williamsburg

purpleman and i have decided we want to live in NYC one day. and that our favorite neighborhood is williamsburg in brooklyn.

astoria, queens, where my sister lives, is a great neighborhood: not yet gentrified in ways that nice brooklyn neighborhoods are, so it's managed to keep its character intact and the rent from skyrocketing. but after seeing the cool bookshops, record stores, and coffee shops around bedford avenue, i thought, maybe it would be worth paying extra to live in a neighborhood like that.

it will take a while (and jobs for both of us!) before we'll really have to worry about where to live in NYC, though. for now i have to think about where to move in tokyo. i am finally about to find my own apartment after almost a year of staying at my parents'. so i am thinking:

is shimokitazawa the williamsburg of tokyo? is hongo (bunkyo-ku) the astoria?

new jersey wedding

the main purpose of our trip was to attend the wedding of our dear friend and former colleague dan in new jersey.

i'd never been to a big american wedding before --what a huge production! dan and his fiancee took dancing lessons for months, and had hired a live band (which was actually pretty good, and played stevie wonder for the first dance and john denver for the mother-and-son). i got to see purpleman in a tuxedo too.

despite the funny theatrics (which were probably normal by american wedding standards), though, i was moved. i think anyone would be, if they knew the story of dan, the hairy drunk and his angry but philosophical monologues... i miss old dan but i'm glad he's no longer sleeping on a tiny air mattress. omedeto***

new york, new york...

september must be one of the best months of the year to be in new york city. we were blessed with gorgeous weather every day of our stay. the air was crisp, the sun made everything sparkle, and even new yorkers looked happy...

as always, our daily activities centered on food.
one place i tried for the first time and really liked was la palapa on st. mark's place, a casual mexican joint recommended to us by a colleague's mexican boyfriend. the seats in the back terrace were very comfortable, the service was relaxed, the drinks were cool and yummy, and we ended up staying there for 4 hours, just chatting and nibbling on things like chalupas with chorizo and guacamole. purpleman ordered a skirt steak marinated in lime and tequila.

another memorable meal was a thai restaurant in queens called sripraphai, which my sister says is the best in the "area". i don't know how big an "area" is, but purpleman and i were very impressed and i would even say it's probably hard to find a better place in manhattan. they didn't seem to tone down their flavors for non-thais. my favorite dish was the fried rice with shrimp-past, which was intensely fishy but balanced out the spiciness of the green curry and papaya salad. the only thing i didn't like was their sticky rice, which was a bit too dry.

our little splurge was at scalini fedeli. my favourite was the truffle ravioli served before the appetizer. it was so tiny i wanted to ask for another, but i'm glad i didn't because the other dishes were great too, and very filling.

it's september!

but it still feels like summer, doesn't it? in two days we'll be on a plane bound for new york city, and while it's for a friend's wedding we'll be there for a week and so it will be like a little summer vacation for us.

one thing i regret this summer is not having worn a yukata. i've been too lazy. it really isn't that much trouble, i just never got around to getting it out of the closet. it would be so nice to be able to wear a yukata all the time, and getting my own made at chikusen.

i'm so indecisive...

especially when i'm at a good gelateria and the choices include flavors like gianduia, white japanese peach, watermelon, and something called blue salt and curacao. yesterday at gelateria mario in ginza i panicked, especially because purpleman was so quick in choosing pistachio and chocolate. i chose watermelon (because it's summer?) and gianduia (because i always do), but i'm not sure it was the right combination. next time i should go for japanese peach and pistachio or salt/curacao and gianduia.

the salt-flavored gelato reminded me that salty desserts seem to be quite popular in japan at the moment. i had some chcolate-covered potato chips the other day and it wasn't bad --after i "got over" what it actually was and focused on the flavor. sometimes salt has the funny effect of making something actually taste sweeter. maybe it boldens the flavor, like saltwater taffy. come to think of it, the japanese always sprinkle a bit of salt on watermelon. and the very sweet red bean "oshiruko" soup usually comes with a bit of salty "konbu" seaweed.

now it's the weekend again and i am thinking of what to cook with purpleman. are goya (bitter okinawan gourds) in season yet?

it's too hot and humid to go out

but i met up with purpleman for lunch at cafe nid.
i had cold tomato and basil pasta while purpleman had curry d'agneau. i think they've become really serious about food over the past few years. if i remember correctly, nid used to be more dessert-focused. the desserts are still great, of course... i can't wait til it cools down, so i can drink their chocolat chaud!

after lunch i tried to do some picture-taking (with my recently-fixed minolta XE) and some shopping, but i got so hot and sweaty i gave up and went home. but i did buy a dress --a brown silk embroidered tocca for a wedding in september. i think i already have shoes and a handbag to go with it, but i should check the accessories at enokiworld just in case. i'm not a big internet shopper, but on days like this, it's funner to be shopping indoors.

melinda and melinda

went to watch melinda and melinda at ebisu after work yesterday. it was one of the best woody allen films i've seen recently. i thought chloe sevigny was very good as the sexy but sexually-frustrated park avenue princess, and that will ferrell was a pretty good stand-in as woody allen.

after the movie, we ate at elio's cafe downstairs from the cinema. the squid pasta and seafood risotto tasted so authentically italian. and it felt so nice to eat outside --you rarely get to do that in tokyo, unfortunately.

yay!

the best news this week has been that purpleman will be going to london for six weeks from late september to do some training. congratulations!!!

it will be a great opportunity for him work-wise... but of course i'm also thinking it will be a chance for us to do a little bit of europe. maybe a weekend+ in paris?

parisby.com is one of my favorite sites. the italian version of it is pretty good too.

hakone

a weekend trip with friends was cancelled at the last moment, but purpleman and i decided we need a break from the city. hakone's only about two hours from tokyo by the regular express train --perfect for lazy bums like us in need of a quick onsen fix.

the taiseikan hotel is nothing fancy, but the views are great, especially from the outdoor baths. its location near the bottom of a steep valley makes you feel far-removed from the rest of the world. well worth the scary cable-car ride down to the hotel.

we returned on sunday and met up with claudia and taka for some soup curry at shin--an increasingly popular chain that originated in hokkaido. the vegetable curry-soup is pretty good, but maybe i'll be adventurous and try the natto-okura next time. claudia seems a bit worried about the move. it must be a bit scary to be moving to a new city where you have to make new friends and start life from scratch. but i'm sure it will be a great year for the two of them. i've never heard of anyone not having fun in barcelona!

it's a three-day weekend

purpleman didn't even know tomorrow was a holiday until i told him, so he's particularly pleased. it's so funny, i sometimes forget about holidays too and it can be a treat to be surprised like that. once when i was little i turned up at school to find it empty --it must've been either labor day or columbus day.

one other thing we have in common is that we have firm beliefs in how ice cream should be eaten. my rules are:
- make sure it doesn't drip. you should always start by licking the melty bits, especially if it's gelato.
- lick, don't bite. try to form a round dome by turning the cone as you lick. as the ice cream gets smaller, start pushing the ice cream gently into its cone. if you do this right, the cone should eventually be about half-filled and flat at the top with ice cream.
- bite into the cone. turn the cone while you do this, and keep licking/pushing the ice cream. if you do this right, you can enjoy both the cone and ice cream until the very end!

l'artemis

to celebrate our one year of dating, purpleman and i tried a new french place today: l'artemis in harajuku.

everything, from our bottle of alsace riesling to the chocoloate mousse with wine sorbet, was excellent. the chef seemed to incorporate a lot of seasonal fruits and vegetables, and mix together spices in an interesting but not-too-complicated fashion. clever, but not cocky. i have to go back for the rabbit with cinammon and cream risotto. i also felt a pang of envy for purpleman's foie gras with truffles and fig (even though i was very happy with my white liver mousse with berries).

the restaurant is not that formal, so i think i could come here again just for a casual dinner with friends. but the food is definitely worthy of special occasions. happy anniversary, sheesergirl-purpleman!

kyoto and nara pictures

the slideshow is quite cool.

closer

i finally watched Closer with the purpleman last night, despite warnings that it wasn't a "date movie". i don't regret having gone to see it, but i can't say i liked it... it just had a nasty aftertaste that i'm still trying to figure out.

the story evolved around four characters and their sexual and emotional manipulations of each other. the dialogue was emotional and intense, yet i didn't find it very engaging because all the characters were so unlikeable and obsessed about sex and revenge in ways i found pretty shallow.

still, we are having fun coming up with a cast for our own imaginary production of Closer.

nara and kyoto --a four day trip

saturday june 18 (day one)
nara is only an hour from kyoto but somehow i never got around to exploring it much, partly because everyone says there aren't that many nice places to eat or stay. and while that is partly true (not many choices), now i know i've been missing so much!

the last time i stayed at the nara hotel, i was alone on a one-night business trip. i remember being spooked at night by the creaking sounds of the hotel's wooden structure. this time, with purpleman to keep me company, i really appreciate its beauty --the tall ceilings, the mix of meiji-era western and japanese architecture.

my favorite is the nara park. i never realized it was so huge. the deer are smelly and obnoxious up close, but are really very pretty.

we have nice dinner at mangyoku, a former "okiya", with purpleman's friends jose and fredrik who live nearby. it looks very classy from the outside and the bar area is tastefully decorated with antiques, but the food is very home-style. nice. afterwards we go exploring nara's temples, which turn out to be open to the public even after sunset. it's kind of strange to see 1000-year old buildings in the dark, but it's nice without the heat or the crowd of the afternoon. we also get to see fireflies. what mysterious, sensual creatures!

sunday june 19 (day two)
after one last walk through nara park, we head for kyoto. the kyoto fujita hotel is really my favorite, even with (or because of?) its outdated style. it's right by the kamo-gawa and you get to hear the river running.

for lunch we go to gion ten-ten for okonomiyaki, which is not really special to kyoto... but it doesn't matter because it tastes so good! we walk around shirakawa and then take a nap til dinner. we end up having dinner at sinamo, my favorite cafe with the many lamps. we agree to take it easy since we're both a little tired, but end up finishing a couple of drinks and a bottle of wine.

monday june 20 (day three)
my favorite place in kyoto is in o-hara, especially the garden at ho-sen in. i imagine it must be gorgeous during the autumn with the foliage and also during the spring cherry blossom season, but it's also beautiful in the summer with the many shades of green.

afterwards we have lunch at e-fish, a cafe that looks over kamo-gawa. david has a BLT sandwich and i have an avocado, cottage cheese and tuna sandwich. we're tempted by the cakes but decide to save tummy-space for dinner. instead we give into a different temptation --beer by the kamo-gawa! aaaahhhhhhh! we definitely deserve it after such a long walk!

the u-zo-sui (eel porridge) at warajiya is definitely the gourmet highlight of the trip. unlike grilled eel covered in sugary soy sauce, this one is cooked in its own broth, together with veggies and some egg. it's one of the most powerful broths i've ever had. speaking of powerful, the japanese believe that eel has a particular effect on men...

we close the day off with a gin and tonic at bar k-ya, which must be the coolest bar in japan. housed in a spacious, "machiya"-style building that was recently renovated, bar k-ya has a beautiful, long wooden counter that looks out on a simple zen garden. a few seats away from us, an all-made-up geiko-san is chatting away with her patron.

tuesday june 21 (day four)
nanzenji has an impressive gate, but purpleman and i are too lazy to climb it to the top. instead we have a slow look around the nanzen-in landscape garden and decide we're done sightseeing. it's so great to have a travel buddy who has the same level of energy.

our final meal in kyoto is keema-curry at sinamo. that is, unless you count the tsujiri matcha softcream i have before getting on the shinkansen back to tokyo. for a minute, i think of resisting ahead of our planned boozing on board, but purpleman insists i should have no regrets on this trip. so that's how i end my trip --stuffed and wholly satisfied.

to kyo to

we're planning to go down to kyoto for a few days in late june.

it's so fun to be planning a trip again,
looking up things on the internet and fantasizing about beautiful gardens and
quiet walks along kamo-gawa... where should we stay? and what to eat?? should i buy a new canvas tote bag at ichizawa-hanpu? or should i buy a proper silk purse at chingire-ya instead? (i shouldn't tell purpleman about my shopping plans yet)
ahhhh, it's so nice to have something to do and think about at work again!

Of Love and Other Demons

purpleman lent me Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. i always loved Marquez, the way he mixes miracles and passion and tragedy all together. this particular novel is much shorter than most of his other famous masterpieces, but, like some of his best short stories, poignant and beautiful. i finished the book several days ago and i'm still haunted by the image of the little girl sitting at her windowsill, eating grapes.

Saturday by Ian McEwan

i finished reading Saturday by Ian McEwan, which reminded me a bit about another great novel, Virginia Woolfe's Mrs. Dalloway. in both books, the "life in a day of" setting and vivid moment-by-moment narratives force the reader into the protagonists' minds.

Saturday also reminded me about the real pleasure of reading. i'm always so impatient that whenever a passage seems a bit tedious i unconsciously skip ahead, which makes me quite a fast but careless reader. I wanted to read every single sentence in this one.

slow starters

Saturday: we had a very slow start to the day since purpleman was very, very hung over from last night's drinks with the big boss from singapore. he doesn't remember details, like how he he lifted my skirt in the train on the way home, like an ordinary chikan!

We met the Laynes for dinner in Shimokitazawa. the pizza "napolitana" is very good. i love anchovies and black olives!

life aquatic (less drooling, more laughing)

saturday: went to watch Life Aquatic with purpleman. it was so much funnier than i'd expected, maybe even better than the royal tenenbaums. it's been a good film week.

at night we went to altoto in shimokitazawa, where "dj jona" was spinning. a mix of breakbeats, jazz, and cutsey bossa playing in a comfy little bar... what a cool event! and we saw one very energetic girl jumping on a dance floor. purpleman said "yeh, there's always one jumping girl on any dance floor" but she was extraordinary --it looked like she was on a trampoline and it went on for the whole 3 hours that we were there! our friend double-D was totally entranced, and i decided we should leave before purpleman fell under her spell too.

sunday: great food stalls at the annual thai festival at yoyogi park, but the crowd was a bit too much, so we left after getting some green curry and basil-chicken from one of the food stalls.

we couldn't get into cafe apres-midi, which was once my favorite cafe in all of tokyo. it was always quite popular, so i wasn't surprised that it was full, but when i took a look inside it felt very different from the way it did a few years back. more lively, less saudade. i commented that the customers were now much younger than the old crowd, and purpleman replied: "isn't it just that you've grown older?" ahhh, hadn't thought of that!

i don't mind doing different things and hanging out at different places now that i'm older. but i want to think that it means we have more options, more places to go and things to enjoy, not less.

bad education

i finally got to see Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education.

on my way home i compared various characters from the movie to people i know in real life, something i sometimes do. i don't know anyone as corrupt as the characters in Bad Education, but i think there are people who can do things --sex, deception, manipulation-- without really feeling anything.

i should be more tired after watching movies two nights in a row, especially since both had dark, labyrinth-like plots. but i don't. both were mesmerising in different ways and featured beautiful men. Gael Garcia Bernal, he can come and swim in my pool.

movie night

i was afraid of watching Wong Kar-wai's "2046" as it had such bad reviews and i heard kimutaku was in it... but i ended up renting it at tsutaya after trying to go see Almodovar's "Bad Education" and finding tickets sold-out (ah, it was ladies' day!).

it's definitely not my favourite Wong Kar-wai movie, partly because i was annoyed by kimutaku (who looked so puny next to Faye Wong) but mostly because his other movies are so much better. perhaps i'm bothered by the storyline --the various sequences are interesting on their own, but it's hard to make sense of it as a whole. but i've thought that way about some of his previous movies and changed my mind later....

the visuals are definitely stunning, the slow motion montages, gorgeous chipaos.... and of course Tony Leung! if i ever have an illicit love affair it will be with Tony Leung. next time i hear "chestnuts roasting on an open fire" (the christmas song that kept on playing in the background) i might start drooling.

and watching the movie made me want to dress up. wouldn't it be cool if people still wore silk chipaos and high-heels all the time. Of course it would be nice to look like Zhang Ziyi too.

i take that back

about purpleman being an idiot, because he was very nice to me today when i:
assumed no one would come and drank lots of wine, fell asleep, and couldn't bother to talk to anyone when some friends finally did show up, and then to top things off got sick on the way home. idiot, idiot, me.

tomorrow it's back to work after a long holiday--- i always hate this. but it's just one day and then there's the weekend again.

pre-picnic anxiety

today i went food and wine shopping for tomorrow's picnic.
but i still don't know if anyone will show up. this is the worst thing about planning parties --you don't know how much food or drinks to have ready because everyone says they'll "try" to come.

the first year we did this it got a bit crazy --we received lots of vague replies so we kept on expanding the guest list, and in the end everyone showed up and there were more than 20 people packed in my tiny little room. so this year we only invited 3 or 4.

that reminds me... purpleman didn't come last year because he was too hung over. idiot! idiot! i can't believe i ended up dating him.

melbourne mmm, mmm, mmm....

melbourne is definitely one of my favourite cities in the world now, next to istanbul and rome. i'm particularly impressed by its cafes and restaurants, the culture of doing "breaky" and business lunches by the river, and the chilled-out, easy-going atmosphere you find everywhere.

some of the best food:
*the mango, lychee, and hazelnut gelati at trampoline on brunswick street, fitzroy
*banana and lemon pancakes banana and lemon pancakes and scrambled eggs with coriander and chili from joe's garage, also on brunswick street.
*chinese at the famous flower drum on drummond street
*moroccan at momo on collins street

one highlight was a trip out to the yarra valley wine country and staying at outlook hill, a beautiful boutique winery. from our cottage we could see the entire vineyard and the neighbouring dairy farms. one of the most beautiful sunsets i've ever seen --for about five minutes a gorgeous orange glow hung over the entire vineyard. the hotel had a great jacuzzi bath too --so relaxing, especially after a hard day of wine tasting!

the cellar doors at outlook hill, coldstream hills, yering station, and tarrawarra were all very different. hard to say which wine i liked most. the chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir from coldstream hills and the chardonnay at tarrawarra maybe? we also had a terrific dinner at the healesville hotel. purpleman had local free range pork in a wine and honey sauce while i had lamb. a very impressive wine list too, of course.


but the best part of the entire trip for me was meeting purpleman's brother and sister, luke and kate. i always forget he is the eldest of four because he is such an easy-going own-drummer type. i like them a lot -- both just as kind and laid back as purpleman but slightly more mischievous.