Culinaria Japonica...

Japan is one place where you can easily find any type of food to your liking. At the Royal Oak Hotel in Otsu, Kyoto, there was a choice for French, Italian, Chinese and of course Japanese restaurants. And for pakZaid's 58th birthday he treated pakdokter to a dinner at the French restaurant. Later after dinner, pakAli joined us and we adjourned to the Bar where we celebrated pakZaid's auspicious day with drinks accompanied by a live jazz combo.

Pakdokter reciprocated with a dinner at the Italian Restaurant at our hotel in Tokyo. The next night pakAli entertained us at the hotel's Teppanyaki Restaurant located on the 41st floor of the Grand Pacific Hotel at Odaiba.. PakAli had wanted to try out one of the many 3-star Michelin restaurants in Tokyo but unfortunately we discovered that reservations for dinner were days in advance....

PakZaid entertained us again on the last night of their stay in Tokyo and pakdokter's son booked a Yakiniku restaurant located on the 47th floor of the Shiodome City Tower near Shimbashi which also gave a commanding view of the Tokyo Bay.

There are also many interesting small eateries everywhere in Tokyo where dining would not burn such a big hole in your pocket. Pakdokter's son who has been there for almost three years became a good guide for us and together we ventured out every night trying out different regional Japanese restaurants. ( the pictures above were at the Yakiniku Restaurant of the Shiodome City Tower and the one right of this column is a suburban teppanyaki bar in Nakano. )

In Higashi Nakano where pakdokter's son lived for the first two years, there was a good Afghan restaurant run by a young Japanese guy who had travelled widely in Afghanistan and developed a liking and skills at Afghan cooking. And judging from the almost always 'full house' in his eatery, he has indeed done very well at promoting Afghan food to the Japanese. I must admit that the Japanese appear very adventurous with food.

And a few doors away from his outlet there was a 'banana-leaf'' Indian restaurant run by a young Japanese girl. Turkish and Middle Eatern restaurants are also easily found.

The day pakdokter's family ventured out to Kamagoe, Rastam had booked the "Ninja" restaurant at Akasaka. It was quite an experience for us. One has to also book a table a few days in advance for this place. It was an adventure in itself. Upon being welcomed at the door, we had to wait for a 'ninja scout' to come and help us get into the restaurant to our table. This trip was like going through a 'thrill-ride' at the Disney park. You walk through dark narrow passage, not knowing when the floor may open into a trap....The guide however was there to lead you safely to your table...

The dinner itself was a feast of 8 courses of food, in portions small enough not to fill you up too fast. Yet every dish excelled in its tastes and presentation. The food was a tad fusion with touches of french nouvelle cuisine...

Just before dessert another Ninja came to present a series of magical tricks with cards, strings and flashes of flame out of his hand and fingers. All in all a night out at the Ninja at Akasaka was a complete entertainment in itself. No wonder the many tourists at the restaurant, just like pakdokter, were just as busy clicking their cameras all the time...

Like all things in Japan, pakdokter can testify that in whatever restaurants we dined in Japan, we have experienced great cuisine as authentic as they can be, be it Spanish, Italian, Middle Eastern or Indian etc. This must be due to the Japanese nature of being very detailed and meticulous in anything they do. And they always come out with good results...

The Earth Day 2009, Japan....

Sunday 19th April 2009.

Tokyo celebrated the Earth Day 2009 on Sunday, the last of pakdokter's day in Japan for this year's RSGC tour of Japan. We took the train to Harajuku where we planned to see the "Muscle Musical" - a broadway type of show performed by gymnasts who probably represented Japan in the Olympics. It was a magnificent show of energetic acrobatic movements mixed with high-energy dance in amazing technicolor!

Harajuku was jam-packed with millions of commuters caught in long queues to get out of the train station. It was not only the usual weekend Japanese teenagers who crowded Harajuku that weekend. There was a show by the Japanese teenager who is the world champion in figure-skating at a nearby stadium which also drew a huge crowd to the area.

As we walked to the Harajuku Park, we found out that Tokyo was celebrating the 'Earth Day 2009' that weekend. It was a colourful fun-fair of everything there was to celebrate the good earth. Booths promoting green environment, healthy living, souvenier items and crafts made from natural materials with beautiful tee-shirts and apparels coloured with natural dyes made the festival a colourful panorama...

And true to the free-spirit and style of the Japanese , the participants came in costumes of all style and colour and with high energy dance and music booming from some quarters of the festival, it was like mini-Woodstock festival...

Lectures promoting 'green earth' and 'healthy living' drew serious attention from a concerned audience.

Home-made traditional cookies were promoted - not the junk food of America's fast-food era.

And after two hours of scouting through the booths and the crowd of colourful people, we were very delighted to have decided to also book to see the show " the Muscle Musical" which is currently only performed in Tokyo.

We walked out of Harajuku after the show towards Shibuya, another chic shopping and dining district and pakdokter decided to have dinner at a Spanish restaurant. The set of several tapas before the main dish of a beef steak almost made pakdokter forget that he was in Tokyo...

Family time in Tokyo...

Thursday morning, the RSGC entourage checked out of the Grand Pacific Hotel to return to Kuala Lumpur. Pakdokter checked out a little later and took the train to Shin Egota, where pakdokter's son's apartment is located. It is about 7 stations out of Shinjuku with good train connections to most parts of Tokyo.

Rastam, pakdokter's son, has also become a victim of the current economic meltdown, his employment contract being terminated as of early April. He has been going for job interviews with no success yet and is, at least for the next three months, able to collect unemployment benefits from the Japanese government! This benefit extends to gai-jin (expatriates) who are retrenched as well...

Friday turned out to be a gloomy and rainy day and the temperature was in the mid-teens. As Rastam had gone to his office for some 'project-based' work, pakdokter and partner decided that we pamper ourselves at the Onzen ( Japanese bath). So off we went back to Odaiba, where a recently opened Edo-Onzen is in operation. A better description about the Onzen can be read at pakdokter's partner's blog titled " On Baring It All..." at http://www.aginghippietales.blogspot.com/. And if you have a pet dog, you may also treat your pet for a spa-treatment....

the 'pet-spa' at the Onzen....

(top pictures...pakdokter and partner at the Edo-Onzen at Odaiba..)

On Saturday all three of us decided to take a trip out of Tokyo to Kamagoe, a little township where the Edo era streets have been preserved as it was till today. It was an almost 45 minutes train ride on the Express train passing through residentail suburbs of Tokyo.

the main street of Kamagoe...

a Japanese ricksha....

the old shops which are now mostly selling tourist items..

an Unagi restaurant (eel restaurant)....

a side street market....

Rastam in front of bars caramelised candy floss..

the town bell tower.....

Tokyo Bay and Sumida River Boat Cruise...

Wednesday was another free and easy day so pakdokter and partner decided that we try out the Tokyo Harbour and Sumida River Cruise that would take us up to Asakusa. It was possible to catch a water boat right in front of the AquaCity in Odaiba which was just a 5-minute walk from our hotel but as the next boat was about 2 hours away we were recommended to catch the next earliest boat from Hinode Pier on the mainland. So we took the monorail from in front of our hotel which ferried us across the Rainbow Bridge to Hinode Pier which was only 3 stops away from Daiba where our hotel was.

the Rainbow Bridge viewed from the monorail..
Hotel Inter-Continental near the Hinode Pier...

pakdokter's " mummy-san" at the window-seat of the boat......

The cruise up the Sumida River from Hinode Pier to Asakusa took about 35 minutes. All along the river banks, every plot of land has been developed either into 'posh' high-rise apartments or office complexes. A large part of the river banks was developed into walking/jogging and cycling paths. What attracted pakdokter's attention was how clean the river was. There were no plastic bags or bottles or used styrofoam food containers floating around!

We also passed the famed 'Tsukiji Market' where early every morning tourists would flock to this market to witness the spectacle of fresh salmon and tuna being auctioned to restauranters etc. Our son told us that a few months ago tourists were banned from visiting the Tsukiji Market because many of them were touching and feeling the fish to the annoyance of the fishermen and buyers because that would have affected the freshness and cleanliness of the fish. Tourists are now allowed but have to observe the proceedings from a distance away...

the Tsukiji Market viewed from the Sumida River..

some of the bridges across the Sumida River....

the Asahi Office Complex at Asakusa...

Asakusa is a 'one-of-the must-visit' location for any Tokyo tourist itinerary. 1300 years ago, on March 18th in the year 628, two fishermen caught the Kannon statue in their fishing net in the Sumida River. That was how the Sensouji Temple in Asakusa was started. The Kannon Bodhisattva image became the symbol of faith to many people and the temple became popularly visited by people from far-away places causing Asakusa to develop into a prosperous district.

Today,the streets leading to the Sensouji Temple still retains much of its Edo character and atmosphere and has become a popular tourist site where one can shop for Japanese souvenier items and sample the many Japanese restaurants there.

the Kaminarimon Gate at the entrance to the street leading to the Temple...

Nakamise-dori, the Edo-style street lined with many little shops offering Japanese arts and crafts, cakes and cookies etc....

the Hazomon Gate from mid-way along the Nakamise-dori...

Goju-no-Tou...

the Hozomon Gate leading into the Sensoji Temple..

The Club 300 Tokyo...

Pakdokter, the Biwako Champion 2009 with the statue of the ?founder of Club 300 Tokyo...

the RSGC entourage to Club 300 Tokyo....

As The Club 300 Tokyo was closed on Monday, our game was scheduled for Tuesday, the second day of our stay in Tokyo. From our hotel in Odaiba we passed the port of Yokohama before reaching Club 300, which took slightly more than an hour from the hotel.

As implied by its name, Club 300 is a very exclusive golf club, having only 300 members at any point in time. A new member will only be elected into the club upon the demise of an existing member. As such, on a weekday like that Tuesday, we were the only golfers who came to play at the club. RSGC is very fortunate indeed to have a reciprocal arrangement with Club 300 Tokyo and it was indeed an honour for us to be able to play at this exclusive course. We only had to pay a game fee ( which covers the caddie fee and taxes and the buggy) which came to about 13000 yen. It would have cost us a fortune if we had to pay the full fee to play at this course, I guess.

As we arrived earlier than our assigned tee-off time, and the weather looked threateningly cloudy, we were allowed to play our game immediately. After all the whole course was completely empty!

flowers in bloom......


caddies organised our bags to the respective buggies..

During the bus journey to the club the group came to a consensus that we play from the blue tee instead of the white tee as at the Biwako Club. Club 300 Tokyo has 2 Nines which measured 6875 yards from the blue (championship) tee.

peach blossom at the tee of hole No. 10....

As pakdokter was the Biwako Champion, pakdokter was given the honour to play in the Captain's flight with pakAli Dewal and pakMuthanna Abdullah. RSGC Captain, Mr Lee Tak Suan, was club champion for five times and despite his seniority still plays to a handicap of 15. PakAli Dewal and pakMuthanna were until recently playing to a handicap of 6 but currently play to handicaps of 14 and 9 respectively. Due to pakdokter's fine performance at the Biwako, pakdokter's handicap was brought down to 20........yeeeeaaa

Muthanna Abdullah, pakdokter, Captain Lee Tak Suan, Ali Dewal...

From our toss of golf balls, pakdokter partnered pakAli Dewal against pakMuthanna and Captain Lee. We agreed on a small bet, enough to quench our thirst after the game...

Captain Lee teeing off at hole No. 10....

The course in general is narrow, tight, hilly and undulating. As we played from the blue tee, every hole was very much longer than the Biwako Course. The par 3's measured between 180 yards to 200 yards. The longest par 5 measured 570 yards.

Muthanna at the 14th tee....

Pakdokter must have been affected by the company of good golfers that pakdokter's first tee-off went O.B. into the right jungle and scored a double par for that par 4 hole. The long and narrow course demanded consistent straight drives and pakdokter could not live up to it. Pakdokter finished the 1st Nine with a score of 57. It was left to pakAli Dewal to save our partnership and he returned a score of 47 against Muthanna's and Captain Lee's scores of 43 and 44 respectively. Obviously we lost out the 1st Nine to them.

ripe tangerines at the tee of hole No. 14..

Pakdokter tried to do better in the second Nine but only managed a slightly better score of 54. We were stalled for a while during the game by quite a heavy downpour of rain. Muthanna and Captain Lee returned scores of 49 and 48 respectively and although it was game over for us after 14 holes, pakAli managed to reduce our damage and loss by coming back strongly in the last few holes to help us take the 2nd Nine. PakAli scored 44 in the 2nd Nine.

a pretty wooded scenery of the course....

pakAli with his 2nd shot to the green...

After the game we all scrubbed ourselves clean in the Japanese bath and had a good soak in the steaming 42 degrees celcius pool. We had our lunch at the club's restaurant before returning back to our hotel in Odaiba. Our Sports Manager from RSGC Che Mokhtar Ibrahim, helped entertain us in the bus with his rendition of Elvis Presley's songs. Unfortunately pakdokter and pakAli were very tired and slept through the trip.

Muthanna, Ali Dewal, pakdokter and Captain Lee T S...

Madam Rogayah Merican and Dr Mahmood Merican....

Ms Mon Ae Sook and Ms Teoh Cheng Cheng...

Wong Nam Loong and Rodney Teoh....