Trip Report: Tokyo

Trip Report: Tokyo

Some more details for a tigerfish and everyone... :) Feel free to contact me if you have any specific questions.

Food -
The food was so good. I could definitely eat it all day. We ate udon noodles, katsudon, soba, sushi, curry rice, sushi bowls w/ rice, miso soup, snacks, mochi balls, gyzoa buns and more. :) Everything we ate there was quite delicious. We only had one bad experience at a fast food curry place. Besides that we usually chose the traditional style looking food places near our hotel (Shiba Park Hotel). My favorite dish perhaps was a pork don. Pork, mayo and egg. Yumms...

Drink -
We were in awe of their vending machines. Everyday we were there we would run up to them and choose different types of drinks (Super H20, tea, yogurt drinks). They ranged from about from 80 cents and up. When my husband and brother stumbled on the 100 yen store and the drinks there we stocked up but we still couldn't resist the white little vending machines w/ their drink displays.

Subways-
I enjoyed walking up and down the streets, people watching, riding the subways. Just walking.. It feels nice to just walk and not have to worry about exercising every day in an ugly old stinky gym. Below is a picture of the subway at Disney. :D

We used this book to get around:

Tokyo City Atlas Mr. Budding cook loved it because it told you which subway exits to go to etc.

Money -
The best tip is to get travellers cheques they have a better exchange rate than cash. Also capital one doesn't charge! So we used our capital one credit card when we could. However as I have read and it is the case there - most places only accept cash (yen).

Hotel -
Shiba Park Hotel - We stayed here for 5 nights. It was a decent hotel w/ nicely sized rooms. The best part was it was near three subway stations and and we enjoyed the food near there.

People -
The people are all so neat and clean and repectful and helfpul. I only saw one person wear sweats the whole time. I loved looking at them especially at Tokyo Disney Sea where all the girls dressed up in little peacoats, tights and boots. So adorable w/ their cool styles. :D




Shopping -

I got a tip from Glida's guide to Tokyo to shop at Ueno for gifts.

So we found a grocery there with very cheap cheap food! We totally stocked up. We bought candy, treats and loads of rice crackers. The 100 yen stores also have cheap cheap food and treats but this place in Ueno was even cheaper! Here is a sampling of what I bought below. We stopped by harajuku to find a nodding doll for mushroom meadows . I thought most of the stuff there looked more upper scale so we didn't shop too long. We also went to Odabia and they have many malls. I bought two shirts from Honey in Decks for only 10 bucks a piece. :D I'm a bargain shopper. I wish I had more time to shop shop shop. But we did our fair share of shopping. I noticed toys (electronic ones) were cheapest in Akihabara. We bought four toys from SoftMap.

More Travel Guides and cool sites:
We bought the following travel guides.
Frommers: Tokyo

Lonely Planet - Tokyo/

I found these sites helpful:

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2164.html

http://wikitravel.org/en/Tokyo

Tokyo: Summary

I just came back from Tokyo a couple of weeks ago. I have to say it's one of my favorite trips next to my honeymoon so far. It was my first out of country experience. I thought that it would be more of a culture shock but it wasn't. The people were quite lovely and respectful. The subways were pristine. It felt safe. I'll post a more detailed trip report next. :D For now enjoy some pictures...

Merry Christmas ...

Merry Christmas and guess where I just came back from?

Here is a hint:

Recipe: Cashew Kreme

Late at night one night I was flipping channels and saw an episode of the Tyra Bank show. It was diet wars. Instead continuing the flip, I watched the entire episode. This was the first I heard of raw food! So I searched the web and found a cool little site called Ani's Raw Kitchen.

I was excited because:

• I could assemble food without having to actually cook ?!! Yes!
• I could make something for lunch the next day without having to radiate? Yeah!

Here's my first recipe using raw food concepts. I didn't have nama shoyu which is raw soy sauce.

Reference: Ani Phyo's Cashew Kreme, Carrot, Pepper and Nori

Recipe: Cashew Kreme

Cashew Kreme

1 cup cashews (soaked overnight and rinsed)

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1/2 cup water

Place all ingredients into a food processor and pulse. In her recipe she makes little nori rolls. For me I placed the kreme on top pieces of romaine lettuce and served it with grape tomatoes.

Conclusion:
My little bubbies liked it. But since I threw around the term raw so often in excitement by the end of the week he was craving a double cheese burger from McDonald's. :D Next time I'll call it salad dressing.