=j(oe) + (l)izz + travel
location: niseko terrain: resort town with fresh snow and high winds style: slowly, usually with our heels slipping out from under us resembles: location: rusutsu terrain: hotel lobbies and designated trails to the uploading lift style: upright resembles: location: otaru and sapporo terrain: flat & urban, fresh/packed snow, sub zero temperatures style: mostly small steps […]
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q. current home/addy where i stayed (neighbourhood) and how long a. tokyo (airbnb in shibuya/harajuku), seoul (airbnb in itaewon) q. favourite meal a. our build-your-own-lunch at the tongin market in seoul. for a mere 5000won (~$6 cad), you get 10 tokens and a bento box which you can fill at the numerous stands that line […]
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Didn’t realize how much pho I have until I was missing it badly after two weeks on the road. I guess I almost have it every week and it’s one of my go to cold rainy soup. I didn’t find any decent ones in China or Sapporo and had to wait until Tokyo to get […]
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our first meetup with friends from vancouver! prior to seeing kuni right before i left, we hadn’t seen each other in years. him and the family were in town for a week but thanks to their luggage not making it onto their flight, we didn’t get a chance to meet up until the day before […]
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the last ramen store we tried was a break from the norm. kikanbo’s calling card is spicy ramen and their bowls have been so popular that they opened up a second shop two doors down solely to specialize in each of the storefronts. one shop only handles soup noodles and their original shop was converted […]
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the last area we explored in tokyo was shimokitazawa aka the hipster factory. i suppose they’re all over the world but the concentration was definitely higher here although more in the mid to late 20 year old range. we both really liked the vibe in shimokitazawa; very chill, friendly and genuine. most of the stores […]
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west of the tokyo core and away from the fast paced lifestyle of shibuya and shinjuku are koenji and kichijoji; neighbourhoods connected to shinjuku via the odakyu line. our original plan was to visit both in conjunction with visiting studio ghibli in kichijoji* however that didn’t quite work out. *so four years ago we spent […]
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while compiling our eat list for tokyo i came across countless blogs that rambled off their top 3, 5 & 10 shops for ramen. some places specialize in a very small number of styles but the majority have at least shio, shoyu and miso to choose from; each being quite different from each other. i […]
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afuri ramen is another popular chain in tokyo and has been on our hit list thanks to a visit to the harajuku branch four years ago. i’d say that their callings are: -their broth is chicken based so it’s noticeably lighter -the chasiu is grilled fresh as your bowl is prepared -their signature broths are […]
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7 weeks into our trip and we had yet to eat a single piece of western fast food. this might be the longest stretch that i’ve been able to avoid the evil grips of mcdonald’s (maybe the #1 reason why i don’t miss on-site IT work) however in that process we’ve managed to steer clear […]
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ippudo was a recommendation from our tokyo sensei, pablo. he’s the master of all things tokyo and after he gave our group a hands on tour four years ago, if he suggests to eat/walk/jump, we do it. we were coming back from mt takao and it was close to 8pm on a sunday night. that […]
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q. current home/addy where i stayed (neighbourhood) and how long a. tokyo (air bnb in shibuya) for the last week q. favourite meal a. oh man… toss up. it’s either gyokotsu matador’s shoyu beef ramen or afuri’s yuzu tsukemen. i ate them both in that order and from the first bite, i felt like the […]
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we went to our first cat cafe back in sapporo so why not owls right? i don’t know what possessed us to climb the stairs to this cafe but once we got there, curiousity got the better of us and we committed to a half hour visit. we paid our 2000 yen and walked into […]
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Last Sunday, we headed out to Mount Takao to check out the fire walking festival (Hiwatari-sai). We got there just in time to catch the procession of yamabushi monks walking towards the festival grounds. We quickly follow the procession, making sure to follow the locals who seem to know where they are going. We arrive […]
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after trying tokachi ippin’s butadon in sapporo, we had to see how tokyo’s version compared to it. it’s just a bit outside of the core stations of tokyo in ochanomizu. even though we had the address we were walking up and down the street of restaurants for 10 minutes because it has no signage up […]
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our second day in tokyo was a lazy day after all the walking around we did. we woke up late and ate breakfast at home thanks to our (drum roll)… TWO burner stove. yeah we did. seeing as how we skipped both the asahi and sapporo breweries in hokkaido i felt it was only right […]
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Woke up this morning to a cold and rainy day, so we decided to stay in and get caught up with blog posts. Well, Jojo did all the posts while I caught up on Answer Me 1988 episodes. 😛 Hunger eventually forced us to look into dinner options. We found a Chinese restaurant close by […]
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for our first full day in tokyo we decided to check out the pixar exhibit at museum of contemporary art. it was on the east side of the city in koto and it took us about and hour to get there via walking and the metro line. as you come out of the kiyosumi-shirakawa station, […]
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