Saturday, December 31, 2005

happy new year


best wishes for the new year.

i've been busy the past few weeks catching up with friends, doing holiday shopping, getting the flu... and now 2005 is already over!

i meant to write up a list for "the best of 2005", but there were too many highlights this year and i'm too indecisive to choose just one. the best trip would be a tie between melbourne and paris, the best dinner would either be one of the paris restaurants or yarra valley's healesville hotel, the best music album would be either superaquello's new album or maybe takk by sigur ros --although my latest favorite is solo piano by gonzales.

so instead, here's a to-do list for 2006:
1) learn to bake something chocolate-y.
2) visit barcelona (fingers crossed)
3) move house
4) drink more wine

Saturday, December 17, 2005

sushi and sake

sushidai is a casual and very reasonably-priced sushi bar right outside the tsukiji fish market. i'd recommend anyone visiting tokyo to go there and try the "tencho- ni omakase" course, which is a great deal at 3,500 yen. my favorites are aji (horse mackerel) with shaved ginger, hamachi (yellow tail), and lightly-seared toro.

one thing about sushidai, though, is that they don't have a very good selection of sake. so this time, i met up with my sister for pre-sushi drinks in ginza. bars in ginza tend to be outrageously expensive, but the fukumitsuya sake bar is an exception with glasses starting from 300 yen. it's actually a "sampling bar" where you can try different kinds of sake made by an old kanazawa brewer of the same name. if you like something, you can buy a bottle on your way out, which is what my sister did.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

in hot water

what do japanese expats miss the most about home? sushi? oden? yes, but those things aren't impossible to find in most major cities. for me, it would definitely be the onsen.

my sister nami was visiting from washington d.c., so my family decided to go up to the hot springs in hakone last weekend.

we were all quite impressed by the newly-renovated ryokan hatsuhana, known for its abundant (and therefore un-recycled) hot spring water and kaiseki dinners. one thing i noticed was its focus on women. in most ryokans, men's baths are often bigger and set in more picturesque settings than the women's, but at hatsuhana it was the opposite. there were about 4 outdoor and 2 indoor baths for women, while there was only one of each for guys. maybe they realized that women are usually the decision-makers when it comes to travel.

from the baths, we got a good view of the mountainside --a bright array of autumn colors during the day and an illuminated bamboo forest at night. aaaaah, i wish i could do this more often...