讀萬捲書不如行萬里路 - It is better to travel ten thousand miles than to read ten thousand books

One of my favorite things about Chinese is that there are these proverbs and idioms with enormous backstories that ultimately lead to a moral.  It's almost like they speak in riddles which gives rise to quotes like this one from Yao Ming after a defeat: "You have to understand that I look at the game in two parts -- one part is the enjoyment of playing, the other part is winning. Today, I achieved half of that." The title of this post is a bit simpler than that, but a fittingly pretentiously end to this blog.

That's right.  This is it.  Post #90 (which happens to be one of V's favorite numbers).  I didn't get as close to 100 as I had hoped, but I did actually write more posts in these 12 days of March than all of January.  Plus, 90 posts means I averaged a post about every other day.  It's a little sad to see it all end as I put a lot of hard work into this blog (sometimes more than others). 

Currently toying with the idea of continuing it at home, but I'm not sure what the interest level will be.  Chicago is not quite as exotic as Taipei and Tokyo...  Also our normal life is much more mundane.  Let me know what you think.

The saying in the title is about how first-hand experiences are more useful than book-knowledge and theory, but I'm taking it more literally.  Spending so much time abroad was a truly eye-opening experience I have to thank V for not only making it possible, but pushing for me to go.  She was right, and it really changed who I am and how I view the world. 

I'm still trying to figure out where I'm going to be for the summer, but it would be nice to be able to come back.  This will probably be my last chance before I graduate and return full-time to my responsibilities.  Who knows.  Let's keep our fingers crossed for Post #91 in a few months.

In the meantime, our final full day in Taipei was as frantic as usual as we ran around doing last second errands and meetin up with people.  Pretty early in the day, we first caught wind of the earthquake in Japan and spent the rest of the day being fed information and misinformation from various sources.  I had knots in my stomach until late in the day when we finally got some access to the internet.

However, we had business to take care of, so we went on our way.  First up, we met up Irene for a bite to eat at Sadaharu Aoki. 

I was eating at least.  V and Irene just picked out three pastries to split.  I tried them too, so they basically split 2.5 pastries for "lunch."  Both of the layered mille feuille's had kinda stuck together so that the layers became more like solid cookies.  The cream filling was nice, but not on par with the luxurious desserts we had consumed in the past week.  The matcha one in the middle surprisingly did not have much of a matcha flavor at all.  In fact V ordered a matcha as her drink and it came sweetened with no foam.

I don't think the Taipei branch knows how to do matcha that well...

I ordered a sandwich and salad set.  The picture they had in the menu was of this fresh looking layered club sandwich with plenty of greens.  I ended up getting two giant pieces of bread with cheese melted on both sides and ham in the middle.  Not exactly the "light" lunch I had been looking forward too. 

I wouldn't change a thing though.  That sandwich was delicious.  There was a layer of creamy cheese under the melted cheese and the ham had a distinct pepperiness.  Coupled with the super flaky and giant pieces of bread it made for a unbelievably hearty and delicious meal.  This also means I basically ate cream and butter for lunch.

On the other hand, the salad was super disappointing as the greens showed some signs of yellowing with age.  Gross.

I followed up my sandwich with what looked like a taste of Japan.  Forgot what this is called, but this layered matcha + azuki concoction had a surprisingly heavy chocolate influence.  The matcha gelato on top was pleasant and very heavily tea flavored.  It would have balanced nicely with the azuki in the middle...if the middle layer had been azuki.  There was actually very little red bean in there and much more chocolate pudding.  Then chocolate ended up overpowering a lot of the delicateness of the green tea and really ruining the whole dessert. 

Overall, Sadaharu Aoki was surprisingly disappointing.  I'm pretty sure it presents itself significantly better in Japan or Paris, but they might seriously need to reevaluate the quality of their Taipei branch.  Given the prices we were paying, it simply did not meet our high expectations.

The entire B2 area of Bellavita is actually restricted to photography.  All the pictures above, we had to take in secret.  I did take this picture of V and Irene out in the open and they didn't complain at all.  I guess since I wasn't taking pictures of the goods (or so they thought), they didn't have any problems with it.

We got up and headed to the register to pay and somehow got charged less than a third of what we had ordered.  We paid it and as the confusion was setting in, I said, "算了吧" and we jetted for the exits.  On our way up the escalators, we realized just how much we had underpaid and started to feel really bad.  I began to envision the poor girl manning the register getting in serious trouble and we made the collective decision to go back.

Turns out they had no idea.  We actually had to convince them they had charged us too little.  It was weird that the girl kept apologizing for getting the bill wrong...  Shouldn't she have been saying "thank you" that we came back?  We were walking away, when she finally called us back and gave us a free cake.  Good thing or else we might have just left the situation feeling like we had simply been too nice.  We're really nice people. 

V had an appointment to meet someone and pick up a usb key she had purchased via an auction site.  It's always interesting to me how a lot of people prefer to meet and hand over items in person instead of simply shipping them.  We all headed over to Sogo at Zhongxiao Fuxing, I decided to split up with the girls so they could go on a shopping date and did some shopping by myself.  I'm comfortable doing that.  It was a decent exercise in Chinese, and I think next time I should spend more time by myself so I don't have to rely on V and practice my language skills more.

I finished my solo round of Sogo with about ten minutes to spare.  So I decided to head off to a bakery to check off an item on my list that I had originally given up on.  More on that later.  By the time I showed up, V had already picked up her usb key.  Apparently, they had met up with Irene's brother and his girlfriend and gossipped about the experience briefly.  I felt really left out.  It was time for us to go, so we said goodbye to Irene and hopped into a cab to brave rush hour.

We met up with the family around 7PM for our last supper and finally got access to an iPhone.  It sucks not having internet access through our phones, but fortunately we found out that everyone in Tokyo was alright.  It's pretty surreal that we were just there and in fact a little over a week ago, on a train passing through Sendai.  Crazy stuff. 

Dinner was at Shanghai Shanghai again which is actually not called that at all.  Its real name is 紅豆食府 - Red Bean Restaurant.  Didn't bother to take pictures this time, since we've seen it all before.

Less than a day before we fly out, I'm making an attempt not to eat too much.  There are few things I find more uncomfortable than sitting on a plane for umpteen hours with a full stomach.  That doesn't mean there aren't a couple things I want to eat.  I may be carbed out, but I still have room for the single best bread I have ever had.

If you are ever in Taipei, go check out Chirle Brown bakery.  I can't vouch for everything in the store, but make sure you get the thing above; I swear you will not be disappointed.  I'm gonna have it with coffee in the morning.  Actually, I have two so I'll take one back to Chicago with me as well...

This trip of ours has been great.  I might have doubled my number of facebook friends and definitely doubled the number of pictures of me there are on facebook.  Also my use of that website has grown increasingly prolific...  You could probably qualify me as a fb whore now.  Let's face it though, facebook was an important part of our whole earthquake follow-up.  We first started to check news websites and then realize that checking facebook would actually be the best source of information.  Amazing.

I seriously think our time Japan and Taiwan has changed our overall lifestyle as well.  For one, we will never be able to look at sushi the same.  Food aside, in the past we've always hosted people in our house, but I've come to realize that meeting outside and not having to worry about messing our place up is a much more enjoyable experience.  We've always had to clean up afterward and ironically just not as comfortable with us worrying about the mess.  I think we'll try to spend more time out on the town, even if it's somewhere close to home and costs a bit more.

Tomorrow, we finish packing, go see Grandma, and then leave in the early afternoon to catch our flight.  Nothing interesting is going to happen, so I'll end the post here.  It's been a good run.  Thanks for reading and keep in touch everyone.  To everyone in Tokyo: Stay Safe!  See you on the ground in America.  Here's to ten thousand more miles.

Making the List : TPE - Part III: Shilin Night Market + Coffee Date w/ Jenny

士林夜市 - Shilin Night Market

I had been planning on curbing my over-aggressive binge-eating.  Unfortunately, things did not go to plan when V's sister found out I had never been to the Shilin night market.  I had first come to Taiwan some five odd years ago, and the fact that I had never experienced it she found as somewhat of a criminal offense.  She then graciously offered to take me which I in turn emphatically, I mean also graciously accepted.

V informed me that even Diana who attended our Taiwanese wedding bonanza a few years ago had been to the market, to which I asked why she had never taken me there, to which she did not give a satisfactory answer.

It mattered little as I was about to remedy that grave mistake with a vengeance.  The market had apparently been reorganized a few years ago into the building you see above.  Before that it was a sprawling mess of shops, but the city moved almost everyone into the stalls that make up an ordinary market during the day. 

We navigated our way inside to our first order of business: fishcakes.

Super duper fresh homemade fishcakes.  So fresh that the bucket that they blend the mix in is sitting next to the counter.  The guy takes out a portion with his spatula, transfers it to the wooden tool in his left hand, and then deposits the dollop into the bubbling oil.  He was kind enough to slow down the process enough to allow V to get in some proper pictures of the process.

The result is cut up into slices and served with a sauce.  These fishcakes have a much lighter flavor and texture than normal and they taste airy and simply brilliant.  This specific joint has a unique taste that you can't find anywhere else and the overall freshness can't be beat.  When I go back, that image above is at the top of my list.

The second thing, I ate is much more accessible.  There are dozens of places in the market serving up oyster omelettes. 

I purposely put up the most disturbing picture of them, but they are delicious.  My love of oysters has grown dramatically in the past few years and oyster omelettes are one of the reasons.  I get the impression though that there isn't one single shop that does them especially well, and they're commonly found in a lot of night markets.  You might be better served going for something that is more of a Shilin specialty, but I just needed to have one.

The key to attacking night markets is to eat strategically.  There's too much food everwhere for you to attempt to eat your way through everything.  Pick and choose your battles to get to what you absolutely must and you'll undoubtedly overeat regardless. 

Next up was something called big-cookie-wrapping-small-cookie.  Chinese naming operates on two opposite ends of a spectrum; the names are either completely symbolic or diametrically literal.  Big-cookie-wrapping-small-cookie is the latter.  Another good example is Really Good Seafood.  An example of a symbolism in naming is Ants Climbing a Tree.

This goodie is pretty simple.  The girl takes a thin pancake and heats it up.  She then takes one of those cookies in front and wraps it into the pancake with whatever topping you choose.  Finally she smashes the innards into bits with her hammer.  She looks unhappy while she performs this process quite efficiently.

The result is pretty good but honestly a little disappointing for something endorsed by Chow Yun Fat.

Maybe we need to try again with another topping.  If anyone knows about this place tell us what we should put inside because we tried it with peanut and it just didn't live up to the hype.

The indoor market of Shilin goes on like this for a while.  There's a million things that we chose not to eat including something called 豪大大雞排 - haoda dajipai.  I only recognized the two characters in the middle and called it da-da-chicken.  I'm retarded, but actually not that far off because it's just a giant piece of fried chicken steak.  Point is, it was too big for us to commit to.  Eat strategically young grasshopper.

Another thing we skipped: giant sausages.

I dunno what they're made of, but they sure did look tempting.  We passed on those and picked up a couple other items from this stall instead.

Guess what?  Chicken butt.

No really.  That's a chicken butt in my mouth.  It tasted awfully similar to chicken but included some unexpected pieces of cartilage.  It was originally served skewered on a stick and taseted pretty good, but my enjoyment of said delicacy was diminished significantly by the in-depth conversation V had with her sister about the poo that used to be in that chicken butt and the consequent microscopic poo remains that invariably remained.  Curse them.

The last thing we ordered from the place was something with a familiar naming convention: big-sausage-wrapping-small-sausage. 

The big sausage is actually filled with sticky rice and makes for a delicious bun in this Taiwanese hot dog.  I freaking love sticky rice, so I personally find this concept absolutely genius.  I think it could be even better if there were some more flavorings to the rice, but V tells me there's a place around us that does this even better.  Too many things to eat...

Much of the Shilin night market has been consolidated, but a large portion of it still remains on the streets.  The outdoor part mostly sells goods like clothes and crafts.  We even saw an ABC Mart straight from Japan.  But anywhere there are a lot of people on the street, there will definitely be some street food in the vicinity.

We actually had something particular in mind as we headed through several alleys down a path I have no hope in reproducing.  Eventually we got to our destination.

Time for some more stinky tofu.  They were being properly double-fried this time and V's sister and her husband continued to talk about how good it was while we waited in our longest line of the night.  We started to get excited.

First up, I eagerly acted as the guinea pig for the place's cold noodles. 

Cold noodles are usually served with a sesame sauce that makes them a tangy but savory treat in the heat.  These were a little different as they were especially known for their spiciness.  Out of everyone there, I was the only one who really like spicy foods, and we ordered one up with medium heat for me to try and everyone to watch. 

They were really good.  Sure it was hot but nothing I couldn't handle.  I get the feeling that if I ordered the highest level, I could still eat it, but it wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable.  The clear vinegary sauce on the bottom is what actually makes this taste so incredible, and if you properly mix the sesame, red, and clear sauces together the resulting concoction is symphony on your tongue.  #2 on my list.

Not too far behind is the stinky tofu that didn't appear until after I was done with my noodles.  These guys were a little bit more stinky than the last ones we ate but ridiculously airy and crunchy.  Also super delicious.  I don't know the name of this place or even how to get there, but I highly recommend the cold noodles and stinky tofu...

I was tapped out at this point.  I had exceeded my quota for the night but still felt like I needed something sweet to get some of remnant stinkyness off my tongue.  You see carts like this all the time and usually they sell sugar-covered cherry tomatoes.  Tomatoes are really good but this time we went for some sugar-covered strawberries that really hit the spot.  Palate cleansing success.

Not pictured anywhere are the donuts we ate after this...

Point is, figure out what you need to eat and don't push yourself too hard.  There are simply too many delectable options available to you at the Shilin night market, and you're just going to end up overeating anyway.

Our time was really running out in Taipei, which means that it was time for me to go get my last-second haircut.  We spent a lot of time at the salon while I got a quick trim and then waited for V's perm to finish.  As it turned out our friend from Waseda, Jenny, was somewhat in the area, and I left to meet up for our hot date.

Now I know what you all are thinking.  *Gasp*  You're a married man!  You can't go on a date.  Truth is that I had Jenny to myself for maybe twenty minutes tops before V showed up with her new flashy hair and then proceeded to monopolize her.

Yep, I sat there as my wife's accessory again as she sweet-talked the young and naive girl.  Well, actually most of the conversation was in Chinese and I simply made an attempt to speak up every time I understood something (or thought I understood it).  Of course, every time I said anything in Chinese, Jenny would laugh at me which made me feel great.  Miwa and Izumi constantly did this to my Japanese.  I think that maybe I should stick to my perfect English that usually never gets laughed at unless I intentionally say something funny.

We spent a looong time with Jenny and totally forgot (or at least I did) about our original plan to have a legitimate dinner with Ba and Mama.  Luckily we still have one more night to make that happen.  It was good to sit down and have a chat, and I'm super glad we're increasing our network in Taipei where we don't really have too many friends.  It'd be great if we could get to know as many cool people in Taipei as we do in Tokyo; either way, we'll see you again Jenny, next time we're in town!

Recently it's been raining quite a bit; this has prevented me from running outside and burning off some of my overzealous consumption.  The best thing about the rain is that it creates enough ambient noise so that V's parents and Popo don't get disturbed when we make a little noise upstairs in the wee hours of the night.  The worst thing about rain is the water in the air.

Making the List : TPE - Part II: Din Tai Fung

Went to go watch Black Swan with V and Mama at 1PM.  Not only is that a strange movie to watch so early in the day, but it's an especially awkward movie to watch with your mother-in-law.  I'm not even totally comfortable watching an on-screen kiss next to my parents, so watching Natalie Portman go lesbian two seats down from Mama was especially weird. 

Black Swan was a pretty good movie and I can see why it got all the critical acclaim.  You will especially like it if you're a fan of darkness and downward spirals into insanity.  V's sister later asked us if it was depressing, and I told her it wasn't depressing but it certainly wasn't happy at all.  Lately, I find that life is plenty serious and I gravitate towards films with a little brevity and levity.  This of course makes me super unsophisticated but I maintain that there are dozens of brilliant kung-fu movies we haven't seen. 

鼎泰豐 - Din Tai Fung

I need to do a better job of always carrying V's camera around.  I didn't figure we would stay out after the movie, but we did.  Everyone knows about Din Tai Fung and its xiaolongbao, but I have something different to show you this time around.  The Truffle and Pork Xiaolongbao costs $540 NT for 6 small dumplings making every bit-size piece $3 US.  Yessir these may be the most expensive dumplings in the world.

They certainly look the part.  Peppered with bits of truffle, the rich flavor of fungus blankets your tongue with every bite.  In addition to the perfect preparation that is Din Tai Fung, if you like truffles, you will love these dumplings.  It's dangerous to eat too many of these, but for how much they cost, you probably won't ever get more than six.  Were they worth it?  They're actually not leaps and bounds better than the normal pork xiaolongbao, which are legendary to begin with.  If you want to give them a try, then I say definitely go for it, but it's certainly not one of the dishes I would order every chance I get.

Din Tai Fung in Taipei is actually a lot better than Tokyo's.  So everyone from Japan needs to come and give it a try first hand.  We rounded out the meal with a bean-curd dumpling soup, snow pea tips, and hot and sour soup.  The hot and sour soup is actually the one dish that was most disappointing in Tokyo.  In contrast, V had a really good time with her bowl here.

Bao Zai was pleased.

Yu's Almond Tofu

So V and I headed to Ximending to check out some indie T-shirt shops.  We didn't end up buying anything, but we did stop by Yu's Almond Tofu for some almond tofu topped by almond snow.  Always a treat.  We got some red bean and almond crunch with ours adding some sweetness and texture.  It was awesome.  Everyone else was drinking this almond tofu with soup thing.  I love almond flavored crap and I might need to come back to try all the various incarnations of almond that exist here.

We spent the rest of the night stopping by a number of malls.  On the way to 101, we saw these rental bikes.

Apparently, all you need to do is swipe your metro card (Yo-yo card) and then you can take a bike to go.  Sounds super convenient, but how do they prevent people from just taking the bikes and never returning them.  The Yo-yo card isn't traceable and people don't keep enough of a balance to make it worth a deposit.  Maybe you need a minimum balance on the card to rent a bike?  I dunno.

I feel like we spent all day wandering the city, doing nothing.  Things started to close, and I had no idea where the time had gone. 

We took a short break at an arcarde when I saw this:

It's another Bemani game!  Why do we always see these things in Taipei and not in Tokyo...  This one has balls that bounce around requiring you to tap them when they reach a line at the bottom of the screen.  It's aptly named Reflec Beat.  As expected, it was super fun and I took the first two plays before V hopped in.  She played a 1-star song and then I accidentally chose a 6-star for the last play.  Expecting to have to bail her out, I stood by ready, but she handled the difficulty amazingly well.  We might have to go back and play it again.

Now it's starting to feel like our time is running out in Taipei (which it totally is).  I'm still kinda antsy to get back home though.

Making the List : TPE - Part I

So I decided to continue the uncreative naming convention I adopted about a week ago.  Our list in Taipei is pretty short as we're totally wiped out from our whirlwind week in Tokyo.  Still, we'll be out and about and even if most of what we end up doing was never on the list, you won't know the difference.  Ha!

This is my first time in Taipei in March, and I have to say it's kind of pleasant.  The rain is going to be on and off all week, but temperatures are going to hover in the low teens making the no-central-heat lifestyle more comfortable than a month ago.

Unfortunately, my lappy suffered some strange mishap overnight and now fails to boot up with a "fan error."  I'm stuck doing this on an older machine which I guess doesn't hurt my blogging abilities too much, but it does decrease my overall internet enjoyment.

Super short rant: Monetary denominations in Taiwan max out at $1000 NT, which is the rough equivalent of $35 nowadays.  This is a small bill size to peak at, and although living costs are much lower leading to less money being thrown around, it seems kind of strange not to have anything a little bigger.  A $5000 NT note might be a bit too high, so I'm not sure.  In Japan, the smallest paper note is 1000 Yen and Taiwan's is $100 NT ($3.50).  Both of these are large amounts to be throwing at strippers...making it much more expensive in general to make it rain.

公館 - Gongguan

The Gongguan area serves as the collegetown for National Taiwan University and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology.  I guess it's Taipei's equivalent of Takadanobaba, although I've never thought of it that way before...

NTU is unanimously regarded as the best school in Taiwan.  People in Asia always think that their country's respective best colleges are super-prestigious, but then nobody learns anything in college.  High school students have a hard time just getting into school, and there is no doubt in my mind that the students at these schools are the brightest; however, the quality of education they receive thereof is just not on par with the West. 

I grew up thinking Seoul Dae was this other-worldly school, but now I'm more of the opinion that they'd be lucky to have me.  Am I bigoted or just arrogant?

College students are always out and about, and that's why Gongguan always has some of the best street food at night.  We were there after dinner to specifically check one thing off the list.  Warning: old camera again.

臭豆腐 - stinky tofu is basically fermented tofu that of course smells really bad.  When it's fried up most of the stink gets cooked away, but some of the unique taste remains.  The result is yums, although I admittedly didn't take to it my first time around.  Also, the steamed variation I had at Big Beard was so smelly that I simply found it too hard to bear.  Still it doesn't take much to acquire this taste (kinda like sushi).  Frying it also puffs it up into a super light and crispy treat.  We made the mistake of not getting it double-fried (when they fry it again after cutting it into pieces).  Still delicious of course.

Next up, we went for some douhua at this place V had visited with her cousin, Irene.  It's the quintessential hole in the wall joint complete with a single serving station and an extensive menu.

You can get your douhua two ways here, hot or cold.  It was especially warm that day, so we got it with ice.  You don't get any choice of toppings here and once you order it you're done.  It's gonna come out super simple and old school: tofu, peanuts, and syrup.  I'm not a douhua expert like V, but it was pretty damn good.  The tofu is so soft it just obliterates on your tongue. 

This place is run by a woman who has turned down every attempt for a TV station to get them on television.  When she's not there, it's her two sons that run the joint and apparently everytime V's been there, one of them specifically is just completely shit-faced.  I was there to witness it and it's true; he perpetually looks like he just got in a fight with his mama about what makes their douhua delicious...and lost. 

No pictures of his face, but here's the douhua.  I think that mine actually had too much ice in it and ended up little watered down.  I tried V's after and it tasted brilliant.  On the bright side, they scraped the last of the batch of peanuts into my spoon and I ended up with double everybody else's peanuts.  My experience was slightly disappointing, just because the syrup got too light, but I totally understand how good it should have been.  Cry.  I might need a second go around.

Last up was V's fried sweet potato balls.  We got them super fresh from the one cart that always does them the best.  This station is also apparently run by an old woman, but it was her daughter there this time, and we can honestly say that her mother taught her well.  Love all these mom and pop joints.

統一阪急百貨 - Uni-President Hankyu Department Store

The Hankyu department store is probably the most Japanese one in all of Taipei.  Taiwan already has a unique relationship with Japan and adopts a lot of brands and products, but Hankyu is a level above.  We were saying that the food court was like "a taste of home."  If home was Japan...  Tonkatsu, ramen, matcha, you name it they got it.  We're trying really hard to refrain from eating Japanese things and getting a healthy dose of Taiwan before we head back.

I don't think Mister Donut qualifies as a "Japanese thing."  We got a bunch of seasonal specials: a strawberry covered in strawberry donut, regular strawberry, and white chocolate covered chocolate.  The one of the left was serious strawberry overload.  No need to cover a strawberry donut with strawberry frosting and then throw some freeze-dried strawberries on top.  In contrast, the plain strawberry one was quite nice.  Our favorite might have been the chocolate one though.  This was apparently a Valentine's Day special.  Not sure why it's still around, but I ain't complainin!

We totally couldn't figure out what to eat and ended up settling for a fried pork chop.  You can never really go wrong with one of those.  We did a bit of quick shopping and decided to eat leftovers at home for dinner instead of anything in the food court.

There were leftovers on the table, but this guy was waiting for us as well.

Apparently, when people have a son they send out a gold box filled with two red eggs, a fried chicken leg, and sticky rice.  I have no idea where this custom comes from, and I'm not even sure if this is just a Taiwanese thing or a Chinese thing.  I just ate it and enjoyed it.  I love sticky rice.  And congratulations to the baby, I mean the parents of the baby, whoever they are.

Popo!

Possibly the best picture we've ever been able to take of Popo.  He just refuses to look at the camera.  V was surprised.  Really surprised.

Possibly the best picture....

お大事に - Take Care

I thought about writing a top ten things I'm going to miss about Japan, but that sounded like an exercise in futility.

Then, I had a difficult time thinking of a name for this post.  I didn't want "sayonara," since we plan to be back.  When exactly we'll be back is the hard part; regardless, I settled on the title above.  The following chronicles our uneventful final hours in Tokyo.

Our second to last night in Tokyo, we basically stayed up until dawn packing.  Well V was packing; I mostly stayed out of her way, kept her company, and helped out where I could.  In fact the bulk of our remaining time went by like this and as exciting as that was, I'll spare you the details. 

Our original plan was to make Sushi Dai one of our last meals, and although we were still awake around the same time Tsukiji opened, we decided to forgo the trip in favor of some sleep.  Instead, we went for a single light meal to counteract the exorbitant amount of eating we had been engaging in and settled on some kaiten sushi.

The concept of Kaiten sushi initially sounded contrived to me back in Chicago, but my attitude towards it has totally changed.  With how high traffic sushi places get in Japan, it totally makes sense to make sushi so on-demand.  If I was to make a list of things I would miss, sushi would be near the top.  There are types of fish and sushi in general that you just can't get anywhere else and I'm seriously considering befriending a sushi chef who might have access to some of the more exotic fish.

For V, she is desperately going to miss her beloved engawa.  She ate three plates on that day alone.  The two I'm going to miss the most are hotate

and kurodai (which google tells me is Black Porgy).

My love affair with kurodai had just begun and now I don't know if we'll ever see each other again.  V tells me we can find this in Chicago, but I dunno...  Life without kurodai...  What is this wetness in my eye?

Dinner wasn't quite Sushi Dai, but it was extremely satisfying.  After our final sushi outing, we took a short last minute shopping trip to Odakyu.  There aren't any good stores for me in Odakyu, but V has most of the stores she wants there.  She managed to do some super efficient damage in the hour or so before they closed.  Our newest routine is to walk off dinner to let the food settle in.  It's enjoyable and we plan to take the practice back to Chicago.

We resumed packing and the rest of our consumption was simply us trying in vain to empty out our fridge.  It did serve as a short trip down memory lane as we had some melon jellies from Hokkaido and a box of fish cakes we got from Setagaya Boro-ichi.

And yessir it was time for us to bust out our custom-made Shiroi Koibito cookies. 

My cookie came out looking perfect and scrumptious.  V's on the other hand

suffered an unfortunate fate.  Didn't change the taste of course, but to V taste is often secondary.  The heart would become whole again in her belly, but eating the whole thing proved to be difficult.  Not only is it a giant cookie, but the white chocolate layer is thicker than most normal Shiroi Koibito cookies.  As a result, it was much heavier than the small ones and overall less delicious.

More packing and eating and soon it was time for our room inspection and departure.  This was the easiest phase of our whole apartment procedure and we were relieved that they didn't notice any of the things we messed up.  Sounds like we should get almost all of our deposit back, which means we'll have a tidy sum in the bank for our next trip to Japan.

Even now, Japan feels like it was a dream.  Thanks to all the people who made our time there so awesome. 

Special thanks to Casey and Tsubasa for taking all of our leftover crap.  It would have been a waste to throw all that stuff away.  For any foreigners looking for a rental property in Tokyo, I highly recommend Ms. Tsubasa Makise of Flat Inc.  She made our rental process as painless as it could have been.

Also, there's an open invitation on the table for anyone who wants to come visit us in Chicago.  We have an extra bedroom so remember not to book a hotel.  It'll be super, I swear.  Super!

I leave you with this rap I wrote in my head in the shower for a drinking game I never got to play with Casey.  The basic premise of said game is to rhyme in both English and Japanese in an ad-lib battle.  I was just practicing...  Btw, I don't rap.

いつも笑っているミスターミスターCasey

何を考えている think you can beat me?

でもさdidja knowあれは昔話

俺に勝つのはぜったい無理

Making the List - Part V

V and I split up for the first time in days.  I headed out to stop by Isetan again.  Again?!  Yep, we reloaded on our Japanese sweets.  Don't judge.

かめや - Kameya

Kameya is a tiny tempura soba joint smack in the middle of Shinjuku's Omoide Yokocho and Omoide Yokocho is an alley full of little restaurants just by the West entrance of Shinjuku Station.  We've had yakitori in there before, but most of the stuff caters pretty heavily towards drunks and tourists and isn't necessarily the best Shinjuku has to offer.

Kameya is notably different.  It was already 2 PM when I sat down for a bowl, but the seats continued to fill up with patrons.  Virtually everyone was a salaryman there for only a couple minutes, but I did have a homeless man sit next to me.  Probably because Kameya is cheap.  At 330 Yen for my bowl of tempura soba, it's cheap enough for even homeless people to afford it.  It was easily the most popular shop in the entire alley.

I'm guessing that it was a good thing that a homeless man would eat it with me.  I mean if he was willing to spend his precious money there it has to be good right?  Well it was totally delicious.  Easily the best value I've had in Tokyo.  Free gyoza at Ippudo doesn't count.  I'm not sure what makes this soba better than others, but can't I just qualify it by saying it tastes better?  Simple enough I think.

Afterward, I headed to Isetan and bought a crapload of desserts again.  Business taken care of, I was off to Harajuku for one last Omotesando visit.

Burton Tokyo

Picked up an omiyage for me and my brother.  Unfortunately the small they had the last time was sold out, so I settled for two mediums.  My collection of these has grown to three cities now.  Yay. 

I roamed cat street and Meiji-dori while I waited for V to show up.  Did a bunch of window shopping but wasn't really in a buying mood.  Why is it that only right before I leave I start to find some things I like?  Saves me money I suppose.

I met up with V and we headed for her final visit to Kiddy Land.  She wasn't quite as sad as I expected her to be, but I guess you can't be too sad when you buy Hello Kitty stuff.  We continued down Omotesando towards Aoyama and what would surely be our final dessert date.  Surely.

Pierre Hermé

Pierre Herme is a Paris chain with locations in Tokyo and London as well.  Famous for its macaroons, we planned to hit up their chocolat bar for...coffee.  Yeah right.

The chocolat bar is located on the second floor of the establishment and is laid out in a lounge setting.  Seating is either on a low couch with tables or at a counter overlooking Aoyama-dori.  We opted for the couch.  PH is a super upscale place that seems to be heavy on etiquette (quiet).  We only took a couple of pictures before a guy came over and asked us not to.  So bear with us if the photos are not up to par.

Yeah this picture definitely doesn't do this justice.  The Miss Gla'Gla' Montebello is like a macaron ice cream sandwich.  Ours was pistachio and strawberry.  This was certainly the most creative thing we had there and was really delicious.  You can also buy them to go in the boutique downstairs and if there's one thing that's totally unique to PH and you should try it's probably the Miss Gla'Gla' series of ice cream sandwiches.

I ordered the White Day partially out of laziness but also because it sounded pretty good.  It was more than just pretty good though; tasted like pure bliss.  The vanilla and coffee tarts stood out the most, but all the chocolates were pretty phenomenal as well.  I continued my trend of ordering awesome food.

Our other dessert (yes we ate three) was an apricot and chocolate biscuit.  Two extremely bold flavors fought for attention in this plate and the result was pretty overwhelming.  V is pretty weak to chocolate, so I ended up eating the whole thing as well as most of the chocolate on the other plate.  Did you know chocolate is poisonous for people as well?  Don't eat too much chocolate kids.

We definitely ordered way too many things and I was severely choco-overdosing.  Pierre Herme is definitely special.  He's become an all-star pastry chef and is considered by some to be the best in the world.  His Aoyama store is actually the original (even before his Paris ones) and can be considered a destination for those culinarily inclined.

Just don't be stupid and eat too much chocolate.

We actually have our own pastry chef in Chicago who we love and treasure.  V not only thought of him but also thought about the ichigo daifuku I had bought while we were eating, thus prompting me to call her a "dessert whore."  This is probably the one loophole that makes it ok for you call your wife a whore.  I still felt dangerous doing it though.

We made our best attempt to walk it off as we checked out Tokyu Hands and Loft in Shibuya.  V loves those types of stores, but we didn't get to spend much time in either as we had to head to our final meet up with the Tokyo gang.

莫莫 - Baku Baku

Baku Baku is home to the highest rated kushiage on tabelog.  The second highest rated is Baku Baku's second store.  I had been searching for a kushiage place when I came across it online and it turns out that it's super close to where we live for some reason.

Located in the alley leading to Okubo Station, Baku Baku is definitely a bit difficult to find, and despite its vaulted rating it was surprisingly empty.  We definitely didn't need to worry about our reservation.  For those who don't know, kushiage is akin to tempura but everything is breaded using panko rather than flour and then skewered onto a stick.  It's basically deep-fried stuff on a stick.  So even when the head chef brought out a starter bowl of onions, we didn't have any chopsticks to use.  Instead, we went had to use the little skewers.

We waited for Diana and Gordon for a bit while we pondered what to order.  Luckily we found the omakase course on the wall and decided to just leave it to the chef.  For 3630 Yen, it's a little expensive but it's also pretty much all you can eat.  The head chef kinda reminded me of the master from the J-drama, Hero.  We asked him what there was to drink and he replied, "何でもあるよ。”  But he lied!  Turns out not only did he not have chopsticks, he also didn't have any Calpis for V.

The basic premise of the omakase is that you go in order and eat from number 1 to 20 letting the chef know if you want to stop at any time.  At the end you can order any additional items you want.  Thus the marathon eating began.

The shrimp was the first course and perhaps even the best.  You got a whole bunch of salty juices when you ate the head and the body was surprisingly tender.  It was an awesome start.  Most of the courses you're supposed to dip in sauce but a couple you aren't.  The ebi was one of the ones you eat straight up.  The courses came and went and although they took a little bit of time in between we didn't even really notice.  Everything was delicious but some of the more notable ones for me are...

the eggplant on the right.  The squid of the left was good too of course, but this eggplant just came out tasting super fresh and even a bit sweet.  There was a wagyu course that was really good and the quail egg...

was freaking fantastic.  I think I could have just popped those suckers all night.  Eating purely fried things is a little tough actually, and everyone was beginning to get a little greased out by the time the house special came out.

That's seaweed wrapped in some sort of fish egg I believe.  It was really good, but I don't know if I can even place it in the top 5 of the things we ate.  Actually, most of the veggies really stood out for me and I could have done without a couple of the stranger courses like red ginger.

Our final course was mochi which turned out to be one of my favorites.  We got the omakase for fun, since this was our last real outing in Tokyo, but the right way to eat Baku Baku is to simply order one at a time the way V did.  That way you get to eat what you like and also don't get overcome by all the fried crap.  We did plenty of damage though.

The real last course was actually the ichigo daifuku we got earlier at Isetan.  V did some research and found out that Suzukake is actually from Fukuoka and only has six stores in Japan.  Their only Tokyo store is the one in Shinjuku's Isetan so we were lucky to have found them.

We have yet to get ichigo daifuku aficionado Diana's opinion on them, but V and I thought they were pretty amazing.

We finished eating everything and the head guy came around for last orders.  Everyone was finished except me who ordered another ebi like a proper fatass.  Mmmm.  Baku Baku lives up to its billing as amazing kushiage.  I wouldn't totally recommend the omakase course and if you just order what you like to eat, there's no way you can go wrong.

I'm not sure why we failed to take a picture of everyone together.  It was our last chance and it totally slipped our minds!  I guess this just means we need to come back sometime to get that picture.

If there's one takeaway from Baku Baku, it's that double-dipping is bad. 

In fact it's an offense for which you have to forfeit 1 million Yen.  Or so the bathroom says.

We finally started packing that night and actually made quite a bit of headway.  My body shutdown as a way of telling me to stop eating myself to death while V who had done a much better job of pacing herself over the past week indulged herself in a Pierre Herme mille feuille.

One day left.