lioness in japan

“Let’s go Skinny Pizza!”

I furrow my brow and go, “What’s Skinny Pizza?”

“It’s a restaurant that sells pizza with very thin crust.”

“Hmm, okay.”

I just go with the flow when I go back to Singapore for visits. Today’s discussion is about the unrelenting weirdness that never shakes off when you go back to your home country for a visit. As much as experiencing the new is part of your life in your adopted country, going back can also feel “new”…

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It snowed on Monday night and Tokyo was under a blanket of romantic white fluff. Someone must have played in the snow early in the morning or late at night and made this adorable snowman. Look at the carrot nose and red candy lips! Aww…

I took a photo of this melting mini dude when I took my usual shortcut from the apartment to the subway station.

I missed the train that was supposed to get me there on time so I was late for my appointment for five minutes but it was worth it.

I love snow.

It’s been a while since I did a proper restaurant review, eh? I know that I made quite a dramatic announcement last year about not being very interested in cooked food anymore.

I think many folks might have thought I transformed into a hermit and only ate at home (or my own bentos). It’s been quite the contrary, I must say. I have been eating out but have not been actively taking photos and posting them here.

The truth is, while preparing food is a great passion of mine, I obviously still appreciate good food, flavours, and textures and find immense pleasure in dining out with friends.

Well, any food reviews from here on in would have a more vegetarian focus. I actually don’t eat at veggie places in Tokyo because my friends aren’t vegetarian, so I hope my reviews will help those who want to chow on veggie dishes in “normal” restaurants. Since the kangaroo is omni, I might take photos of his food and let you know what he thinks of it.

Celeb de Tomato (website here) is one such restaurant that has something for everyone. It’s quite common to find a specialty restaurant in Tokyo, but to give the spotlight to the humble tomato in chic surroundings, now that’s quite unique.

We kicked things off with a couple of salads.

The mixed tomato salad had red, yellow, green tomatoes in different shapes and sizes. Drizzled with just olive oil, I could taste the sweetness and tartness of the different varieties. The freshness of the tomatoes stood out for me, especially the green tomatoes.

The second salad had parma ham, black olives, tomatoes, arugula and crutons. Another simple but delicious dish. My friends kindly took their share of parma ham so I could eat the veggies.

Here’s a photo of my half-drunk Bloody Mary:

I thought it was one of the best Bloody Marys I’ve had — it was mildly sweet instead of salty or spicy like most I’ve tried. There was no hint of celery and it seemed it was just tomato juice and vodka. Even my friend who dislikes Bloody Marys thought it was surprisingly good.

For my main, I had the sundried tomato risotto with black truffles. I think there was a hint of cream or cheese in it and the chef was generous with the oil, so although it looked small in size it quickly filled me up.

My friends had the prawn pasta, tomato carbonara, and lamb dishes, which looked pretty good in terms of presentation. They didn’t ooh and aah but I personally thought my risotto was very tasty.

So what is my conclusion? This restaurant is typically Japanese in that it uses high quality, fresh ingredients and cooks its food with a gentle hand. I would recommend this for a weekend brunch or lunch instead of dinner because of its small portions and subtle flavours.

A recent gift from a student inspired this post. I get all kinds of things from my students and this one made me laugh — freeze-dried space ice-cream from the NASA space centre in Florida.

“It looks cute but it doesn’t taste good,” warned my student.

One of the small pleasures of teaching Japanese adults is that they are very thoughtful to give me omiyage (it means souvenir but people mostly give food) after they return from a holiday, be it local or overseas.

Omiyage is such a huge part of Japanese culture that most train stations and airports hawk bite-sized Japanese sweets amid a plethora of “useless” tourist stuff. That would be a Tokyo Nugget by itself…

My first gift was a floral bookmark from a student I had two years ago. She went to an onsen in Hakone with her mother and got me this little gift. As I taught more and more students, I received gifts like pears, apples, chocolate, mochi (sticky rice flour desserts), lipstick, blusher, lip gloss, masks, Krispy Kreme donuts…

I felt grateful that they thought of me but I maintained (to myself) that if I gave omiyage to my students every time I went on a trip, I’d be constantly buying gifts and be flat broke.

Just before I left teaching in 2008, I had a slew of farewell gifts and one that stood out in my memory is a gorgeous crème cashmere scarf given to me by a student I was very fond of. She was genuinely sad that I couldn’t teach her anymore and I was touched by her generous gift.

Back to the space ice-cream: it felt like Styrofoam but it really tasted like chocolate ice-cream. No, it wasn’t cold at all. It was like noshing on a dry biscuit with chocolate flavour.

If you want to read more about teacher-and-student gift giving, there’s a lovely post at Blue Lotus’ blog.

I don’t always get funny queries when I pass through customs at a Japanese airport, in fact, I rarely do. But this time, I flew in from Singapore to Nagoya, and had a handful of puzzling questions from a very curious man in uniform.

Let me recount our convo here…

”Where are you from?” – Singapore.

”But you are Chinese…?” – so I told him my grandparents were from China who moved to Singapore, so my parents are Singaporean, and hence I’m Singaporean.

”You live in Tokyo, but why did you fly to Nagoya?” – that’s fair enough because most people commute through Narita Airport. I told him I couldn’t get an air ticket out of Narita.

”Why did you spend only one day in Malaysia? What did you do there?” – hmm, I guess it would look odd to someone who doesn’t live in Singapore or Malaysia. I answered, “Shopping.” And he raised his eyebrows — I suppose very few people outside of southeast Asia would consider Malaysia as a prime shopping destination. I was amazed that he picked that one out but he did flip through my passport very thoroughly.

”Why do you have so many clothes?” – I wanted to laugh in my red eye stupor! I was thinking, “It’s none of your business?!” as he ruffled through my entire suitcase, looked into my dirty laundry bags, and unashamedly flipped my bras about, while feeling the walls of my suitcase. I told him I took a month-long holiday back to Asia — in truth, it was a five-week one.

“Why don’t you have omiyage (souvenirs usually in the form of food)?” – again this made me want to chortle out loud. I just shook my head and mumbled, “No omiyage.” I mean, he pointed out that my suitcase was bursting to the seams with clothes.

I suppose I looked like a possible drug mule in my disheveled, unwashed state. Or maybe he just wanted to practice his English — I must say he had a good command of the language.

Photo credit: here

Sorry for the long absence — I’m finally back from my hiatus and this post is definitely a lot happier than the last. I’m still struggling with a deluge of emails, photos, teaching, Beauty Box matters, and adjusting to Tokyo’s cold and dry winter after a whole month of sunny weather. Watch out for new posts coming up…

For the sake of my blog readers, I’m making this announcement, so sorry to you folks on Facebook who got this news already (I link my RSS feed to my FB profile).

The kangaroo surprised me with a proposal on a deserted beach in Goyambokka, a slice of paradise in the south of Sri Lanka, near Tangalle.

Some folks thought it was about time (we’ve been together for over six years) and some considered it was a miracle (the kangaroo was a self-declared, anti-kids bachelor), but I kind of expected it because there were lots brewing in his mind in the past few months…But not so soon…

He was quite the detective — ferreting around my costume jewellery to check for ring sizes; trying to get hold of my dad’s mobile phone number; and not raising any suspicion on my part. He loves surprises, as you can see, but you know, so do I.

No, he did not go on bended knee, and no I didn’t cry. We took the photo above just after I said, “Yes!” We couldn’t stop grinning and I had a million questions for him.

Here’s the beautiful ring he got me — it’s the prettiest thing I own.

I had a blogging schedule all planned out so that Lioness in Japan will continue as I’m lying on white sandy beaches in Sri Lanka.

But life has a way of throwing unexpected curveballs in your direction sometimes.

My grandmother passed away last Saturday morning at 4am. My elder sister alerted me through Google Chat that our mama (grandmother in Cantonese) died after two weeks of ill health. She requested that I return as soon as possible and I said, “Of course I want to be there for the funeral.” I flapped around looking for air tickets online but managed to wake the kangaroo up at 5am while he was in Frankfurt so he could change my Singapore flight (I was planning to fly this week because of my Sri Lanka trip).

And so it was confirmed I would fly out of Nagoya, which is 90 minutes away from Tokyo by shinkansen (bullet train) for an 11am flight. I rushed around all day tying up loose ends for work, packing and buying things that friends asked me to. I was actually glad to get out of the house because I would have cried if I stayed at home.

After 12 hours of travelling, I touched down into the embrace of my family where we comforted each other through old stories, traditions, and food. My grandmother lived with my parents since my sisters and I were born as he was her only surviving son. He decided on a Taoist Buddhist funeral because it was what she would’ve wanted although she was not religious.

My father got acqauinted with Taoist funeral rites and educated our whole family on what to do. I won’t go into the details but there was a lot of bowing, joss stick burning, offerings, and a couple of monks who chanted ancient scripts and songs. One thing that we did that was a little different was that we wore red after the cremation and had dim sum to celebrate my granny’s long life.

I can’t say that she died peacefully in her sleep because she actually suffered quite a lot physically towards the end. Our domestic helper, Yati, was her care-giver and was with her till her last hour and was an absolute champion in taking good care of my granny. We will forever be grateful to her for her kindness and patience.

As a family, we spent a lot of time together as the wake and funeral wore on. Before leaving for Sri Lanka, I decided not to spend all my time on the computer and I will just enjoy their company. I was afraid the blogging world would forget me if I didn’t post articles for a month, but I have more important matters to take care of in the real world, like catching up with friends and just being around my folks.

So, please forgive my absence and hope you will still be here when I check in again in Jan 2010. Ja, ne. Mata rainen.

I was so surprised when I stepped into my local supermarket this evening — they were selling durians! I stared at them for a while. My heart squeezed with nostalgia and adoration. I’m one of those people who think the durian is the flesh of gods and speculate that ambrosia must taste something like the King of Fruit.

This Southeast Asian sensation costs 2980JPY (USD34; SGD46). Of course it’s steep for a medium sized one. I mean, all exotic fruit in Tokyo is friggin’ expensive.

“But you paid SGD60 for two durians some moons ago in Singapore…” a tiny voice in my brain peeped at me.

However, there is one teensy problem: I don’t know how to cut open a durian and I don’t have one of those gigantic chopper knives in my kitchen, either.

If not for the fact that I’m flying to Singapore next Wednesday, I would’ve dropped that much for a treat (and struggled with opening the spiky fruit with a blunt knife). I’d justify it as, “It’s just a meal at an izakaya in Tokyo!”

Though I expected my JLPT 2 Test to be hard, it was still a surprisingly tremendous flop. I agree with my friends who said this is the test that really gives you a reality check on your actual level in Japanese language skill.

”Sugoyi (Excellent)! Jouzu (Skillful)!” is something I hear often when I meet Japanese and utter a few words of nihongo, so it is easy to take for granted you can communicate (sort of) with the locals. But honestly, it means nothing in the big scheme of things.

The kangaroo and I had a quiet studious Saturday to prep for Sunday. The fact of the matter was, whatever I crammed in my brain the day before wasn’t going to be of use for such a test.

Imagine 65 questions that have to be answered in 40 minutes — that’s less than a minute for each question! Or a 70-minute section with long passages and about 50 questions to ponder over — not a lot of time. My conclusion is, you need to be at the level where you can scan an A4 page of Japanese text in less than two minutes and understand what it means immediately. There is zero time for thinking during JLPT 2.

Despite the stress, the whole endeavour felt like a road trip. Instead of Tokyo University, we were posted to Meiji University in Ikuta, which is about half an hour from Shinjuku, this year.

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It’s the time of year again for the dreaded JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test; you can read about my experience last year here).

I have a love-hate relationship with language learning: I need the skill, but it is f—ing hard to master.

There are times which I just don’t want to look at my textbooks, especially after a warm soup dinner and episodes of Desperate Housewives, Dexter, and Gossip Girl beckon.

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