong Saik Rd and Neil Rd for a short while to digest our food before the girls looked for the dessert place recommended by a friend. It's Seventh Heaven located at 10 Raeburn Park. I think it's not easy for people without cars to get there. It's behind the Tanjong Pagar Railway Station and nested at some commercial building behind the security counter. So it's actually quite safe with the security guards around in the secluded area. Hee. Joan had to call the dessert shop for directions and the lady over the phone asked us not to be scared and just drive up the slope, past the carpark gantry, park the car and look for the security counter. Haha.

The staff was very friendly and offer us small samples of coconut ice cream and green tea ice cream to convert us into fans. The ice cream was made by the shop and it tasted really good - the texture and taste are somewhere between rich ice cream (eg. Ben and Jerry) and gelato. I really like the green tea one - there were bits of brown rice and tea leaves and it wasn't too sweet. We ordered a platter of 3 ice cream flavours - chocolate (supposed to be dark chocolate but it tasted more like chocolate and whisky), salty cookie and cream (not bad but not salty enough) and black forest. We also had warm and soft chocolate cake. The cake was good and the accompany scoop of vanilla ice cream was interesting. I think they added cinnamon to it.

The next time I want to try their sea salt caramel. It was out of stock that night. I want green tea ice cream too :)

Singapore Art Museum (SAM)

I visited SAM with my friends, Joan and Ann on Sat late afternoon to view Wu Guanzhong's paintings. I vaguely recall seeing his name in the papers. We read his biography on one of the walls in SAM and he has been through a lot to pursue his love for art. I like his oil and inking paintings of nature, houses - the colours, dots, strokes or even the black chinese ink against the white paper created beautiful scenery and objects. He also did one of the pandas.

The photo above is not the works of Wu Guanzhong. Joan commented that it's nice how the museum uses red walls to bring out certain aspect of some art pieces. We like the chandelier looking lighting made of porcelain and shaped like dangling flowers. If you are interested in the works of Wu Guanzhong, his exhibition is ongoing until 16 Aug 09.

Vampire Knight and Vampire Knight Guilty

Sis and I watched the 2 seasons of Vampire Knight over 3 nights and 1 afternoon this week and finished watching the 26 episodes last night at around 12.30am. I like the story and how the characters were drawn but compared to Nabari no Ou , it is more complicated due to the romance element. It is not the straight forward happily ever after storyline. There are darkness (presence of evil characters), sadness (death of loved ones). Of course, there are light hearted moments. Sis and I as usual teared and cried at certain scenes.

The anime is based on the manga series of the same title and the story revolves around a school (called Cross Academy) attended by vampire students in the Night Class and human students in the day class. The Chairman of the Academy set up the school, hoping to establish peace and harmony between humans and vampires. The leader of the Night Class was a Pureblood vampire, Kaname Kuran who was respected by his fellow vampires. The Chairman took care of 2 children, Yuki and Zero who both had a sad past and were the Guardians of the Academy to ensure the students of the Day and Night class observed the rules. Kaname was very nice to Yuki and he was the one who saved her from a level E vampire when she was little and brought her to Chairman Cross. Zero came to the Academy a year later when his family was killed by a Pureblood vampire. Zero appeared gruff to Yuki but cared deeply for her. The question when we were watching the anime was whether Yuki would end up with Zero or Kaname.

While discussing with Sis about the anime earlier, Sis asked me to look for another interesting anime. Watching anime is addictive and a luxury. I can tear my eyes away to eat, feed the cats and attend to some tasks but I didn't revise Jap, do some office work, iron clothes as originally planned. I guess it's okay to watch anime once in a while but I need to control the frequency, knowing how time consuming it can be :)

Baking pizza

My friend and I met this afternoon to catch up over lunch and tea and also discussed the recipes for cheese fondue and bread we could use from library books we borrowed. When my friend suggested we tried the fondue recipe and baked pizza at her place, I was game.

She let me knead the dough and guided me as she had baked it before using her recipe. It was fun and quite easy. I only sprinkled part of the pizza with capsicum as Sis and Dad don't like it. Under the mozzarella cheese were prawns, bacon and pineapple. The end result was this and I brought the whole thing home while my friend and her hubby had a smaller square one :)

Our cheese fondue was also a success. We used cheddar, Gruyere cheese and white wine. It tasted great with the baguette and capsicum. We will be making the cheese fondue and baking bread a few weekends for now and enjoying them with more friends.

Japanese noodles from Daiso

Mom got me a packet of Japanese flat noodles from Daiso and I tried cooking them on Thurs. I cooked for mom and myself for lunch and did a dry version with some cornstarch, so that it won't be too dry. It tasted quite yummy. I put bonito sauce, yuzu hot sauce, kailan, sausages, meatballs and green chillies.

Mom's fungus sweet potato dessert

I told Mom about this dessert I tasted and like and she made her own version full of fungus and sweet potato.

This was her 2nd attempt and we finished it over a few days. She made the 3rd batch and we are slowly savoring it.

Birthday dinner for Sis

Mom cooked a yummy dinner for Sis on Thurs. Sis and I took leave partly for her birthday and also to plan our itinerary for our Tokyo holiday in May. Sis also doesn't usually come home for dinner due to her work nature, so it was nice to have dinner together at home.

We had this ginger chicken with wine (sis' favorite and request),
dark soya sauce fish (my favorite dish),

spinach and hairy gourd soup.

Bob and Joy

Bob was hiding initially when Joy was in my room. However, after a while, he was less scared and Joy could stroke and carry him. He even rubbed himself against her towards the end of the visit but Joy said Bob is still very attached to me as he would rub against me too. It's nice to see another person with affection for Bob. Joy commented that Bob and I will be sad if she adopts Bob. True, we will be initially but if Joy and her family loves Bob and Bob and their cat can get along or accept each other, we will be happy again.

Joy and I discussed and think we can try to let the 2 cats meet at her place. That will probably take place in May after my Japan holiday and her working trip.

Joy, I can still smell your perfume on Bob's fur just now. Hopefully that will help him to remember you the next time you visit :)

Bob's afternoon out of my room

I took a few photos of Bob when I let him out after my lunch. He is now resting on the floor in the living room while Angel is in my parents' room with the door closed and other defenses such as the weird fence, bottles of water and orange peels I blogged about earlier.


A potential adopter, Joy will be visiting Bob later. This will be the second time she and her 2 sisters see him. About a few weeks ago, they came too and Bob was quite freaked out and went hiding under the sofa or the toilet or under my bed. It's quite surprising as Bob used to be friendly with people when he was a community cat in the park. I guess after a year interacting just with me and my family, he lost that. Joy told us that she likes the look of Bob and the feelings she has after seeing the ad on Cat Welfare Society's adoption bulletin board. As I guess with that feelings and me hoping to find Bob a better home with more freedom, Joy and I decided that she could visit him again.

Bob is still meowing when he doesn't like to be cooped up in my room. He is still interested in the barrier separating him and Angel. I'm still sharing my pillow with him and my head is usually warmed by his body. I still get some scratches and bites from him on my arms when he is frustrated. He is still the cute guy I see when I go to my room and when I wake up :) But the sad thing is both still can't get along and either one will be unhappy being cooped up.

The last of yam soba

I have been trying to finish the packet of yam soba, so that I can try other brands. Today I made a bowl from the last strands with some veggies I found in the fridge, sausages and egg. For the soup, I put in the dashi/fish stock satchet and also added in this Jap yuzu hot sauce I got from Isetan Scotts supermarket. I like the taste and the dish made a nice satisfying meal for my lunch.

Angel on Ikea plank

Dad is creative. He likes to DIY and recently, he put up a plank from Ikea and shower curtain to cover his new TV in their bedroom. I don't know the purpose of the plank though but it seems like a great place for Angel to relax :) Oh and I like the blue tones of the curtain- bright and chirpy.

How I eat my capsicum

I like green capsicum/pepper, not the red or the yellow. I find the green one less sweet. I like to eat it with plain bread or toast it on top of cheddar cheese, some toast wheatgerm and bread. Yummy!

10 down, 2 more to go

The last time I wrote about being assigned to be the secretary of some senior management meetings. I started in Dec 08 and I have completed 10 sessions. The 10th one was yesterday from 4.45pm till 8.20pm. The 1st agenda item already took more then one hour of discussion and we had about 6 items. Anyway, I will try to draft the minutes and send them out to the directors for their comments by this weekend (my own target) before clearing with CEO by mid-week. Then hopefully, I will do 2 more meetings, as scheduled and be able to lead a more "normal" life.

The experience wasn't that painful. I get to see the decision making process, the dynamics, etc. The content of the discussion will be boring without the personality, experience and passion brought in by the participants. I am not one of them, just someone there to make sure the projector and my laptop run well for the presentation slides, to get presenters to come in at the right time and to record the minutes of the meeting.

I can't wait for my duty to end by end Mar and then I can give myself a little break :)

Watching anime

I have not been crazy about watching anime. The only time that came close was quite some time ago when Central (TV12) was showing Inuyasha at 11.30pm. Mom, sis and I would try to catch it on those weekday evenings. But that anime was quite long and came in a few seasons, so after a while, we stopped chasing after it. The storyline revolves around the adventures of the half-demon, Inuyasha and a schoolgirl, Kagome and their friends in fighting demons. Both Inuyasha and Kagome were from different era and had special powers. I like the storyline which is interesting, funny and sad but it was hard trying to catch up with it. Maybe I will try to follow the later seasons when I have the time.

Recently, I was listening to the Jap song on Sweeteepye's blog and like the tune. I was curious and started to find out what the anime Nabari no Ou was all about. Last Thurs till this Mon, I was watching the anime. I love it, the storyline, the music, the characters (how they were drawn and the colours). I laughed at the earlier episodes and as the story gets darker and sad, I teared/cried at times.

The story is about Miharu, a schoolboy who had some secret art/power in him - he didn't know about it at first and people (who were ninjas/samurai in the Nabari world) were interested in his power. Some became his friends and others just wanted to use the power for their own gains or to create their ideal world. It shows how misguided some people can be by destroying lives around them just to get what they want. There is also goodness where strangers became Miharu's friends and were there to help him. Another important character is Yoite who had the power of Kira and was also called the Death God. The scenes of him and Miharu were very touching as the 2 of them were similar in some ways and they shared a special bond.

I also like how the anime portrays some baddies with some goodness in them and even the good guys had some secrets they were keeping. Things were not what they seemed to be. It was fascinating to see how the story developed. I feel it's kind of unpredictable. Initially, I was attracted to the ninja fighting scenes, then in the later part, it was how the feelings and emotions of the characters were played out.

Most of the guys in the anime (especially Thobari Sensei)look cute and I initially thought one of them (Raiko) was a girl with his pink colour hair. Thobari sensei (another good guy) looks very cool and he was very funny to have a phobia of taking any form of transport. I managed to catch a few familar Japanese words that I have learnt but my eyes were catching the English subtitles all the time. Nabari no ou is only 26 episodes (about 30 mins per episode). I'm not sure if this is the usual length of anime but Inuyasha was more than 100 episodes. It will be wonderful if I am able to understand the anime in Jap. That is, if I continue to persevere in my Jap lessons (still at basic level and not been studying hard for it).

I don't think I will get addicted to another anime soon. Anyway, I could only watch it late at night when I finish checking on the community cats and the 2 rascals at home. But I have been feeling good about being able to catch Nabari no ou. At least I don't feel that I have wasted my time and it's not often I get glued to the computer for hours other than for work. Hee.

Another calico cat sterilised

Another calico cat appeared in my area. She looks well fed and is friendly. I wasted no time a few days later (on Tues) to trap her and asked a friend to help me to send to the vet for sterilisation.


Yesterday, I passed her in the carrier to a Malay uncle who wants to keep her as a pet. His wife and roaming pet cat recently passed away. This new cat will also be another roaming pet cat. At the moment, the uncle is keeping her indoors or in the carrier to train her to know that his place is her new home. I wonder if she will know to go back to his place to sleep after he releases her. We'll see. Either way, my parents and I will be feeding her as we also fed the uncle's previous pet. He stays at the ground level and let his previous cat pee and poo outdoors. He just left it to us to feed his cat and probably sometimes shared part of his meal with his cat.

Cooking on Sundays

I have been cooking simple meals for myself last Sunday and today.

Last Sun, I had the yam soba soup with veggies and egg. Angel jumped onto the sink counter and looked at my dish curiously.


Today, I made a dry version of the yam soba with kailan and egg while trying to bake some organic brownie from a premix I bought from Jasons supermarket. Both were yummy!


For dinner, I used the rice that Sis couldn't finish with her bak kut teh to cook fish and veggie porridge.

Goodbye, Poofy

Poofy, our last hamster, passed away this afternoon. Mom found him motionless outside his toilet. His 2 siblings, Peanut and Pebble, left us last year. For the past few months, Poofy lost most of his fur and walk in an awkward manner but he would still grab bread, corn and beansprout from us.

I'm not sure if we will be keeping any more hamsters since we are already quite busy with the cats. The hamsters have given me good memories and through them, I have learnt to be a more responsible person and also start this journey of loving creatures great and small (except cockroaches and mosquitoes).