Tokyo may not have my favorite winter weather–I grew up in the desert, where our Christmas is sunny and 60F–but it does have my favorite winter food. The variety of hot soup, from miso to soba to ramen to oden, is enough to keep me fed through to March without getting bored. But better yet, the warm, comforting Japanese desserts come out. My very favorite, near and dear to my heart, and available in venues from traditional Japanese sweet shops to vending machines: oshiruko. Oshiruko is essentially sweetened red bean soup, usually with little mochi floating in it. It’s warm and just the right combo of sugar and fiber that I get an immediate energy pick-me-up without crashing thirty minutes later. It’s my default order when my friends and I go out to Japanese-style restaurants, and it’s my savior, as I’m not a coffee drinker, when I’m on vacation in the winter and walking to and fro and wearing myself down in the cold. Even if you’re iffy on red bean, give oshiruko a try. If you’re disappointed, well, more for me.

this is one of the best ramen place i have ever been to.

i think the soup is great and you can sit very comfortably!

it is in Tama Plaza ^^.

the soup is great!

this LITTLE tea holder is SUPER CUTE!

the size is small but very good to hold.

this is ONE GOOD noodle darn it!

this is UDON, but no ordinary UDON!

it is SUPER BIG and the soup base is western based.

very interesting !!!!! SOOOOO BIG !!!!!!!!! ><

nice pudding !!!!!!!

with the bear that i like !!!!

how cute !

i LOVE the cakes in japan, it is the most beautiful i have EVER seen!

the ones in HK and Taiwan also pretty, but talk about 量！ you cannot beat japan, just about everywhere you go the cakes are just YUMMY and SUPER ATTRACTIVE!!!!!!!!!!! ><

this is the cake that i bought, for someone special.

this is the earphone that i bought, i guess it still works. ^^

but since i received my new ipod so i do not have to use this again.

on SEPT 11

this is the BELATED small b-day cakes that i receive from a very kind person here. he got b-day cakes for EVERYBODY in this guesthouse … can you believe this??? how incredible ><

but i received this not because of our friendship, but because he is just a super kind person for everyone.

he tries to warm everybody’s heart while many people always got deserted, like me.

but i really really REALLY hope, next year, i will not be receiving NOTHING from my b-day, i think it is cruel.

and SUPER DEPRESSING!

this is one of the small cake.

this is the other one.

another angle.

on SEPT 12

but i guess GOD still have some blessings on me.

i received this at my door 2 days after my everybody-forget-birthday.

inside, it was the VERY VERY VERY thing i wanted this year …

でかいリラックマ ＞＜

LOVE this …

but even so, what does that mean?

to the person that gave me this, this 気持ち might only last till the end of this year, or till he find someone that he wants.

寂しい。

while it was still hot, there was an event that took place, it was called “Final Fantasy Show”.

i guess it is a paradise for all fans that LOVES final fantasy, no matter which series that got them started, FF is unique.

i thought it applied to a certain someone, too, so i invited him, but got turned down immediately … how harsh.

so i had to go there by myself.

the very first day, it was all full. well i arrived late so they said it was already full so i could not enter anymore. and there were already hundreds of ppl ahead of me.

then, the next day i went a little earlier, lucky i got in … sooooo tough. i guess because it is … free.

i did not go there because it is free, it is because i had soooo much interests in FF.

Final Fantasy 8, was the very first game that i played and got SUPER stunned by the graphics and love stories that was in it.

the background atmosphere, the music, stunned me!

and of course, the best part yet is, “the asian feel”, ちょうどいいsize, no more ONLY blue, green eyes or bulky ugly man, made me sick.

i love CHOCOBO and many many other CUTE LOVELY side characters.

FF8 was my きっかけ in US, i guess.

while i was in the States, wondering what else is there for me, in the US, realizing i had already reached the limits, … then my lovely brother introduced me to this game … and i played on PC, i only had 1 question myself,  “what the heck i was doing in the USA???”

while nothing there really was my taste, include the very person that stayed with me every single day.

食べ物のpackagingから、人間まで、全部。

残念ですね 。。。

Sometimes passing out tissues works!

Before work today one day, I saw a few women passing out tissue from a cooking school. I had always wanted to try cooking school and a free cooking lesson was the perfect way for me to give it a shot. After my trial lesson, I was hooked. So I decided to buy a six lesson cooking course plan. Unfortunately I only made it to four lessons, but I made some amazing meals.

You can see with your own eyes!

If you’re like me, it can be intimidating to walk into a building with a Chanel, a Comme des Garcons, and other luxury shops. The shop staff are better dressed than I am, and I know they know that I’m not going to buy anything. But the Gyre building, in the Harajuku/Omotesando area right next to Kiddyland, is worth a visit for window shopping. The building has a beautiful spiral of escalators and a wide glass ceiling that make it worth going to the top floor, plus a collection of design shops including the MoMA store that no one will give you the side-eye for just browsing through. The basement makes it feel as if you’re outside again, with a view to the skylight along with plants and long wooden benches, where visitors can eat pastries or other delicious treats they’ve bought from the bakeries there. There’s also a little supermarket with foreign groceries, including my precious chips and salsa, for us foreigners missing a taste of home. If you’re in the Harajuku area, try to steel yourself to walk past the Chanel and into the larger building, and enjoy this little design oasis.

Where I come from, I’m used to being able to find things out easily on the internet. If I want to know where all the grocery stores are, or the nearest bike shop, or where to get keys made, all I have to do is search. But Japan has lots of things that I like to call secret shops. For example, what looks like a narrow alley in my neighborhood transforms during certain hours of the day into a ragtag but wonderfully cheap produce store. I can’t figure out what their hours are, but if I manage to come by at the right time I can get a bunch of bananas bigger than my head for 200 yen, or a big stack of apples for the same, or plenty of other fruits and veggies that would be ten times that price at the regular, easy-to-find grocery. There’s also what looks like a house in my neighborhood, but with a strange front door made of frosted sliding glass… but the reason becomes clear in the evening, when the doors are open and a big ‘Ramen’ flag hangs over it in the evening. So in your neighborhood, or in any part of Tokyo that might otherwise seem a little sleepy, I recommend just wandering sometimes, popping down streets that might not seem to have anything interesting. You never know what you’ll find.