Sigh...

It's been pretty boring here in Tokyo, I was going to write about our trip last weekend to Ikea and then I thought to myself, who the heck would care? Nobody is interested if we ate meatballs at the cafe or bought 2 black toilet brushes...

If I blogged about a trip to Ikea what would I write about next? My daily trips to the washroom? Eating udon or ramen for lunch? Trimming my toenails?

So bare with me as I try and find something interesting to blog about... hold it, the Chuahs are coming next week and they're bringing the whole clan, all 5 of them... this could get hectic.

Bowling in Tokyo

Bowling 2 games a piece... ¥3000
Bowling shoes... ¥1200
Parking... ¥1500

Bowling experience in Shinagawa?
Crappy...


Great! They put the gutter barriers up...

"Hey Dad, doesn't mum have a funny looking stance..."

Enough said...

Wagyu Burger!

After a weekend visit to Blacows, let's give credit where credit is due, I reckon the Japanese have managed to perfect that All-American gastronomic institution... The Hamburger.

Wagyu Beef Burgers!! Woot! Not your run-of-the-mill, bone dry beef burgers held together by corn starch, fried and sold at McDonalds. These beauties are ground from Hokkaido Black Cows (ok, try not to picture that)... and they make for the juiciest, most succulent burgers... ever.

Blacows... not the most imaginative name and missing a syllable or two

The juiciest patty on a freshly baked sesame bun... admittedly, not the best photo in the world, but it tastes great

Even the small one managed to wolf down 3/4 of a burger...

Damage? About ¥1500 a burger, depending on any additional toppings, it comes with 5 (yes, 5) Hokkaido potato wedges and a pickle. Oh and budget another ¥2000 for parking in Ebisu...

The tooth and nothing but the tooth...

Going, going...

Gone.

Camembert Cheese Fly...

and a skillfully handled chicken dish... problem is, those cheese flies look really large.

Typhoon Melor

What a fizzle... as it turned out, all that hype and anticipation was totally unnecessary, Typhoon Melor was more of a rainstorm with a moderate breeze.

All those big car factories on the Kanto plain must be kicking themselves for shutting down for the day.

We were hoping for a little more of a show and bang, but this weather event was like a Roland Emmerich movie, full of promise to start with... anti-climatic at the end.

Typhoon Melor

Makes land tomorrow October 8, 2009. First typhoon to make Japanese landfall this season.

Tokyo is definitely in it's path... stay tuned!

Nicole's email

Since she has turned 7 years old, Mei and I figured Nicole should have her own email address. So please write to her at:

smootoochung@yahoo.com

She's really, really looking forward to receiving emails... from someone other then her dad.

Gee, I wonder who will write to me?

Disgusting...

Squid fermented in it's own guts... it smells as bad as it looks, to quote Crocodile Dundee: 'you could eat it, but it taste like shit...'

Saying goodbye to Summer...

It's officially Autumn here in Tokyo, while the weather is still rather warm (in the high 20's), it's cool and dry enough to actually enjoy a day at the park, something that is close to impossible in hot and humid Singapore.

So, this past weekend we took a drive to the Kasai Rinkai Koen Park, Tokyo's largest, of course it's man-made and built on reclaimed land, but this is Japan.

We left at 1030 in the morning, a 30 minute cruise north on the Shuto up to Edogawa-Ku. It was a lovely day, slightly overcast, breeze blowing, low humidity and the temperature hovering at 27 degrees... perfect picnic weather.

We were lucky enough to find an empty picnic pavilion, providing ample shade and a comfy setting for our picnic...

Nice breezy spot with a great view...

Someone really enjoyed her first picnic in Tokyo...

Thanks to Mei's efforts in the kitchen, we had a lovely lunch of hamburgers and hot dogs all the while enjoying Mother Nature.

It's nice to get out of the city once in a while.