Out and About on a Sun(ny)Day

Whilst its howling wind, lashing rain thanks to a raging typhoon out there today, just three days ago was a bright, 33degC sunny weekend with not a cloud in sight.

Saturday was spent walking around Harajuku for a bit, before joining some of the girls from the dorm at Yoyogi Park for a Vietnamese Food Festival!

People bought food from the many many tents, sat down on these stairs and tucked in. =)

One of the things we tried was Banh Mi - a pork sandwich in Vietnamese-style French baguette. It was SO good!

People trying on the traditional Vietnamese attire and taking photos on rickshaws.

After visiting this fair, a never-before-urge to visit Vietnam surfaced. Combined with the Vietnamese dishes that I've been seeing on Masterchef Australia, I cannot wait to go Vietnam and try the food there sometime soon hopefully! This is how travelling itches always hit me - first the food, then the travel. Oh dear.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday was even more blazing hot than Saturday, hitting 33 degrees Celsius or perhaps a bit more. But the sun was the bright cheery type and humidity was not very high, so that made a good day out for walking (and tanning! -.-'').

I started the day with one of my favourite activities in Tokyo - visiting flea markets!

Look beyond the row of bicycles, through the trees and see the ... flea market!

Tada.

I reached there pretty late though - about 2.20pm - and only had around 40 mins to browse around before people started packing up to go. Nonetheless it was a good experience, chatting up storekeepers, checking out bargain wares, and even randomly striking up conversation with a Japanese uncle, who was browsing the flea market too. Knowing a language and a place really opens up windows and doors of opportunities.

The flea market wound up by 3pm and the day was still too beautiful for me to just head back to the dorm. So I decided to take a stroll and indulge in another of my favourite pasttimes - getting 'lost'. Initially I thought I was somewhat headed back in the direction of my dormitory but I soon realised that I went off the opposite way. Nonetheless it proved an enjoyable time with new things and new sights. Ended up in Aoyama - the Beverly Hills of central Tokyo - and had a chocolate shake at a Lindt shop. Wandered into the back alleys of Harajuku, where rather than cheap garish girls' fashion, these were the more chic, funky and creative shops and facets.

Photos and captions to be up on facebook soon; uploading photos and captioning them on blogspot is just too much of a pain. Here are some examples though:

Singapore Embassy Lunch + Meiji Koen Flea Market

Oh, and just last Saturday, there was a lunch reception for Singaporean Students in Japan, very generously held by the Singapore Embassy, and more importantly, featuring Singaporean food for buffet!

So this is what the outside of the Embassy looks like (no pictures of the inside because we were too busy eating heh):

The food was... okay. For some reason it just simply further drilled into the reality that this is not Singapore, since the food didn't taste fantastically yummy or authentic. Maybe it's just high standards speaking. Anyway, there was chicken rice, prawn mee soup, laksa, a version of chilly crab with soft shell crab (haha), mantou (for the chilli crab sauce of course), satay and a few other dishes. Still not bad though of course; and got to meet my primary school classmate who's here on an Government scholarship.

The hour before the lunch commenced, Isabel, Rachel, Yuting and I went to the Meiji Koen Flea Market and rushed about buying and browsing. Didn't buy all that much this time - a knit dress, a cap, a denim jacket and 2 indie/hippie tops/dress. The denim jacket was an awesome buy though - only 500 yen (8sgd) and it's a cropped motorcycle style jacket and warm enough to wear in autumn. I spotted a really well-made bag that was blue and green - totally my colours! - but it turned out to be an LV bag and cost 7000yen. Too mind-boggling. I'm still thinking about how unique, how pretty and how "me" it was though. Oh well.

Waseda-Keio Baseball match this weekend. I'll be there!

Sugamo

Wednesday so no class today; instead, went to Sugamo with Rachel and Isabel. Sugamo is perhaps the Harajuku equivalent but for obaasan (old ladies!) and darn, my soul must be pretty old since this is probably the place I like best so far.

Reached Sugamo (巣鴨) station in just about 10 mins (2 stops after Ikebukuro on the JR Yamanote Line) and wandered out to look at the map since none of us thought to bring one or write the directions down. A very helpful old man sitting there happily engaged us in conversation though - or what limited conversation that we could squeak out haha - and very kindly pointed us to the place in question - Jizou Dori (地蔵通り). That totally made my day - nice old people are so happifying!

So why is this place my favourite place thus far?

Because there was no lack of streetside food stalls and so many old people! I like! The atmosphere was certainly different from that in Harajuku, Shinjuku and Kichijoji. There were many stalls set up by the roadside, ranging from thermal underwear, to pajamas and track pants to trinkets, shoes and of course FOOD! Food: not just in the form of cooked streetside food, but even pickles, dried goods, marinated seafood and more. Apparently a flea market only happens on the 4th, 14th and 24th of every month though, but there didn't seem to be any flea market (like the ones I've been to anyway) so perhaps that referred to the ad-hoc structures of these roadside stalls. Permanent shops were mainly selling clothing items, bags, Japanese sweets and shoes for older ladies. One interesting fixture was the prominence of bright red underwear though!

As for the food, I had pancake-shaped okonomiyaki (150yen), 1 custard and 1 cheese filled pancake (100yen each), 1 stick of unagi (300yen), 1 chinese pancake with meat filling (200yen), 1 chicken skin yakitori (130yen), 1 chicken meatball yakitori (130yen) and brought home a box of kiwi berries (400yen) - which are YUM! There was a few more stalls that I could have patronised but my stomach was reaching it's maximum capacity. Besides, we only reached there at about 4pm and stalls started tidying up by 5pm since it gets dark early here. Will certainly be back then! I have to try Japanese sweets some day as well, but probably not anytime soon since honestly they never really look very appetising >.<. Oh and apparently there's a very interesting (but not exactly cheap) souvenir shop as well. And old-lady fashion here is quite cute hehe.

There's a shrine within as well, and it seems to be of a certain significance. Probably will try to read up about this.

I'll be back!

(PS. At the train station, there were SO many posters about Momiji and the places where it blooms and stuff. Now I REALLY REALLY want to go! Raaa! )

Ooi-Keibajo Race Track Flea Market

Sunday 27 September :

Decided not to go to the Tokyo Game Show but instead, made a trip down to one of Tokyo's big flea markets - Ooi Keibajo Race Track Flea Market. Travel-wise it was pretty far, having to take the JR Yamanote line down to Hamamatsucho (30mins) then transfer to a Monorail (that goes to Haneda Airport) and alight 2 stops after Hamamatsucho. Rachel and I then walked about 3-5 mins, and we commented on the pungent animal smell on the way there: "Smells like a zoo here!" Turns out we were just outside the Race Track.

Quite an interesting day at the flea market, especially when you see so many different types of goods, and hear so many different accents! The 'stalls' were simply located below the elevated one-storey carpark, hence providing some sort of shelter in case of rain - though not that there was any. Everything was on sale - and I mean EVERYTHING. From kids' toys and cards to guitars, to bicycles (saw one for 8,400yen! so cheap) to tissue paper (bought some) to alligator leather and old electronics/netbooks/washing machine, luggage bags... The list (and sights) went on. Well and of course there was clothes.

Arrived there about 12noon or so and started walking around. By 3pm most had begun to pack up and leave. But some started lelong-ing and reducing prices like crazy in the last minute. One example was 2 pieces of clothes for 10 yen - that's 0.075sgd for each piece! Best buy of the day had to be the A4 Printing Paper - 150yen for 1 pack - since we have to provide our own paper for printing in school, and most of those we've seen cost about 400-800yen (6-11sgd). Second best buy had to be well, I guess everything else.

Spoils of the day:

Gray Autumn/Winter Trench - 1500yen (22sgd)
2 scarves - 50 yen (0.75sgd)
1 dress + 1 black turtleneck - 10 yen (0.15sgd)
4 boxes of tissue - 150yen (2.20sgd)
1 pack A4 Printing Paper - 150yen (2.20sgd)
1 cowl neck winter l/s - 100yen (1.50sgd)
1 x owl brooch - 300yen (4.50sgd)

Perhaps the only item that was a little bit pricier was the owl brooch - but that's a gift so =).

------

Dinner was at a Sapporo Ramen place on the way back to the dorm - not bad at all. Had the Shio (salt) ramen that was a a little bit spicy but very yummy. A tad pricey though but very yummy after a tiring, cold day. Still can't beat the Harajuku Ramen though. Will certainly have to search out more yummy (and affordable) Ramen places!