Sharon

Lunching with the Aunties

Kampong Glam is the centre of Singapore’s Muslim community. At its heart is the Sultan Mosque. We have been there before and on this trip we made a return visit. Turns out it was a Friday, and it was Chinese New Year’s Eve, so things were hopping.

We wanted to re-visit a restaurant we had eaten at back in 2018. It is called Hjh Maimunah and it serves Malay food. It is a little confusing for us, as the food is served almost cafeteria style, and nothing is labelled. You tell the servers behind the glass what you want and they put a plate together for you. It is called nasi padang, and begin with rice. Since nothing is labelled and the servers have limited English it is rather a gong show as we try to ask questions and point at random items. The arrangement seems to be a serving of rice, two proteins and two sides. And then sauces.

Last time around we had acquired our food and settled ourselves at a table and were well on our way to eating our meal. Wilf had selected a small grilled fish that had sambal oelek on it (that’s fire in sauce form!). A woman was walking by and saw Wilf’s plate and she stopped. She pretty much took the fork from his hand and said ‘Oh no! this food is too hot for English people’, ignoring the fact that he had already eaten half the fish with the fiery sauce. We had a lovely chat, were introduced to her mother and answered many questions. I noticed that everyone around us had stopped eating and were listening to the conversation – they must have been wondering where we were from and how we found the place.

How could we not go back? So – once again we point and assemble a meal, including a grilled fish. I took the tray to pay and sent Wilf off to find a table. While I was at the cashier one of the waiters came and took the tray and said he would find us a table. By the time I got outside Wilf was ensconced at a table beside the street, the food was all organized and he had been joined by an auntie. Her friends were at a nearby table but she popped over to see what was up. When I arrived she was explaining to Wilf that he mustn’t drink milk after eating the meal because it would curdle in his stomach after eating all the hot spices. She asked me if we liked hot food and if we were okay eating it. I told her that we had been practicing by eating Korean food and thought we were up to the challenge. I’m not sure she understood that…. But once she was satisfied that we could safely eat the meal she wandered off.

You can see the bright orange sambal oelek on each plate – I guess the server figured we could handle it. (We could not……) And see the little limes with the fish? They make the most delicious lime drink with them. I’m working on developing an opinion about who makes the best version. So far the aunties at the Maxwell Food court are winning!

After our meal we wandered through the area a bit – the Friday service was in full swing at the mosque and attendees were spilling into the courtyard in front. There’s a big Turkish presence in the area, too – lots of Turkish restaurants and souvenir sellers. It was so blastingly hot and humid that we walked around a bit but when I saw a cab I looked at Wilf with a ‘I’m getting in – you coming too?’ expression and we headed back to our hotel.

We’ll be back – there is much to see and I think Wilf has a hankering for Turkish food…….

Happy New Year – again

We’re in Singapore for Chinese New Year - and its a big deal. Our hotel has filled up and the city is decorated to the nth degree.

This morning the lion came to dance at our hotel. This was a much more elaborate event than I have experienced at home.

First came a pair of lions – they danced around the lobby and reared up over the crowd.

Next came a single orange lion with very expressive eyebrows and ears. He danced all around and then jumped up on a platform. On a pole above the platform was a scroll that the lion unrolled.

Once the lion was back on the ground a tray was produced, which had another scroll, oranges and lettuces on it. The lion settled in for a snack, ‘eating’ the lettuce (throwing bits of lettuce here and there), then ‘eating’ an orange – orange peels sailed through the air. The scroll was presented to a representative of the hotel.

And when lions were done in came the dragon. That was another remarkable performance.

They also visited all the restaurants in the hotel and when we went out into the neighbourhood we could hear the clang and bang of the drums and cymbals as lions were blessing businesses all around us.

Wilf had seen information about a big drone show down at the Marina Sands area further into the city. You’ve probably seen pictures of the hotel – three towers that look like a ship is perched on top of them. Anyhoo, we figured that it would be a madhouse to try and get near the actual site, but we figured we could see everything from across the bay.

We were a little concerned about the crush in the subway, but pretty much everyone got off a stop before our target. We arrived to find a great view point across the road from the waterside park looking back at Marina Sands. There were big shallow steps to sit on, so we did. At 8:00 a fleet of hundreds of drones took to the air making patterns in the sky. About two minutes in we felt a few raindrops. Ohoh! And just when things were getting interesting the skies opened in the way that they do in this part of the world. At first we tried to deploy our umbrellas, but soon we were awash. People were dashing around, children were crying – it was a mess. We made a run for the subway – each time we peeked over our shoulder there was a dragon or something amazing to see.

Here’s Wilf’s video of how it went down….

And here’s the last shot before we ducked inside…

Now that we know where to go to watch we’ll try again later in the week - the show runs for several more nights. We got very wet and laughed a lot!

Mermaid mode activated

Yesterday I tried out the hotel pool – excellent. Today we are on a little trip to Sentosa Island, which is a big play space in Singapore. There are theme parks and all sorts of attractions. But if you carry on past that end of the island there are beaches.

We have settled at the Tanjong Beach Club. Lovely infinity pool, beautiful beach. We have a poolside lounge under an umbrella and it feels like we are far far away from the city.

Short but sweet and on our way

Our time in Tokyo went quickly and soon it was time to think about packing our bags. We had days where it was 15C, and then the night before we left it began to snow. And it kept snowing. It was a festival of slush in the morning as we made our way to the subway. Probably better that it was slush rather than snow – it would have made for a bumpy time pushing, pulling and dragging the suitcases. One of the many subway lines a short distance from our hotel goes in one direction to Narita airport, and in the other to Haneda, which was our destination.

Before I switch to Singapore adventures I thought I’d finish up with some pictures of the things we ate in Tokyo.

In Akihabara (electronics town) we saw a sign for a restaurant in Yodobashi, one of the big electronics stores.

And sure enough, up on the 8th floor was a collection of restaurants. Grilled fish! Lunchtime set.

Some time back the fish market at Tsukiji was moved to a new location at Toyosu. Its part of a big development and while we were there a new area opened up. It is a building that looks like an older historical building that is full of shops and restaurants, with a fancy new spa/hotel at one end. We thought we’d go check it out. That turned out to not be a great idea. It was a zoo of epic proportions. It was jammed with people and media and we swam like salmon up the main ‘street’ and back. Decided to go to the fish market proper and have lunch.

We went to a restaurant called Yamahara and it was terrific. The special was a seafood bowl. When it arrived it was like a basin with a translucent cover. When everything was just so the server whipped off the cover and trails of smoke rose from the bowl. Smelt good…. but didn’t make the fish taste smokey.

This was chirashi sushi, where the fish and seafood is cut up into pieces and served over rice. It was delicious and fresh. It was also quite a workout with the chopsticks, picking up all those little bits and pieces.

The day we went to Azabudai and Roppongi we went on a bit of a tear. Feeling cheerful after our lunchtime beer we hunted down a bar near our hotel. Bar Kamiya as been in that location since 1880. It is an old school beer hall – noisy, cheerful, old fashioned. They have a signature brandy based drink, so we had to try that.

With beer chasers, of course. (as you can see they do a big pour. The Denki-bran was to the brim and then some….)

And fried octopus.

After that a quick snack at the Korean BBQ place seemed in order.

We slept well that night!

Another place near us was a restaurant called Gonpachi. Nothing too look at from the street, but upstairs was a lovely room looking over the Sumida river. The lunch set was delicious – grilled fish for Wilf, tempura for me.

One thing that always mystifies us while in Japan is how one restaurant will be The Place to Go and people will line up for huge amounts of time to go in. Almost right beside our hotel was such a place. Usually katsu is a fried pork cutlet, but this place does beef cutlets. Starting everyday at 11:00 there would be line up, lasting until about 10:00 at night. Even the night it snowed they were standing out there under umbrellas, shivering. Here is a typical line going down the sidewalk. I don’t think I’d enjoy my meal knowing that there was a tidal wave of people waiting to get in. Always. All the time. People waiting….

So – farewell Tokyo and the winter. On to Singapore and the heat!

Is Japanese fruit really expensive?

Sometimes it is. It is full on strawberry season here. Unlike Canada, where strawberry season is May and June in Japan it is a winter fruit. Christmas often involves a strawberry shortcake (insert joke of your choice about the merits of strawberry shortcake vs our traditional Christmas cake!!!)

Our hotel has a small supermarket right next store. The strawberries keep arriving.

Obviously these are grown in greenhouses. And just like our local Thrifty’s this store likes to show the provenance of the berries.

However…

We debated whether we should buy one to see what the excitement was about. Instead we bought a ten dollar strawberry tart at a coffee shop and it was spectacular.

Not all fruit is presentation fruit like these. We’ve been buying tangerines at the same market – a bag of mid size fruit $5 for 6 or 7 fruits. Yesterday we bought three huge tangerines for $2. So good!

A question of scale

Way back when, in 2009, when we first visited Japan we visited an area called Roppongi. It was in the midst of a big redevelopment and new buildings were going up in a large planned community. Everything was very new and barely completed. We could see that there would eventually be shopping areas full of luxury stores. But it all felt quite unfinished. We were back in 2018 to visit the Mori art museum at the top of one of the towers. Things were filled in by then, but it still had a sense of echoing vastness. The scale felt wrong.

On this trip we headed off to see Azabudai Hills, the newest development by the same development company – Mori. It officially opened last November, but whole areas are still active construction sites and once gain the whole luxury shopping area mostly consists of what look like large shops with the windows covered in signs saying ‘Coming March 2024 – Bulgari. Or Chanel. Or Dior’.

When you come along the street from the subway station you are faced with this building:

Stock photo, artists conception.

Now, this is to be a whole new vision of a work/live community. As we walked up the road that goes up to the right we thought the whole design seemed strangely dated for something that was brand new. The curved portions of the buildings are not white, they are a tan coloured concrete. We could make no sense of what the forms were supposed to be and the materials and shapes chosen looked like they had been beamed in from 1984.

Another stock photo, artist’s conception.

It does not look like this at all – the trees have been planted but will be sticks for many years. Nothing is green as it is winter. But again with all these curved forms that do what? Go where? And then the central building, which is the highest in Tokyo at present and contains both commercial and residential areas, which looks so… ordinary….

We wanted to go to the 33rd floor where there was an observation area. This is not advertised but we figured how to get there.

And the view is amazing. Here is what you see when you stand looking down onto the 33rd floor which is the actual observation area:

I am standing on a huge staircase that leads to the lower level. The centre portion of the stairs are wide and are intended to be a seating area. Below me there are a few tables and chairs for people to sit at, but not for too long! The info on the website extolls their plans for new ways of working, of collaborative spaces where creative things will happen as people meet and interact. Sitting on the big staircase. As we were exploring this area on the other side of a small barrier was a group of about thirty people. Business people in business attire, getting a tour. I don’t know that much about Japanese business culture, but it doesn’t seem to me like the kind of companies that can afford the rent in a building like this are going to have their employees hanging out in public spaces, sitting on a fancy staircase to do their work. And the kind of companies that do the kind of collaborative work that would suit spaces like this won’t be affording this neighbourhood. Everything seemed too vast, cool and echoing. They did not feel like human sized spaces to me.

Leaving this new space we walked down the street towards the Roppongi subway station. This is a typical busy street, lots of restaurants, lots of office buildings, lots of people walking around, going places, doing things.

We were headed for lunch and here is where we wound up:

And it was a literal hole in the wall!

Our charming server Chihiro spoke excellent English and made recommendations to us – chicken soup with dumplings. Four giant dumplings in soup in a cast iron bowl that was heated to the temperature of the sun! We had to have special instructions so that we didn’t hurt ourselves eating it. And a plate of bite sized deep fried gyozas. And beer! This felt like human scale – a room where you could see what was happening, see a place that had been pounding out the dumplings for years, enjoy the history.

And clearly we enjoyed ourselves!!!

I found myself thinking of visits to Dubai, and to Putrajaya in Malaysia. Both places built on a grand scale, built to impress. And both feel soulless. And the reason is the scale is wrong. Tokyo seethes with life – the streets are busy, people are living their lives in full view. And maybe these new, planned communities will eventually have the ‘new’ sanded off of them and they will be places that fulfill the dreams of the developers, where people live and work and play. But right now – it doesn’t feel that way…

A change in the seasons

The lunar new year approaches, and in Japan we have officially moved from winter to spring (never mind the snow flakes we saw this morning). To celebrate the change in seasons there is the celebration of Setsubun, which is held on the last day of winter, according to an ancient calendar. This year Setsubun was on February 3.

To welcome in a new year/new season there are ceremonies to drive out demons and usher in good fortune. At home the oldest adult male wears a demon mask and the other members of the household throw dried beans at him and call out 鬼は外! 福は内!, Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi! Demons out! Good luck in!

There is also a particular type of sushi eaten on this day. And apparently for super good luck you should eat beans – one for each year of your life, plus one.

Senso-ji temple in Asakusa hosts a Setsubun celebration. They do make a point of saying that since the Goddess of Compassion, Kannon, is resident there are no demons to be chased out. In her presence they call out “Long Life! Welcome good fortune!”

We, of course, had to investigate. I wanted to visit the Shinto shrine next to the temple to collect another stamp for my book of shrine and temple stamps. I figured that there would be a special stamp for the day – and I was right! I will have to make a separate post all about these stamps, but here is my new one:

The red circle in the centre is the symbol of the shrine and it represents the three spirits embodied in there. And in the lower right is a dragon/demon being pelted with beans.

As we left the shrine grounds we came out right where the bean throwing ceremony would happen. Everyone was being very patient and quiet, standing below the temporary balcony. It was a lovely sunny day, which helped. There were a surprising number of police officers around, but everyone seemed cheerful and relaxed.

Eventually there was a procession up the street of men carrying lanterns. Turns out these were the junior members – they fastened the lanterns to the balcony edge and each were given a plastic shopping bag bulging with …. something. A few minutes later another group of men arrived in samurai style robes – the senior guys. They each held a small wooden box. Junior guys filled the boxes with little white envelopes and after a mercifully short bit of speechifying the senior guys began throwing the envelopes out to the crowd.

They turned out to be small bags of roasted soybeans. Most of them were acting like they were throwing to the outfield during the Japan series, but some took pity on those of us closer to the front. I’m not sure if we are supposed to eat these or just keep them for good luck. And if you didn’t catch a bag of beans, well just walk around the front of the temple and you can buy yourself a bag that have been prayed over to ensure a year of luck.

It turns out things were pretty nicely done at Senso-ji. I’ve seen pictures of other temples where the beans were thrown by the handful and people were holding up bags and squares of cloth to catch them. That seems like it could have led to chaotic scramble. Nice and neat, no pushing and shoving where we were.

When we were here in May one of the biggest festivals of the year was happening. This was a much more low key event, but the grounds were filled with food stalls, people were out with their families enjoying the day and the sunshine and once again we got to enjoy another event of deep meaning to the people who live here.

A poetic walk

I think most people are aware of haiku, a form of Japanese poetry. We are taught that it is a poem of seventeen syllables, arranged in three line of five, seven, five syllables and that it evokes images of the natural world. As with many things what seems simple is actually more complicated and one could spend a life time – and many do- mastering the art form. And that’s just in English! Now do it in Japanese!

My Japanese teacher has requested that we write haiku in Japanese.

先生、まだ詩を書いていないことをお詫びします. (This is not a poem it is an apology for not doing my homework....)

One of the masters of the form is the poet Basho, who lived in the mid 1600’s. He wrote, taught and walked to many parts of Japan. But he also lived on and off in what was then Edo, now Tokyo. And not, as it turns out, too far from where we are. There is a walking tour that follows sites related to the poet.

His followers built him a little hut on the banks of a canal and there is a reproduction near there at the beginning of the walk.

A quick chat with the master – perhaps he has some inspiration for me?

The canal is very quiet, just a few ducks paddling along. Mostly the buildings backing on the canal are small residential buildings, most relatively recent builds. It looks like this area is becoming more popular, but there are lots of buildings that look they were built in the 1930’s – kind of art deco/moderne in style.

Along the pathway are plaques with Basho’s poems. There are 16 of them – I’ll show you one that is about spring, since that is the season we are in (yes, really by the old calendar….)

spring is leaving ..

birds sing and the eyes of fish

are full of tears

Not my translation… apparently it evokes the sadness of a final parting on a spring day. Which is not what the pictures shows, but let’s move on.

The whole walk goes for quite a way and we realized that the end point would leave us with a loooong walk back to the metro, so we cut our rambles short and wandered through a park before returning our starting metro station.

I’m glad to have found the walk and hope that Basho-sama will lend me some inspiration so I can do my homework!

Coffee with the hipsters

We are off this morning to find a walk by the river that honours the haiku poet Basho. On the way we stopped for a coffee at Blue Bottle coffee, a local coffee roastery and shop. It checks all the boxes for hipness – industrial space. Uber-cool young people. Dave Brubeck on the playlist.

Shared tables.

Serious young people in serious lab coats seriously brewing coffee.

And one dude of a certain age enjoying a very good cup of coffee. I’d show you the delicious strawberry tart but we demolished it too quickly.

Is $25.00 for two coffees and a tart a lot? I don’t even know any more.

Refreshed, we are heading for the poetry walk.

We can’t seem to help ourselves

Wilf and I were discussing plans for travel in 2024 and the idea to go somewhere hot and sunny was appealing. Eventually we settled on Singapore. Yes, it is a long way away and there are lots of places that are hot and sunny closer by – Hawaii, Mexico, the Caribbean. But we’ve been to Singapore several times and it ticks a lot of boxes – great food, great city, beaches, shopping, architecture. So Singapore it was.

And then Wilf got to thinking - if we fly Japan Airlines we’ll be going through Tokyo and we could pause there for a bit to get over our jet lag – and that seemed like a great idea.

And so –

Here we are in Tokyo. And it turns out 7:00 on a Tuesday in January is a quiet time at Senso-ji temple in Asakusa. I like to begin a trip to Tokyo with a visit to this temple – say hello to Kannon, the goddess who presides, solicit her blessings for our visit. You can see in the picture that the big doors to the temple were closed, so visiting hours were over for the day. But it was pretty cool to walk around and see the area lit up.

Even the Skytree was shining down on us….

And once again another great flight with Japan Airlines. I got my first ‘日本語は上手です’ (Your Japanese is good!) on the plane after ordering my dinner. It was so delicious that I just ate it right up. I did manage to take a picture of Wilf with his Japanese breakfast:

Which included black cod, miso soup, chicken and veggies simmered in broth and served cold, an assortment of pickles and matcha flavoured pudding to finish.

And we’re off – stay tuned for further adventures!