Hanging out in Sydney

What makes a place feel more and more like home is when you get to know the peeps. Sydney has always been a familiar destination, what with the kangaroo’s family and friends. But more recently, I’ve forged my own friendships in the land Down Under, and it’s been nice catching up with them in person, rather than on MSN Messenger.

So I got to know Jean through the kangaroo from his time in Melbourne, but in the last few years, we were invited to her wedding in Oz, met up for drinkies in Singapore and munched on yakitori in Tokyo.



Then I got to know her cousin Mindy who lives in Sydney whom I met in Melbourne and Singapore. Both of these gals actually shared a lot about their relocation issues and experiences with me, which made me feel a lot better about the tough times when I first moved to Tokyo. I used to think it’s hard to form friendships in adulthood but I think relocation brings out this necessity and it’s entirely possible to meet people outside your usual circle of pals.

The first night was at a Mediterranean tapas joint in the city, followed by decadent desserts at Café Otto on Glebe Point Road. My pictures were awful so I am not putting them up. Still, I would tempt you to try their crème brulee and chocolate mud pie cake with vanilla ice-cream. This café bar is a laid back joint with a roaring furnace in the middle to keep the autumn chill at bay. It can be a little noisy but I thought it gave the place an uplifting buzz. I was surprised to find out that cafes that don’t serve alcohol close at 5pm because there is no point in competing with pubs that do.

The only other evening I didn’t have kangaroo family related events was on Thursday when the bucks’ night (or bachelor’s party in Singaporean speak) took place. Mindy and her boyfriend Marty whisked me off to Paddington for some late-night shopping. I’ve never been to this neighbourhood and I would recommend this if you want more chic boutiques to browse, as opposed to standard malls like Westfield. By the time 8pm rolled around, the stores were closing their shutters so we hopped into Marty’s car to go for some Italian in Glebe.



Deep fried black truffles with other crunchy bits…a perfect antidote to starving tums…



A perennial winner….a caprese salad. I love how fresh the herbs are in this country! I refuse to spend a fortune on these in Tokyo so I tend to buy dried bottled ones.



Marty had juicy rabbit and beet root as his main….Game meat is always so deliciously tender…



Mindy had the veal ragu which was hearty and savoury…We kept stealing bites of her meal…



The seafood marinara I ordered was tasty but the tomato sauce was a little on the acidic side. The clams and mussels were absolutely plump and super fresh. I would advise girls to only order entrée sizes in Australia when it comes to pasta, my main course was a mountain of spaghetti I simply couldn’t conquer.



M&M… I wonder if anyone calls them that?

It was a fun night and I hope to see all these peeps again when I return in December. Right now I am wrapping up work in the Sydney office and thinking about food as I am waiting for the kangaroo to finish a conference call.

Why I am in Sydney

I’m attending the kangaroo’s little brother’s wedding this weekend so we are hanging out here for 10 days. We have a string of family gatherings and meetups with friends.

Last night was the meet-the-in-laws bbq at Epping, where his brother and fiancé live. It’s a very suburban area and looks like Perth — wide open spaces with big residential houses stretched out along a seemingly endless road…

We had fun seeing some of the family while tucking into some good ol’ Aussie barbecued steak and chicken.



Today at lunch with the colleagues I learned these Aussisms: “cracking the shits” and “farting sparks” — they both mean to be very angry. Hilarious.

Anyway, this could be my last post till Monday because I won’t have Internet access. Have a good weekend, everyone!

Only in Japan

The dwarven board…flowers instead of teddy bears…

I forget how weird this looks to those who don’t live in Japan. Ambien asked me to pose for her. I was laughing my ass off…

My first nabe party

I am a huge fan of hot pot, so when Ambien and her hubby were going to visit my new pad as part of their Tokyo itinerary, I knew I had to make my Japanese hotpot debut.

To get started, I bought a portable gas stove from Biccamera (JPY2,400), a funky green nabe pot (it’s actually a claypot, which is similar to the Chinese version), and sake.

Itching to try an authentic Japanese recipe, I went online in search for an easy, delicious one. Like many gaijins who look for recipes in English, I was a little disappointed and what I found were on Western sites that looked quite dubious in their authenticity. A British blogger who used to live in Japan came up with his modified version — a lot of white wine with salt and pepper. The search results threw up Youtube videos, too, and I only found a Japanese stew hot pot demo, and to my amusement, a Japanese recipe for Western-style nabe. What could be in this hybrid? Carrots and sausages! Gross…

I finally came across another gaijin blog who had a Japanese friend prepare a nabe for a party he threw — so that’s where I got this recipe to serve four people:



One or half cup of sake
A splash of soy sauce
Water (I just filled three-quarters of my nabe pot)
Chicken thigh meat
Chicken wings
Leeks
White cabbage or hakusai
One packet enoki mushrooms (golden mushrooms)
Six large shiitake mushrooms
One packet bunashimeiji mushrooms
Spinach
Yaki-tofu (smooth tofu that has a slightly burnt layer)
Deep-fried tofu
Two eggs
One packet of udon noodles

As we simmered the food in the soup stock, I only had to refill it with one cup of water and splashes of sake and soy sauce to top up the nabe. We were bursting at the seams and had to squeeze in ice-cream and strawberries for dessert.

I love hotpot because you can eat and cook together while holding a conversation. This communal style of dining is perfect for those who have limited entertainment offerings — we still don’t have a TV or any cool video games like Nintendo Wii or Sony Playstation. I’ll be keeping this dinner party idea up my sleeve for awhile…

End of season snowboarding trip in Niigata

Since I lost all my photos in the big iBook crash, I couldn’t blog about certain events. But a few days ago, a friend emailed me her photo album on Picasa, so here I am, sharing pretty pictures of my last snowboarding trip of the winter season.

A gal pal invited me to her company’s ski trip in late March. They got a massive discount on accommodation and free lessons thrown in, so I couldn’t resist. Her group of colleagues was fun and easy going. Everything was well organised and all we did was tear down the slopes, eat, drink, played silly games and dipped into the onsen twice a day. ‘Twas bliss…

Meanwhile, the kangaroo was back in Tokyo lugging our things from the old apartment to the new. My friends teased me for abusing my boyfriend, but really, our lives are so spontaneous schedule-wise, that stuff like this happens sometimes. His business trips are unpredictable and I make plans regardless whether he would be in town or not. As an aside, this is one way I survive as a trailing partner. If I waited for the kangaroo to tell me when he would be passing through town, I wouldn’t make any friends nor go on many outings. My advice is: make plans as if you were a single gal. If he can fit into your plans, cool, if not, you can hang out as a couple another time.

Back to my awesome trip…



We stayed at New Greenpia Tsunan Ski Resort in Niigata, which was about an hour away on the shinkansen, plus an additional hour’s bus ride from the station. It’s a big family hotel, but for the reasonable fee, who cares?



I love snowboarding but I am not good at it. This is me struggling to get up to pose for a photo but I couldn’t stand upright on this down slope.



The view was amazing. It makes all the tumbling and aching muscles worth it.



On breaks, I would just sit on the snow in the sun and gaze at the mountains and trees.

One new thing about Japanese culture I learned is they are absolutely into taking lessons. The Japanese believe in structured classes where they will practice till they get it right. Since this was a company trip, we had to participate because attendance was taken. It was particularly challenging for me as the lessons were all in Japanese.



If you’ve got time to kill, stop by the sake museum at Yuzawa station. For a small fee (probably less than 1,000JPY), you can try five different cups of sake. How it works is they have a huge selection of sake along a wall where the rice wine is dispensed into your tiny cup. I tried anything where I could recognize the kanji — from dragons to flowers to red monkeys, I sipped my way to a giggly, tipsy state.

I’m quite a loner most times, and if I do travel, it’s always with the kangaroo, so this group experience was refreshing. Anyway I hope the pictures will encourage you to try out Japanese ski slopes — they are just breathtaking.

Taking Japanese lessons again

I have reached a point where my paltry understanding of Japanese is not enough to skate by. The nitty gritty in moving apartments, shopping online, and speaking to customer service folks in Japanese is humbling. I felt like a three-year-old who had to ask my Japanese friends for help in these "adult" routines.

The latest incident involved me ordering a piece of glass instead of an exercise bench for the kangaroo weight-lifting sessions. Sounds dumb, right? Let me explain: the glass is meant to convert said bench to a coffee table and was photographed as a bench on Amazon Japan. Didn’t I see the word “glass”, you may ask? Frankly no, because I have a bad habit of relying on pictures and skim over clusters of hard-to-read Japanese characters.

Even a simple conversation with the Japanese company who delivered the glass was impossible to decipher after the first three sentences into our dialogue. I gave up in frustration, as he didn’t speak a word of English. With my tail between my legs, I called a Japanese friend to call them on my behalf.

I joined a school in Azabu Juban where I will take one-on-one lessons with a middle-aged sensei (teacher) starting in May. Japanese for busy people II will be my text. I prefer this brand of learning materials because it has explanations in English. When I was in that first intensive course last year, the daily lessons were conducted only in Japanese and I was so confused over certain grammar structures. The kangaroo uses this same series of texts so when I flipped through his book one day, I could completely understand the stuff that I was boggled over before.

During the trial lesson with my new sensei today, I had so much fun. I forgot how interested I am in language learning. I began the lesson with a resolve to go through the pain of studying hard for the JLPT test but emerged thinking, “I am going to enjoy this!” I like absorbing practical daily life type of expressions and words. Tanoshimi (looking forward to it)…

Bummed out

I am not feeling so well again. Ever since Nepal’s massive attacks of food poisoning in December 2007, my digestive system has not been 100 per cent. Coming from Southeast Asia, I was proud to have a cast-iron stomach that can tolerate food that has been lying around or boiling away all day in an open cauldron. But these past few months, my constitution seems a little weak.

Last week’s stomach bug was awful and I felt nauseas and headachy all day for four days. I began to feel like that after lunch today and left for home at about 530pm. Perhaps it is the change in weather (which is temperamental) or the lack of air in the office (the aircon was not turned on because a certain colleague thought it was too cold) — whatever it was, I refused to chuck up in the office loo which has walls as thin as paper.

The other reason why I am bummed out is I missed yet another hash run (my expat jogging group). I’m not trying hard enough to balance work, fitness, the kangaroo, and building a social life in Tokyo.

I hope May will be a better month.

Dinner at Singapore Seafood Republic in Tokyo

Just when I thought I was cooling towards Singaporean cuisine in Tokyo — they are not that great, honestly — a pretty good one pops up on my radar. I have been trying not to be so hard up about laksa and hokkien mee and all those yummy dishes from home. Japanese nosh can be a bit bland with its ubiquitous soy taste in almost every dish.

Instead, I satisfy my cravings with a comfy mix of my own “fusion” dishes, like stir-fried udon noodles with oyster sauce chicken and veggies, or cod fish porridge (yes, it’s cheap in these parts), or jalapeno sauce and sesame oil grilled chicken wings.

A Singaporean friend suggested a dinner there after an Indian friend introduced it to her. The lunch was fabulous, so a week later, she wanted to go again and she raved to me, “It’s so authentic that I can go anytime!”

Well, I couldn’t refuse. Apparently, this restaurant was started by a Singaporean, who invited all the famous seafood restaurants (Jumbo, Palm Beach and International) to a joint venture. The original chefs were flown down to train the Japanese cooks and so the recipes are authentic. The exterior of the restaurant recalls Seah Street Deli in a way, said one of the Singaporeans in our group. If there’s posh Singaporean fare, this is it.



This squid fish cake and fried fritter (or you tiao in Mandarin) dish was a delectable appetizer, so much so that we ordered three plates of six, to dip into a bowl of chilli crab sauce we couldn’t finish.



The black pepper crab was the star of the show with the Singaporeans. It was seriously succulent and this “dry” version is a pleasant alternative to the ones at home drizzled in very salty black pepper sauce. We were licking our fingers after this one…



I have always liked chilli crab but I don’t dream about it. Honestly I am so used to my mum’s (she cooks this dish every weekend or every other weekend — so decadent, I know) sambal version. For those not familiar with Singapore cuisine, the sauce above is a sticky, non-spicy version mixed with egg. My mum’s recipe is a droolicious mélange of red chilli, lemon grass, peanuts, egg, crab roe and other secret spices. We were all stuffed so one little crab leg was left. Gleefully, I asked for it to be doggie-bagged (or da bao in Singlish) for the kangaroo.



Dessert was a fruit platter but it was entirely in the vein of modern Japanese cuisine — we each had a morsel of very expensive pineapple, papaya, and passion fruit (huh?). The bill was JPY5,500 (SGD74) each which is reasonable considering the food we had was quite exotic and had ingredients that were hard to get. Well, mainly sambal. I would go back again, especially to try the lunch menu, which includes mee goreng and hokkien mee.

Back in business

Last week was a little messed up because I had a four-day bout of stomach flu. But when I got better, my iBook got sick. She crunched away to a quick death on Friday. Fuming inwardly and cursing her, I went shopping for a few errands meant to be done on the weekend. So this is why I’ve been missing for so many days.

The kangaroo was very sweet — he put on his doctor hat and performed some surgery on the iBook to retrieve our precious travel photos from the hard disk.



Check out the insides of the iBook. The kangaroo’s boss is a Mac user so he asked him for some advice. But all he got was, “It’s before the Intel ones came out?! Get her a new one!”



And so he did. It’s an early birthday pressie. The other reason for the rush is we can't afford the downtime until he gets one from the US (it's so cheap there) or Singapore (the resale price just rocks!), so we just got me a Japanese one. I'm still getting used to the keyboard which is slightly different than the universal English one. We also got the Time Capsule which is an awesome back up drive and Ethernet hub. The speed is just incredible, especially with Japan’s phenomenal broadband system. Thanks, baby!

Mind-boggling Japanese font sizes

Two friends from Singapore are coming over to visit and I’m keen on showing off the new apartment. I want to cook them a Japanese meal but we don't have a dining table. I perused a few furniture catalogs, and finally, the kangaroo and I agreed on a long, white dining table and five red/black chairs from Askul, an online office furniture shop.

It sounds strange to be ordering from them but their selection is quite flexible and home-friendly that you could very well decorate your house nicely with their offerings.

Anyway, I had to add our home address to the online form after the shopping cart was full. This was when the trouble started. This online form requires full-sized and half-sized font widths. What the heck are they, you may ask? Apparently, Japanese fonts run on a different kind of computer coding system. For English readers, this just doesn’t matter at all. Whatever you type into an online form, it would get accepted.

For banking online, there’s a soft keyboard (or, a virtual keyboard) for you to use so whatever you key in is set according to what the form requires — be it full-sized or half-sized. From my experience, you just need half-sized ones.

But for Askul, they have a mix. What the f%^^&*? Unfortunately, my old iBook only has a half-sized katakana palette:



For those of you who can read Mandarin, you can see the circled bit that it says “ban”.

Where are the numbers? Addresses are a mix of numbers and Japanese characters so it was infuriating to find the number palette with only full-sized font widths (again, Mandarin readers, see the “chuan” character?):



In the end, I had to ask a Japanese colleague to fix it for me on her PC. Why am I making a big deal out of this? Well, wouldn’t anyone hate to rely on others for even the simplest daily routines?

“Ah, the joys of living in a country where you don’t speak the language,” sighed the kangaroo.

Apple dreams

I was missing online yesterday from about 4pm because my adaptor cable gave way. The wire was probably frayed due to wear-and-tear. By then, my battery was at 40 per cent. So I jumped online and checked to see if there was the same cable available in Tokyo. Zanen (It’s a pity), nai ne….(none). Only heartbroken for a moment because I could get a new Macbook. I’ve been eyeing this one for a while…

I’ve had my iBook for four years now and she’s a little slow and cranky. I’ve dropped crumbs and spilled red wine but she still soldiered on. Instead of blowing JPY170,000 (SGD2,300), I thought I’d make a trip down to the Apple Centre in Ginza to see if they had a replacement for my cable. As an aside to Apple fanatics, this is a must-visit if you are ever in Tokyo. There are four glorious floors of Apple products in a sleek, futuristic setting.


With a mix of elation and disappointment, they had a 65W portable adaptor to replace my 45W one. A gentle reminder of long forgotten physics rules: it’s okay if the wattage is higher, not lower.

The kangaroo said he would get a new MacBook for me on his next trip to the U.S. He’s leaving this Sunday! The U.S. dollar is so low that the new MacBook would save us SGD400.

Being sick overseas

Stomach’s heaving, waves of nausea coming at intervals of 15 minutes, and a burgeoning fever…plus a headache squeezing the top of my head.

I left work early today and am fretting about a number of things.

Firstly, I hate getting sick in Tokyo. It’s really borne out of a paranoid fear that I have something serious and I don’t have enough language skills to approach a doctor here. A friend recommended a clinic in Roppongi Hills on the sixth floor if I ever get terribly ill and need an English-speaking doc. But it's still cold comfort to me because he or she would still be Japanese — again, I've to admit I'm prejudiced. When it comes to important matters like bills, banking, and illnesses, I'd like to be able to communicate well between both parties. It's ironic because I learned Japanese to handle such scenarios but I still fall back on English...

Secondly, I don’t have the usual meds or remedies I like to take. Mental note to myself: I need to stock up funky Chinese herbal pills and the like when I’m back next.

Lastly, I feel like I have so much work to do but I can’t seem to focus. I keep wanting to run to the loo to gag or lie down on the futon. I’m so excited about getting things going that I feel I’m missing out by steering out of the superfast lane of the Internet highway even just for one day.

But the bright side of everything blue today is that the kangaroo is in town. It sounds wussy but it sucks big time when you’re sick and alone. I don’t have any friends here whom I’m close enough to whine to about such things and who would actually come over and hang out.

An evening of Wii

Yesterday night we hung out at Adrian and Kazu’s for dinner and some Nintendo Wii.

After delicious seabass and sinful macaroons, we worked it out on their Wii.

It was the kangaroo’s first time, so he was super excited.



Ready…



Get set…



Go!



We skied on snowy slopes…



Played football…And many other sports games. I was having too much fun to take many pictures. One of my favourites is the cow-racing game where you hop onto knitted moos and run for your life, knocking people down and jumping over fences. Phew, we worked up a sweat...



This is the kangaroo’s profile. He went for a Ray-ban look but we all agreed he was more Kim Jong Il than Tom Cruise.

Just a snapshot of our weekend — we’re pretty normal folks.

Hanami at Yoyogi park

I didn’t realise how severe winter can be in Tokyo until the city is awash with lovely pink sakuras. Long avenues light up with the promise of a new season that bursts with rejuvenation and energy. More people are taking leisurely strolls because the weather is getting warmer.

The parks are jammed with people eating, drinking, and dancing to thumping music. The city just comes alive.

Yesterday was spent at a hanami (means looking at flowers) party at Yoyogi park with a fun bunch of peeps. My Singaporean girlfriend invited the kangaroo and I for an afternoon of laughter, chit-chat, and lots of munching and boozing. I could tell the kangaroo was enjoying himself because he forgot about doing his work and we even joined the group for dinner in Shibuya.

I’m nursing a horrible hangover because I literally drank an entire bottle of pinot noir by myself. The Japanese sure know how to party. A couple of friends from my running group said they were busy these two weeks with lunchtime hanami office parties.

I feel this is my first proper hanami with friends. My first hanami was actually the kangaroo’s company party so that’s not really a let-your-hair-down kind of event though I still enjoyed putting together an Aussie picnic. Last year I explored two other famous parks in Tokyo: Inokashira and Yasukuni.

So when’s the next party season? Summer’s hanabi (fireworks) festivals all over town and I’m looking forward to that.

A new look for spring

I was tired of the regular Blogger template offered so I thought I would do some customization.

I tried to look for a picture that incorporated both Japan and a lion image — look what I found?!

The banner’s a little louder than I normally would have on a website but let’s see how this one goes.

Why I prefer web writing to print media

This morning in the train, I just thought about how web writing is so different from print journalism.

Let me quickly hash out the contrasts:

Editing. After six years in print, I came to realise what my strengths and weaknesses are and sub-editing or copy-editing (checking the content for errors and inconsistencies, plus sprucing it up to be more attractive and readable) is not one of them.

In my last job, I was an assistant editor so this was an essential part of my work. I remember having sleepless nights over an awkward phrase or a stray comma or a plain headline. Once it's published, it's there for posterity and a constant reminder of what went wrong if it did. It’s important and some people make a great living out of it but I don’t want to make it my career.

With the web, if there are any small mistakes, just dive back in, re-jig it, and press submit.

Headlines. In print media, headlines are very subjective. Sure, you should always follow the rule of thumb that it should be relevant to your body text. But the reality is, you are writing for your editors who have a certain style they approve. If you don’t get this, expect endless mocking and correction.

On the Internet, you need to optimize your headers for the search engines. What does this mean? You need to have direct headlines so the search engines can easily pick up on what your content is about. Most blogging platforms will use the words in your header to form the URL and search engines crawl content according to links. In other words, search engines “read” links and what’s in them.

But this brings in the debate of “Will SEO kill creative copy?” Check out The New Times’ article on this issue. I think this is inevitable as things move so fast on the Internet — what’s this minute’s news is already yesterday’s news, you don't have time to waffle over that snazzy one-liner. You've got to be clever and quick in creating eye-catching headlines in a search-engine friendly way.

News point. But, having said how fast the virtual world works, it’s easy to find news points (the news or trend your article is based on) — you read it in a news wire in the morning, and boom, your article can be out in the afternoon. In magazines, weeklies work at least two weeks ahead, monthlies three months in advance and dailies work on a weekly story roster. An ex-colleague who transitioned from a newspaper to a magazine said she found writing for a monthly rag the most stressful because you have to anticipate trends three months in advance.

Gone are the days of frantically leafing through foreign magazines from the U.S. and Europe (the trends there tend to take a few months to reach Asia) to steal ideas that will impress the editor.

For web writing, you’re writing for Google, a faceless, mysterious entity who is probably more predictable than certain editors (especially those fueled on caffeine and PMS).

For print, you work your ass off for one single paycheck per month but you get lovely rewards like a trip to the Maldives and designer perfume (but you have to write about it).

The perk in web writing? If you play your SEO cards right, your earnings can exponentially increase and the hell you went through would be more than worth it.

I rest my case.

My favourite room

It’s only been barely a month but I have a fondness for our cozy den — I thought a picture of our unusual living room/bedroom would be interesting for Japanophiles.



By the way, our futon and sheets are from Muji. I think they have good quality items that are moderately priced. Although they are more expensive than Ikea, they’ve got that edge with clean lines and sturdy products.

Living arrangements in Tokyo rival Hong Kong’s cramped flats. I got so used to our shoebox that the new space is simply intoxicating. In Singapore, a “three-room flat” (equivalent to a two bedroom apartment) is the norm and seen as fairly small.

This is a photo of the old place – 16 square metres in full glory:



Needless to say, I don’t miss it at all but it holds memories of negotiating our way, bumping elbows and knees, through our first year in Tokyo together. The journey was challenging but it makes our new home such a wonderful reward.

A lesson in Singlish

“I can’t understand what Singaporeans say sometimes,” the kangaroo declared in exasperation yesterday after he finished a trying conversation with his Singapore accountant’s assistant. He cast a meaningful eye at me and quipped, “I wonder why…?”

I cracked up. True, I don’t use Singlish (Singapore English) with him because he just wouldn’t understand me, or if he did, he would imitate me.

So what was it that he didn’t get?

"Eh?" is what he hears when Singaporeans pick up the phone. I assured him it wasn’t a grunt but a quick, “’Ello?”

"I sen it" means “I am sending it”. The kangaroo was puzzled and asked if she had already sent the email or if she was sending it at the time they were speaking. I told him if she had sent it, she would say, “I sen already.”

Debating about language is a fun thing for us as a mixed couple. I’ll be flying to Sydney in about three weeks and I wonder what I’ll pick up from the Aussies this time…