Cavalock and The Misplaced Churchill Quote

Always a pleasure to discover a new Japanese joint that serves a dining experience that is absolutely reminiscent of our days in Japan. So our friend managed to get us a table at Rockon Tokyo along Tanjong Pagar. Great izakaya food with an impressive sake list. We had two carafes of wonderful smooth, dry sake. Now according to a write-up I found online, "Rockon Tokyo serves up true obanzai in the traditional Kyoto home-cooked style", so I'm wondering why it's not called Rockon Kyoto instead? It's a small, cozy place and that evening we were the only locals there, to me I guess that kinda validates the place for authentic Japanese food. Must-haves include the charcoal-grilled skewers, Tsukune chicken, miso-marinated pork shoulder and Koji-marinated 'Gyutan' beef tongue. My favourite has got to be the tamago roll stuffed with mentaiko. So simple yet so yummy. Now that edamame pix you see below are some seasonal "wild black edamame", smokey flavour that's quite different from your regular edamame. And it ain't cheap! Geez! Anyway it's all excellent food and we wanted to make another reservation but it seems they are pretty booked solid for the near future. Good for them!

It's almost the end of the year and my Traveler's Notebook is just about filled. Well, it would had filled up earlier if we actually got to go to the US and Japan this year like we had planned. Fortunately I stocked up on refills last year so the one I bought from Narita Airport is gonna replace the one from Tokyo Station. For awhile, I was wondering what I could possibly fill it up with since we won't be travelling at all this year. So I decided to have pages devoted to gaming experiences, local food places, past travel memories, trivia etc. 

And speaking of quotes, I was quite gutted earlier this week when I found out that my favourite Churchill quote "If you are not a liberal when you are 25, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative by the time you are 35, you have no brain.", was falsely attributed to him. Apparently, he never said those words. I could soooo identify with that quote. Hah!

Cavalock and The Cuckoo Bird Switcheroo Syndrome

Another blog post, another Japanese beer shot. Got this at Raffles City Marketplace supermarket. Haven't drank it yet. Says it contains 'hints of cypress and lemongrass', I have always had a thing for lemongrass so I'm hoping this is something that I'll like as well.

One of the things that I have kinda neglected doing during the lockdown and this post lockdown period is my notebook journaling and calligraphy. I was really into it and I was taking it out with me to write stuff, then the lockdown happened and I kinda lost the mood to write bout stuff since ... nothing much happened anymore! Well, I finally started journaling again and of cos the first thing I gotta do is fill up my empty fountain pen. Now I bought this demin color ink on a whim a while back and it turned out pretty good. 

So me Dad was out taking more wildlife pix recently and found this rather interesting pair. What you have here is a smaller tailorbird feeding a larger baby cuckoo bird. So what happened was a mother cuckoo laid an egg in the tailorbird nest and then flew away. These are known as 'parasitic cuckoos'. 

Female parasitic cuckoos sometimes specialize and lay eggs that closely resemble the eggs of their chosen host. Some birds are able to distinguish cuckoo eggs from their own, leading to those eggs least like the host's being thrown out of the nest. Parasitic cuckoos that show the highest levels of egg mimicry are those whose hosts exhibit high levels of egg rejection behavior. Some hosts do not exhibit egg rejection behavior and the cuckoo eggs look very dissimilar from the host eggs. Other species of cuckoo lay "cryptic" eggs, which are dark in color when their hosts' eggs are light. This is a trick to hide the egg from the host, and is exhibited in cuckoos that parasitize hosts with dark, domed nests.

- Source: Wikipedia

So the dumb tailorbird didn't know any better and has been raising an illegitimate child every day ever since. Anyway both birds have since left the area and hopefully the poor tailorbird isn't still feeding the cuckoo bird.

Cavalock and The Traveler's Notebook Peek

Fingers crossed, as I'm typing this it's two more weeks of renovations to go. It has gotten to a point where I would be stumbling out of the apartment with a face full of zits and not know it cos we still have no mirrors! Far as I can tell, NOT a vampire yet.

Had lunch at Ippoh Tempura Bar earlier this week and that was the second time we ever had Tempura omakase. Small and intimate joint with a 12-seater counter. Amazing food with more than a couple of show stealers. The tasty little shrimp toast is something we could have eaten by the boatload.

Another of the Baker-at-Home's favourite was the unforgettable sea urchin tempura with caviar. Once again, we could have chucked down a dozen more. A fantastic lunch, wish it was cheaper so we could have it on a regular basis. Hah! Well, after that we headed to town to catch Knives Out at the theatre, so a very good afternoon it was.

So one of the reasons why I haven't been blogging online much these days is I have gone back to blogging old-school style or journaling for some of you artsy folks. Bought my Traveler's Notebook two Tokyo trips ago and I have been filling it up very slowly. Reminds me of me media advertising days, designing page layouts and all that. Been awhile since I flexed that little creative muscle.

The cool thing bout Traveler's Notebook is it lets you slot in different sets of pages, it's kinda like mini-booklets. And you strapped them all into your leather bound Notebook. So right now I got three separate page sets or booklets in mine. The first is daily random stuff like I'm trying some bullet journaling with fancy doodles here and there. The second is the least utilised one as it's me trying out some watercoloring but since the renovations started, my little craftwork table where I do my miniatures painting is stacked with boxes a mile high. The third section is me gaming journal where I sometimes spin a yarn or two about the fantasy battles I play. I would turn it into a (very!) short story if I play (and win!) a game like Warhammer or Magic.

Cavalock and The New Traveler's Notebook Journey

An excellent little and I do mean 'little' oden joint that we had dinner was at Nakameguro. Toridashioden Samon is located just under the next to Nakameguro train station, next to Meguro River and it's pretty good idea to have dinner there after visiting the Starbucks Reserve Roastery Tokyo which is just about 15 minutes walk away.

Lots of choices and reasonably priced too. Get ready to stand in line as it's pretty popular. Love the daikon. The two big chicken balls are nice too as the tiny bits of cartilage in them give them that little extra crunch and texture. Also first time having yakitori oden-style instead of the usual grilled. Go if you want great and affordable street food.

It's something I have had my eye on for awhile now and finally decided to put it up during my Tokyo vacation with the guys a couple months ago. Yup, so I bought a Traveler's Notebook. It's a writing journal and more. I have been using a Moleskin journal for couple years now and did the switch after reading how versatile the Japanese Traveler's Notebook is.

The options to customise and personalise the Traveler's Notebook was what first drew me to it. Then I saw all them millions and millions of YouTube videos about it, read the articles bout it and I kinda fell in love with the whole concept or idea behind it. Like most Japanese products, it's also cheaper to get it in Japan than in Singapore.

So like I said, I bought during my trip with the guys but I only opened it when I got back home then a week after that, me and the Baker-at-Home headed back to Japan and that's when I went crazy with it.
My old day job as a writer provided me with many writing opportunities and so does the Traveler's Notebook. It's kinda hard to explain since there really shouldn't be anything stopping me from writing what I want as and when I like, if you know what I mean.

Well, becos of me Traveler's Notebook, I have also gotten back to dipping my toe in fountain pen calligraphy as well as picking up some very basic water-colour painting. I have always enjoyed using me fountain pen ever since I first used it back when it was part of the primary school curriculum. Yah, it's no longer part of it and you guys don't know what you are missing! I still remember how one day I forgot to cap my pen and the ink just leaked out right through me school uniform's breast pocket. Today I'm using a German Lamy fountain pen. Was planning to purchase a Japanese fountain pen but the sleek and ergonomically-designed German pen made its no-brainer choice for me.

Well, if there's anyone out there who's also into Traveler's Notebook and journaling, let me know!