Tokyo - 2

Having a hard time to wake up the second day in Tokyo at nearly 10.30am, me & my travel companion headed straight to Ginza. The good thing about being in Ginza on weekend is: some main streets are closed for cars so you can walk in the middle of the street without the worry of being hit. Walking across the many posh streets of Ginza somehow intimidated me. I can't gather enough courage to walk into flagship stores. Chanel, LV, Emporio Armani? no thanks, not that I can afford any of those anyway :p

Luckily Ginza has many to offer more than just luxurious shopping (oh yes, people with convertible Rolls Royles shop in Wako while the driver is waiting by the car). The famous kabuki theatre and the biggest fish market are in the area as well. But we're not into those today, we're going to Sony Building.

What's special about Sony Building? Well, aside from seeing some of the new Sony products that are not yet in the market, having beautiful assistance to provide explaination is kind of nice too (only if you speak Japanese, they tend to run away when you speak English). Having found anything that you're interested in, the opportunity to purchase at a tax-free price is available inside the building. Too bad picture taking is not allowed :s

Understand the fact that Ginza is expensive, I have made my homework by searching a reasonably priced restaurant for lunch. Gonpachi provides excellent lunch menu & it's definitely cheap compare to Copenhagen. Coincidently, when (ex)President Bush visited Japan, he was brought to Gonpachi for lunch as well, albeit differnet branch. My travel companion complained that the restaurant looks like a slump from outside and he got really worried when he saw a middle age drunk man sitting at a corner outside the restaurant and no visible customer inside the restaurant (peeping from window).

Just when I was beginning to doubt my choice, we discovered that apparently the restaurant's entrance lies on the other side of the building and they even have dress code! Thank goodness we're decent, haha... Stepping into the restaurant transform the environment 180 degree. We then understand the 'slump' look is part of the decoration to the restaurant's theme and it's a two storeys restaurant and all customers are being placed on first floor, near to the kitchen counter.

I had a grill fish of the day lunch set while my friend took the teriyaki don with soba set. Soba is hand made, fish iss fresh and grilled to perfection, the teriyaki chicken, oh teriyaki chicken...char grilled to perfection (again), tender and juicy, it tasted so so so good. Well, I don't expect less from a place that can host national guest :) At this point, my travel companion Mr.T is no longer complaining :p
Next stop, we proceed to Akihabara, the electronic town. I think it won't be exeggerating to say that if there's any electronic items on sale anywhere in the world, you'll definitely find it here. Just Yodobashi (one of the biggest electronic shop) is already a 6 storey building that covers a wide range of product from computer, house hold electronics, to camera and beauty related electronic appliances. They even have a machine to wash rice before cooking (/faint).

I wanted to buy one of the multi-function rice cooker but they don't support 230/240V supply!!! Then I went on to look at Lumix TZ7 but the 'sleek' salesman demonstrated the function of CX2 and 'cheated' me into buying the camera, its expensive leather casing, an extra battery (nealy also the power converter & screen protector) and the next thing I know, I'm now a proud owner of Ricoh CX2, haha...

Leaving Akihabara (being 50,000Yen poorer), we took a small pit stop back at the hotel before proceeding to Shibuya. At night, no place in Tokyo houses more people than Shibuya. The most famous scene in Shibuya, is its scramble crossing, the intersection among three large TV screen and every 3 minutes, thousands of pedestrians will flock the crossing. To be honest, I think it's a bit scary when you see at least a few hundreds of people walking towards you.

Found our way to one of the Momo Paradise branch in Shibuya for dinner (of course, it was planned). A very distinct diffrence between Europe and Japan is how the shops / restaurants are located. Very often, you'll find a block of building that houses many restaurants in each floor in Japan but in Europe, they are often just by the street, individually. During Mr.T's previous Japan trips, they often have problem finding restaurants and eateries but having a travel companion who reads kanji (a.k.a. me), of course the problem is no longer there :)

Momo Paradise is also a local favourite for their 90minutes buffet hot pot (shabu-shabu, sukiyaki and the new korean kimchi hot pot) with free flow of refill. By the way, Momo paradise opens up a branch in KL, slightly different from its Japanese main shop on side dishes & dipping sauce selections, perhaps I should try when I go back. Anyway, the guests surely come and go at a fast rate due to time limit so we got our seats after 15 minutes of wait (on a Saturday without reservation, that's fast).

Choosen shabu-shabu because we had an expensive one in Copenhagen before and it doesn't taste good at all, so we needed to try out the 'real' Japanese shabu-shabu. Drinks and rice are not included but can be added on small fee. Shabu-shabu pot with konbu soup base on top of infra red heating, 2 bento layers of very thinly sliced beef, a plate of vegetables, ponzhu & sesame sauce marks the start of our shabu-shabu journey.

Mr.T likes it so much that he labelled this meal as one of the best during the whole trip (after we returned from Japan of course). It is definitely way better than in Copenhagen but I have an ambition to try it with Kobe / Wagyu beef the next time (if) I visit Japan. Ending the meal with a total of 6 bento layers of beef (not much compare to other customers but enough for us), it was a satisfying dinner that billed less than 6,000Yen with 2 more very happy customers :)