I'm bored at home and the hot-ness is killing me. Its cool-er in Japan. Argh. It happened the same thing the last time I went to Japan. Dehydration, stickiness once I'm back in Singapore.

Since I'm really bored and theres tons of photos... here's the 1st part of the 7 days trip. =) Enjoy!

Day 1

the luggage

Bought my Country Road bag to put the jackets.

our flight

gate 42

Was my first time taking ANA. And I was a bit disappointed, especially about their inflight entertainment. There's only like 3 english movies? Very limited shows. Unlike SIA where the inflight entertainment seems to cater to a more vast customers. Plus half the time they do not understand what I'm saying. (the flight back to singapore was better, they spoke english)

lunch

fish with pasta

Didnt take the lunch at all. Not nice. But I was too hungry so ate the bread instead. They could have done better with the food. The dessert was nice though - cheesecake.

snack-time

bored me

Reached Japan at around 4pm singapore time. Was damn hungry. =X But we had to rushed to another airport to get a transit flight to 北海道 which was one hour of bus ride and one hour fifteen minutes of flight in the air.

During the 1 hour bus ride:

Had enough time to jalan-jalan at the other airport and took some photos.

sweet right?

chicky!!

I cant get my eyes off their goodies. Look too cute to be eaten! And too expensive to buy. =X Being so so so hungry and while waiting for the tour guide to settle the air ticket, I went around the shop and 'taste' all their sample. To a hungry person, its heaven. Love their cheesecake and swissroll. WONDERFUL! Not too sweet too, unlike their typical desserts.

Reached Hokkaido and was taken to their Ramen Street for dinner. I love love love their ramen. And MOF is the closest traditional ramen you can get in Singapore. And to eat the real traditional one in Japan at 1am in the morning after a day of yucky food is a very touching thing! Ya, I had my first dinner at japan in the morning of 1 am! But it was worth the wait.

Ramen Street

the shop recommended by the tour guide

very hungry us

pork bone based ramen

The ramen was HEAVENLY! The soup base was very thick and milky. Love it. They had thin ramen to go with the soup. Yummy yummy yummy!!!! Give me ramen anytime.

japan-styled gou tai

They are tiny in size but nonetheless, JUICY! If you are not careful, one bit might cause the juice to simply shoot out of the whole gou tai.

1,920 yen will convert to less than S$26 for two person. Not expensive at all.

Walking back to the hotel with a warm tummy full of ramen in the cold wind was a good feeling afterall. Its like actually telling yourself that you are finally in Japan after a whole day of travelling in both air and on land.

And this ended our first day in Japan. Just full of travelling and ended with a nice hot bowl of ramen.

Xin fu.

Back from Japan

Am back from Japan, yesterday at 5pm to be exact.

Lots of unpacking to do.

Quite a bit of damage - ard S650.

Mostly on two items - Burberry Blue Label $357 and Bracelet (improve blood circulation) $200

But I dont regret.

Bought lots of drinks back for dar too. And prefumes for his sis and bro, my bro too.

I miss bf... till now hvnt see him.

Am lazy to blog about the trip. Nearly 700 photos. How to blog??!!!! -_-

Leaving for Japan

Hey Guys! ME in airport le.. first time blogging in changi airport. =X

40mins still i board the plane.

Reaching Japan at night.

Continue to miss me till then!

bf woked up at 6am just to give me a call.

*sweet*

dar.. will miss u lots lots de. love ya.

24hours later I will be on ANA flight to Japan.

Exciting? Of course. Been more than a year I fly oversea. And the last one was only a short trip to thailand.

Cant bear to? Do you even need to ask? I used to be able to just pack my stuffs and fly. Now, I wish I can see dar till I broad the plane. Better still, fly with me.

Bf came down to Orchard yesterday to meet me after my meeting in that area. Was so afraid that he will get lost somewhere as he's taking a bus there for the first time. And the only place where he can get lost is town area. -_-! Anyway he managed to reach in one piece. =)

Not tempted by any food in Ngee Ann City, we headed down to Wheelocks for some food, there's only 5 restaurants there - Sakae, Fish & Co, NYDC, Big O and some weird Asian cuisine inside Fish & Co.

We decided on Big O since I last went there with Kenny Tan and I had no complaints against it AND I had always wanted to try their cakes. Thumbs up. Here's what we had:

seafood chowder

Bf's happened to ordered their course of the day which came with a Soup of the Day and a drink. Seafood chowder tasted a bit weird for me. I much much preferred clam chowder. Though it tasted fine for bf. Guess just abit too heavy on the taste. Otherwise its pretty ok.

some seafood pasta

Bf's main course. Pasta with prawns, sotong and lots of olive. The sourness of the olive brought out the sweetness of the prawns. Plus the prawns' meat is very firm and cooked just nice. Yummy. Its my first time trying something cooked with olive so I'm not used to the taste. But bf enjoyed it very much.

bacon wrapped chicken leg

Chicken leg being chicken thighs meat. Basically just wrapping the chicken meat with a layer of bacon and roast/grill/bbq it. Came with a small portion of side salad, spinach mashed potato and a plate of sauce made up of BBQ sauce, garlic and black pepper. I didnt regret calling this main course. The chicken meat was tender of course, and the bacon went very well with it. And they cooked it in such a way that you will not find the bacon oily or fattening at all. The sauce just enhance the taste, it pretty ok on itself already. Think they used some BBQ sauce when cooking. The mashed potato is good too. Especially when combining the bacon w chicken w some potato w a bit of sauce, it will tone down the saltiness and taste just nice. Hadnt had such a nice main course in a while.

For cakes, I had the Indecent Obsession while bf took the Baileys Irish Cream Cheesecake.

Indecent Obsession basically is a chocolate hazelnut cake with a few thin layers of chocolate sponge cake in between. Of course its very rich in the taste of chocolate. Interestingly, it has a crust layer of kit-kat-alike that is wonderful! Especially for a kit-kat lover like me. Worth the price, though it looks pretty normal.

Baileys Irish Cream Cheesecake has only a slight taste of baileys and it goes really well with the cheesecake that does not taste as rich as those of Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. After about half the slice, bf said he no longer taste baileys anymore, guess you will get immune to it. I enjoyed it quite well by having some in between of my chocolaty cake. Worth a try if you fancy alcohol with cakes.

Overall it was a good dinner! I didnt complaint about the service, nor the food and think the price is reasonable. Total we spent around $50 and in addition we had a dessert voucher which can be used on our next visit due to UOB promotion for spending over $40. Wonderful right? I'm sure we are going back there again. =)

p.s. the waiters are cute too.

And I just went over to bf house for his mum fried rice. HEAVENLY! Yummy. Love it to bits.

Been meeting him the whole week. =X Cant help it. Though I'm excited about going for holiday, I still have a bf to miss and think of! argh. Why cant I just bring him along.

Cantonese zi-chai Toa Payoh North Blk 203

Like I said, we went for dinner at some place that my mum saw a review on the newspaper. One lesson learnt, dont believe food reviews! What a disappointment.

Anyway the address of this coffeeshop is at Toa Payoh North Blk 203, the coffeeshop is the one nearer to the carpark entrance/exit. Theres two coffeeshop there. The reviewer claimed that this is the BEST hor fan he/she ever had but to me, its one that has the wok-hei but lack the taste.

This zi-chai stall is supposedly serving traditional cantonese dishes.

Here's what we had:

deep-fried pig skin with green chilli in soy sauce

Its my bro who taught us this method of eating the deep-fried pig skin - mum's favourite. Its a good way to have it. Made the pig skin less oily and also a kind of sweetness due to the green chilli. Its better than just eating it raw with soy sauce. And because the stall actually remove the pig skin from the oil thus, much lesser in oil content. Plus its free. =)

Another common dish. But they used more yam in it, and I guess those powdery ones. The down side is the sweet sauce that came with it - the normal ones that you can buy off shelf and normally served with kuehs. It would be more unique if they made their own.

fish slice noodles

Their bowls are WAY TOO SMALL! My tiny bowl can only handle one scoop of noodles. -_- What the. Anyway, the first bowl of fish slices noodles taste good - FRESH. The next - Bland. Plus the fish slices are way too fresh that the taste became a big turn off thereafter. Two words - Not Worth

sweet and sour pork

YUCKS! They used too much corn flour to keep fry the pork, leaving the piece of meat with no taste of meat at all! Plus, the sauce is not sour enough - never use pineapple. But my grandma quite enjoyed it and my parents said its the traditional taste of the dish. I swear I love the modern version much more.

prawn paste chicken

Another disappointment. Too much of corn flour - AGAIN. And not much taste of prawn paste. I prefer the one at Thomson Rad (opp thomson medical).

stir-fry mixed vege

Voted by my bro and me to be the BEST dish ordered. Tasted just nice and they even added pork belly in. Interesting. Good to have with a bowl of rice.

the so-called best hor-fan

I believe it would taste better by frying the hor-fan with some dark sauce first to give it more taste. And the stall should really go gentle with the amount of corn flour they are using. Too thick! And due to insufficient stiring, I can still feel the glur-like texture when eating a piece of the vege. Yucks.

Overall, not worth eating and the waiting time of ONE HOUR. Plus, the ordering counter is like a battlefield. *goodness* Plus its the only stall operating in the coffeeshop at dinner hour and so the waiting system is slightly different. Instead of finding a seat first, you got to order first. And one of the aunite there is damn fierce. The food is so-so, traditional maybe, and thus, will suit our parents and grandparents more than us. My grandma did enjoy her dinner tonight. Once is enough.

Give me Thomson Road's or Queensway's HK zi-chai back.

Got home and started packing:

The green one, which is free, is EMPTY. =X

Just bathe after baking me Cranberries Cupcakes. Got the recipe from thelazychef.blogspot.com. She uses blueberries but it being on the slightly ex side - 250g for $10plus - I substituted it with cranberries which cost around $4 for 250g which is enough to make 2.5 share. 500ml of yogurt cost me another $4plus, which is also the right amount for 2.5share of recipe.

A simple recipe:

300gm plain flour

1tsp baking powder

2 eggs

100gm cranberries / blueberries

200ml plain yogurt

110gm butter

200gm castor sugar

I cut the cranberries up into smaller pieces before adding them into the yogurt to stand for 30minutes in room temperature.

Then the usual, cream-ing the butter and sugar together before adding the eggs in. Then mix in the yogurt + berries mix and then flour in the sifted flour + baking powder.

The recipe called for 180C but I up it to slightly more than 200C to give it a more brown-y colour and hence more 'crispy' top. Bake it for 20minutes or till a nice brown colour. Managed to make 65 cupcakes out of the 2.5share. Though 1 share can be evenly spread out for 24 cupcakes.

the mixture

waiting to be baked

freshly out from the oven

crispy on the top and SOFT in the inside

Even my grandma like it and had one after another. I like the softness of the cupcake. And using cranberries give it both sweetness and a hint of sourness which made it even more tasty.

Am happy with my products! And my dad happily took some cookies and cupcakes to his friend even before I finish cooking. Mum also distributed some to neighbours. The cupcake is definitely in my list of comfort food. Bet bf nephew will like it too.

Mum wanna go out for dinner tonight to some traditional direct cuisine place. Nice food awaits!!