Cavalock and A Week in Tokyo

First off, apologies to Danny Choo for borrowing his popular 'A Week In Tokyo' series, just for this week. <^;^> As you can guess, it's a bunch of pix I took during the week I was in Tokyo.


First stop outside the Narita Airport waiting for the Airport Limo (it's really just a bus) to the hotel in Shinjuku.


My first lunch was a really simple and cheap affair, duck udon.

My first nite's dinner on the other hand, was a much more expensive affair. Udon hot-pot kinda thing in a fancy restaurant.

Celebrating Girl's Day or Doll Festival in Tokyo or rather in my hotel lobby.

One of the few days when it was bright and sunny, outside Shinjuku's station, the world's busiest station!

Here's another vending machine shot for the collection.

The expensive part of Harajuku. Lots of luxury, branded stuff. No need to go to Ginza for that.

Yup, even the desserts on display look fancier than these. Don't you think so?

Lots of new games and other electronic stuff at Akihabara. Remember, shop around to get the best deals, there don't seem to be any fixed prices.

Breakfast at one of the cafes, near the hotel.

Spring is coming! First sign of it along the streets....

And to welcome spring, here's a neat little spring flower arrangement exhibition in the hotel.

Another shot of a depachika, just can't live without them!

That's Takashimaya Times Square, houses Taka (of cos), Tokyu Hands, HMV and Kinokuniya. I can spend an entire day there or rather, I have spent entire days there. Really.

Another shop I always visit whenever I'm there, the Yodabashi video game shop in Shinjuku. Those huge posters are of video game releases, and I always take a pix of them. Kinda like movie posters.

And here's (part of ) the top floor of the Yodabashi shop, yah, its all gashapon now BUT BUT BUT years ago, it was all PORN! Saw them all during my earlier trips. Then I remember going up all the way to the top on one of my later trips and was so crushed when I found out that the porn's all gone! Hah!

Same part of Shinjuku at nite, right after my yakitori dinner.

Cavalock Unleashes The Geek Within

Finally, I'm in the epi-centre, nexus, the ground zero of animeville and all things cool and electronic, Akihabara. Spent the early part of the day there. Well, I managed to find some missing Gashapon figures plus a bunch of other cool stuff, that I'll put up in a later post.


Some shopping tips for anyone shopping for figures, gadgets, etc.. Shop around! Far as I know or can see, there is no fixed price on most of the stuff unless it's a brand new just-released-today thing. Spotted at least a thousand yen difference on the new PSP in different small shops. So shop around, don't buy it at the first place you see it. Enjoy the sights, explore the smaller shops and hidden corners.

And there's always time for food even if it's just a snack. This here's from the Akihabara branch of the famous local donut chain Mister Donut. Unfortunately I think they ran out of their new moshi donuts. Got their signature lumpy one instead. Very light yet chewy, I like it! And you know how most donut places smell of all that oil and stuff? Well, there's hardly any of that here.

Cavalock And All Things Yakitori

Spent almost an entire day at one of my favourite Tokyo big stores, Tokyu Hands. Here we have a bunch of mini-yakitori grills on sale. Guess which one I bought. Yup, I actually bought a electric yakitori grill. One of those guys is sitting on my living room table now. Saw it at Tokyu Hands on day one and couldn’t really decide till a few days later cos needed to check the remaining luggage space and all that.

The part of Shinjuku near the main train station is a great place to grab some equally great food. Right where the popular Yodabashi electronic shops are. Lots of restaurants, big and small. There were touts yelling and shoving menus in front of groups of salarymen, kinda like our satay touts at Lau Pa Sat. Really. Didn’t know which yakitori joint (there were lots) to try so did the only thing that made sense. Look for one with an English menu!

Found a couple and finaly settled on one. Yah, I know, didn’t take down the name again. One surprising little fact. In Japan, I guess when they say ‘yakitori’, they really mean ‘chicken’ and just chicken. Almost all the meat-on-the-stick on the menu is chicken. Very nice chicken, esp the chicken patty one. No asparagus maki but another one of my fav is the bacon-wrapped-round-mushroom-stem. The mushroom stem was really juicy. Don’t think I have ever seen anything like it back home before.

Oh yah, they also have horse sashimi too. And no, I didn’t have any.

Cavalock Takes A Break at Excelsior

The Tokyo weather was certainly …er… memorable. Was freezing cold, cloudy or rainy for most days except for 2 days when it was freezing cold and sunny. Temperature went as low as 2C and never crossed over to two digits. Had to buy a S$16 pair of oversized gloves from the convenience store.

Geez, I just realised I never had my usual royal milk tea bottle drink this trip but I did drop by my favourite café for hot drinks and breakfast more than once. A cup of their very thick and delicious Tiramisu latte on day one afternoon.

Followed by breakfast the next morning, nice runny egg sandwich with a yummy sweet potato muffin.

Here's Ueno train station, with a little sakura exhibition. Discovered a couple of cool shops here. Bought a pair of cool glasses by Japanese brand Jin's Global.

And a really nice sushi joint. Now you know why I can never be a good food blogger. I can never remember to take down the address or name of the place. I did try to get the name but it's in Japanese. Well, it's upstairs at the station's Food Atrium, there's a row of eating joints just above Hard Rock Cafe (yah, HRC is in the station). The sushi place is right next to a Korean joint. What you get is good fresh sushi at a lunch time low offer price.

Next up, it's all things yakitori!

Cavalock *heart* Depachika

After six trips to Japan, I finally took some pix of the various depachika around Shinjuku. Don't ask me why I never took any eariler. I believe the pix are from Keio, Takashimaya and Odakyu. Rows and rows of food, imagine being caught in a vortex of gastronomical delights. I hope you guys like them.


As you can see, I took way more dessert pix than the regular food. Heh, there were lots of sweet goodies maybe cos its White Day this Saturday, 14th March.

The depachika is a great and cheap way to grab dinner. Would usually buy some food and dessert before heading back to the hotel room. But you gotta go before 8pm cos usually by then, most of the good stuff would be gone.

Cavalock Goes to Gotemba

When I was at Danny Choo’s blogging workshop last year, he said something bout making sure you capture your readers’ attention at the top upper part of your entry. So here’s one of the best things to come out of Gotemba.

Gotemba is a huge factory outlet village outside the city with lots of branded stuff for sale, with a great view of Mt Fuji. And that pix up there is one of McDonald’s Cinnamon Melts. Pretty much little sweet melted hot cinnamon buns. Had that as a dessert item while having McDees lunch at the factory outlet village. Another cool dessert that we’ll wonder why we can’t find (yet) on our local McDees menu.

Some more pix of Gotemba. Think this is my best Mt. Fuji shot yet. Guys can take pix while the gals shop?

Crocs right next to Jimmy Choo, looks like they got shoes for every budget! ;)

Spent half a day at Harajuku too (not the same day as Gotemba lah). Found this neat ramen shop, Kohmen, tucked away in a tiny side street corner, its not facing the main road, not that far from Harajuku station. Same row as Kiddyland. Was actually looking for this other ramen place at Harajuku. Anyway the hot ramen was terrific on a cold day and fatty pork side dish was divine. Better than most ramens I had here. They got a site too. Seems like they are pretty famous too. Here's an old review.

Cavalock and The Sweetest View

Now I figured for each post bout my trip, I'll mix it up with some food and non-food stuff.

It's not exactly the penthouse suite but I guess it came pretty close. I sure ain't complaining bout it. Mt Fuji view all the way from here in Shinjuku, a dehumidifier, my kinda toiletries and one of them foldout armchairs with the foot rest and all, that Joey and Chandler have in their apartment in Friends (forgot what its called).

OK, that's it. I think I have talked enough non-food stuff for now. <^;^> Didn't have much of a chance to eat out every nite so here are some stuff bought from the depachika, the basement food court area.

You don't get much fruits here like in Singapore so it's juices instead, although did find some native strawberries later in the week, very sweet too!

Dinner in the hotel room on other nites included some of these.

The one above is kinda bread/bun thing with caramel custard and the other one is mont blanc.

Now the macarons, they are everywhere. I think every depachika has at least a couple of shops/stalls selling them. Didn't have time to go to the one Isetan Shinjuku with the famous Pierre Hermes ones so decided to just try any one I could find. These weren't bad at all, nice and chewy. The six came in a nice box too, unlike this!

Next up, GOTEMBA!

Cavalock meets the New Japanese Haagen-Dazs Flavours

Hey wow! I'm back! Thanks to everyone who read my Twitter. Was real hard finding free wifi in Tokyo. Ended up using my phone's 3G to Twitter. Hah, guess next month's phone bill's gonna be a killer.

Gee, where do I start? Did I enjoy myself? Sure did despite the freezing weather, I believe the lowest was 2C. You know why Japan's cool? Any country where its perfectly normal to wear face masks on the streets is cool in my book. Was like one-fifth of the people were wearing face masks, yah, I know it's cos of the cold etc.. And oh yah, I bought porn magazines too, FOOD porn magazines! I mean, Japanese food mags with lots of really mouth-watering pix of desserts and other great food stuff, with directions on where to find them in Japan.

So many things to remember, say, write and of course pictures to post. So let's start with a little bit of tradition. Like all my other Japan trips, here're more new Japanese Haagen-Dazs flavours!

Yup, no Japan trip of Cavalock's is complete without seeing what this year's new flavours are. Here we have Blueberry Cheesecake, Gateau au Chocolat and Millefeuille. Bought all three, decided am not a big fan of the flaky stuff on top of the Millefeuille.

My favourite was the Blueberry Cheesecake. Rich cheescake flavour with nice blueberry topping.

The Gateau was way too choclatey for me. Only if you really into rich dark choc. They have other new flavours too. Like English Tea, Tiraminsu (new cos I think there's some fancy cocoa topping, unlike our tubs here) and some new mocha flavour that I forgot.

Next up, well, more food pix? or maybe something different? <^;^>