Lioness in Japan

At last, my very own office. My personal cave…except the kangaroo put his weights here as well but he doesn’t use them very often, so I pretend the whole room is mine. I could even start using the weights so it’s really all mine in this room.

The flowers are actually real, believe it or not. They were given to me last August for my birthday and they are still looking quite alive and fresh. It’s got something to do with it being soaked in a special chemical substance that keeps this small bouquet going for up to nine months apparently — amazing!

I’m still always filled with disbelief when I see snow like this in Tokyo. That’s the view from my living room the morning after it bucketed down tonnes of snow through the night. It may be cold but there are blue skies almost everyday.

Since our new house is bigger, it’s also colder. I’ve bought new blankets, Uniqlo heat tech long johns, socks, sweaters, hoodies to keep warm while I work at home. It’s been really hard on my Singaporean tropical self — it just ain’t natural to be this cold all the time.

That’s me with a hot water bottle, a fleece blanket, and Ugg boots.

Hot water bottles (or ゆたんぽ）in Japan are hard plastic bottles that can take hot boiling water without crumpling. Mine comes with a cute green and white polka dotted flannel sleeve as it can feel quite hot without one.

How are you keeping warm this winter?

Happy Chinese New Year!! May the year of the Water Dragon be prosperous and full of happiness for you!

The one thing that sucks about living abroad is not being able to celebrate Chinese New Year with my family. Despite the idiosyncrasies faced in any family gathering, I still really enjoy getting together, eating, catching up, and just hanging out doing nothing much. It didn’t feel like a big deal when I could celebrate every year without fail, but when I couldn’t, it became a huge deal.

I went through a phase where I just shrugged it off, but I honestly felt twinges of sadness inwardly, and that’s probably why the kangaroo had no idea it was such a big deal to me for years. I would go out for a CNY eve dinner with various friends, but in recent years, I started throwing CNY dinner parties at our place because the kangaroo would invariably be travelling for business during that time (post Dec/Jan travel is a must for his work).

So this year, I will be holding a joint party with another Chinese Singaporean friend but that’s next Saturday and I still wanted to do something special somehow on the eve and the universe answered.

I had a dim sum lunch with my Japanese gal pals at Tsim Sha Tsui. I would highly recommend this place — it’s authentic and cheap, complete with a Cantonese-speaking waitress.

By the way, I ate most of this plate of pei dan or century egg because it really freaked out my Japanese friends. I wonder if they think I’m gross? LOL!

Then miraculously, I was asked to play tennis and then go for Chinese hot pot after. Spicy hotpot in Japan called hinabe and my Japanese friends loved it although they sweated and teared and drank a lot of beer in the whole process.

Our Chinese hot pot dinner was at Xiao Fei Yang in Shibuya. There’s quite a bit of MSG in the soup but it was still freaking amaze-balls.

So….I was a happy Chinese girl yesterday…and today…

The kangaroo and I share an interest in historical stuff so we had to check out the My Son ruins (often likened to Cambodia’s Ang Kor Wat, but it’s much smaller in scale) that were bombed during the Vietnam War but had been slowly reconstructed through the years.

Here’s a ridiculously happy shot of us but we cheesed out for the camera because it was actually a shockingly grey day at the Imperial Palace in Hue. It was a really good walk, and again, if you are a history buff, you will love this place.

The kangaroo really wanted to stop and rest for five to six days — just eating, reading, sleeping, swimming, beaching. Google led him to Jungle Beach where there was nothing much but some huts, a quiet beach, homey Vietnamese food, and hammocks.

This was our hut and we had such a glorious time just being. I would slather on some mosquito repellant and sun block and curl up with a book. Bliss.

We also slept on Hello Kitty bedsheets. Japan always finds us somehow, no matter where we are in the world…

In continuation of my honeymoon series…

It was pretty cold in Vietnam’s northern capital city, Hanoi, so it was no surprise that Halong Bay was chilly too but it was worth going there because it really was beautiful even though a bit touristy. It felt quaint sleeping in a cozy cabin on an old-fashioned “junk boat” (with a motor, running water, electricity, etc. of course).

We took a cruise in one of those boats above. We kayaked, hiked, cycled, ate, and just had a rad time with an Aussie couple from Perth and a Kiwi couple from Wellington.

We climbed quite a few stairs to reach up the top of a hill to get this view. It was really lovely.

Turn away from this page if you retch at lovey-doveyness. I actually feel quite sentimental when I look at this photo because it’s our first one taken on our honeymoon at the Temple of Literature in Hanoi, Vietnam. We did a day of cultural sight-seeing and also popped in to say hello to Ho Chi Minh’s body at his mausoleum.

I’m not going to go into detail on my trip as there are much better guides out there (Lonely Planet and The Rough Guide). I would rely more on The Rough Guide To Vietnam and TripAdvisor for reviews and recommendations but the Lonely Planet is good for detailed maps and suggested routes.

Anyway, I’m just going to pick out photos that I like from my trip and talk about them.

I love Mexican food, and to my delight, there’s a great little joint 20 steps from my house that does take-out/delivery too!

It’s called Mi Corazon and serves what I call Japanesified Mexican. They serve mainly tacos but have a chicken enchilada option and various avocado and chilli-related dishes, plus a long menu of Mexican-themed hamburgers and hot dogs. Their servings are tiny though and the little tapas-style dishes (500-1,100JPY; USD6.50-14.30)) can add up and our bill came up to slightly over 7,000JPY (USD91). It sounds pricey but we ordered a few drinks and I would say 3,500JPY per person is average in Tokyo for dinner out.

I would recommend the magarita as well. I’m not usually a fan of tequila-based drinks but this one was refreshing and juicy which numbed my exhaustion from moving house quite nicely.

Hello again, sorry for being MIA as wrapping up 2011 was just exhausting and time-consuming before we took off on our honeymoon in mid-Dec. But it was worth the stress as we have upgraded to a bigger place.

Just a few photos to show you how small our previous one bedroom pad was…

We couldn’t pack a few days beforehand because there just wasn’t any space. If we did, we would’ve had to sleep on top of our boxes!

I had loads of Beauty Box inventory, packaging etc. so that was a real headache as well. Our apartment was a jungle of cardboard…

We also took our sad-looking plants along which were already wilting from the cold winter air.

We were amazed at how much stuff we collected over four years. Seriously, we had maybe four suitcases and a few Muji boxes to take with us to this apartment, but we had a whole truckload of furniture and boxes for our new place in Nakameguro.

Here’s a shot of our old-school mail box outside our house which has our names in katakana. In Japan, you need to put your names on your mailbox to receive mail. Some companies are fine with sending mail to boxes without names but some are pretty anal, like the folks who run the JLPT exams — it is a rule that they would only send the results to a labelled mail box.

To be honest, I feel a bit funny posting pictures of our house’s exterior (privacy reasons and all) and I don’t have nice ones for the interior just yet. We basically moved from a one-bedroom to a three-bedroom house so we are lacking in a lot of furniture. E.g: our bedroom just has our futon, a TV (on the floor), and a desk (because we have no where else to put it).

More updates coming up soon!