Dec. 27, 2004 11:30pm
Walking all around town is was actually very interesting to see the different types of people going about doing their business. I went to Shibuya area today for the very first time. It`s a part of town that is more known to be frequented by the younger crowd. I didn`t get enough time to do much shopping but I am sure to go back there when I have more time.

For lunch I had some tsuke-men, which is the latest craze in Japanese ramen. It`s basically cold noodles (much thicker and tastier than the ones found in T.O.) served separately from the hot broth. I liked it quite a bit, however my brother is fonder of the more traditional ramen.

We met up with my brother`s coworker and his wife in the afternoon at Shibuya by the famous dog statue. We walked around, went to Andersen bakery which served some really, really good pastries and baked goods. Dinner led us to Jiyugaoka, which was actually quite bustling for a small place. We went to the famous restaurant that served one of the best black pig cutlets in the area. Black pig? These are in fact specially bred pigs that are actually all black in colour. Strange indeed. It apparantly makes the pork much tastier and so much more tender. It was in fact very good. The most tender pork I have ever tasted in my life. We got to talking to the chef about how we found this restaurant by watching a Japanese TV show back in Canada. He was very grateful for us coming to his place that he gave us a free bowl of ten-don, which also was very, very good.

We went to Sweets Forest in anticipation of some great sweets only to find that by the time we arrived there, only one of the dessert cafe was open. All in all it was a day filled with more eating. I wonder what I will be like in three weeks time if I keep this rate up.

I didn`t write this yesterday but I was actually very surprised at how much smaller many places and things looked like now. As I remembered it from long ago many of the malls and shopping plazas seemed soooo large to me since I was only a little kid when I used to visit those places. The walk to the bus stop near my aunt`s house takes all but a mere 30 seconds but I remember that being such a long and arduous walk! Walking down the hallways of the Nakano Broadway arcade, I remembered that as being such a large mall but now it seems quite small and less grand.

On another note, I woke up to some horrible news this morning about a tidal wave and earthquake combo that hit the Indonesian coastlines quite hard. It`s quite scary to hear that when some of the places that got hit hard were actually places that some of my friends had just visited just a few months ago. An earthquake of 9.0 magnitude is just unheard of and I can`t even imagine what kind of damage that would have caused. I only saw minimal clips of the aftermath and that alone was just daunting.

I`m off to bed now. Goodnight.