The Streets of Ginza on New Years Eve 2011....

The streets of Ginza were very quiet and deserted on the eve of the New Year. All the shops closed early and would be closed on New Year's Day. As pakdokter had reported earlier, even most of the restaurants were closed.

Ginza happened to be just a short walk away from Shimbashi, where our hotel was. So we could just walked our way to our New Year's Eve dinner at our restaurant in Ginza.

Below were some shots along the streets of Ginza...

all the streets were quiet....

we were the only few on the streets at midnight.....

Ushering the New Year 2011 in Ginza...

Friday, 31st December 2010

Unlike KL, Tokyo was relatively quiet on the New Years Eve. Tokyo folks took advantage of the long weekend to go back to their 'kampongs' and the New Year was welcomed by offering prayers at the temples. In Tokyo, several New Year concerts were held which drew young crowds to see their pop stars perform. Apart from this there was no 'fireworks' display to usher in the New Year as in many other major cities of the world. In fact most of the restaurants were closed and pakdokter and family was lucky to find the 'Rigoletto Kitchen' located in Ginza, opened for business.

'Rigoletto Kitchen' served both Italian and Spanish dishes. As we had already helped ourselves to an Italian lunch at Shibuya earlier, we decided to go for the tapas selection. These Spanish small plates were delicious. And the bottle of Primaterra Sangiovese from Sicillia was pleasantly and surprisingly good!

outside Rigoletto Kitchen in Ginza....

we were all bundled up in winter gear....

on the circular steps to the basement restaurant....

Primaterra Sangiovese Sicillia....

first three plates of tapas....

fish carpaccio....

whole garlic cooked in butter...

squid cooked with spinach in its

own black squid ink....

sauteed mushroom....

a paella mariscos...

seafood nasi goreng Spanish style...

a pizza margarita..

boursssin cheeze with biscuit....

fruity pizza for dessert with ice cream...

and finally coffee to sober up...

Happy New Year and

Welcome 2011....

Bright but Cold Cold Day...

Friday, 31st December 2010

Pakdokter woke up relatively early because pakdokter and Rastam had to be at the Malaysian Embassy in Tokyo before 12 noon so that some of the legal papers pakdokter brought for Rastam to sign can be witnessed by the Counsel Officer at the Embassy. After a quick breakfast at the hotel, we hopped on to the JR train at Shimbashi Station towards Shibuya where the Embassy was located. The Japanese security guards and clerks were all polite and very clear in their explanations of what were required to execute the task. We did not have photocopies of Rastam's passport, alien worker card etc and we were directed to a nearby ''community store- something like the 7-Eleven - where photocopying service was available for a small fee

The Malaysian Embassy in Tokyo was an impressive huge building - unfortunately pakdokter did not snap any photographs of it for fear of being told not to for security reasons..... Anyway we managed to accomplish our task within 15 minutes. If only all the governement departments at home can look up to this model in Tokyo as their bench-mark in providing service to the public...

Tokyo was bright and sunny but cold........

the streets of Shibuya were teeming with shoppers....

By 11 am we walked back to Shibuya where pakdokter's partner and Raena were already going through the many shopping malls in one of the major shopping hubs of Tokyo. It was a bright and sunny but cold, cold day. Pakdokter and Rastam went to a few men's outlets before meeting up with the ladies for lunch at Trattoria de Pesce - an Italian seafood pasta shop

a starter of fish carpaccio...

pakdokter's happy family....

Rastam's pasta with dried udang kering...

pasta with cod fish...

pakdokter's pasta with tuna and mushroom..

Raena's pasta with salmon cream sauce...

A ''Sumo"' Meal for Dinner.....

Our hotel, The Super Hotel in Shimbashi, was only a 5-minute walk to the Shimbashi Station, which was on the Yamanote Circle Line. And as always, the area around such a major train station would have many department stores, malls and restaurants.

As pakdokter had said earlier, this winter is definitely much colder than the Tokyo winter we had experienced in the past. The wind was icy cold. So we decided not to venture out far and picked a little ízakaya''- a local pub - for our dinner. Apart from the many different types of tapas size dishes, this joint also offerred the 'sumo' meal. This huge serving of what looked like the 'steam-boat 'at home is normally eaten by one sumo wrestler but the four of us struggled to try and finish it after several rounds of little plates of pub grub.

grated lobak putih with tiny ikan bilis....

cold fresh tofu....

chicken rolled around cheese and wrapped with a local vegetable leaf..

rolls of fish wrapped with seaweed and batter...

fish(satay) on skewer with some salmon roe

and mushroom with fish fillings on satay sticks..

grilled minced chicken meat...

the meal below is a standard sumo meal...

it is very much like the steamboat in Malaysia..

lots of vegetable and mushrooms...

with chunks of chicken meat and crabs

to give the soup a very sweet flavour...

the four of us struggled to tuck in this helping

which one sumo wrestler may not find it enough...

lots of vegetables and mushrooms

with glass noodles and udon...

the segment of bamboo was filled up with

minced chicken which was dropped into

the soup as chicken balls...