Fri & Sat = Standard Clubbing Procedures. Peace! Tsurutontan.

Photo credit: Mark Grotjahn

Friday: My friend K~ invited me to the opening reception party at Kaikai Kiki - Takashi Murakami's gallery in Moto Azabu for artist, Mark Grotjahn, is from LA. I took S~ with me, and it was so much fun! Our favorite pieces were in the series called "Captain America". Basically all the paintings were bold, primary colors - red, blue, and yellow geometric shapes and eyes lightly brushed over the central pattern. Really cool. We both had a headache from the work week/season change but what was ironic was that you'd think the painting would give us more of a headache with it's vivid and abstract design, but it had the reverse effect and cured us! PS Murakami was at the front of the gallery when we entered - He was so sweet, showed us the way - very nice man!

Afterwards, went home, ate dinner, took a nap - And went to Feria = MADNESS. S~ and some of the other boys got a table - At one point each guy was holding their own bottle of Goose/Belvedere. My friends are crazy. Was really glad I got to meet up with R~ as he was in town for a few days. R~ is my older brother's friend who I met before I moved to Japan. He introduced me to J~ who is so sweet and just moved here from NYC (works for Google). By coincidence, she may move into my apt building which would be so much fun! Also saw my new friend F~ a Kamehameha kid, so sweet.

Saturday: For most the day, as expected, I slept :) Also, my Android somehow stopped working the night before so I had to try to get it fixed at Docomo - Was REALLY proud of myself, managed to explain the problem, correspond completely in Japanese, understand what the lady was telling me and ~ VOILA!!! Phone fixed! Apparently the lady thinks the problem was with one of the applications I downloaded that may have messed up my phone cause once we deleted everything and rebooted my phone it was fixed! Phew.


Photo credit: 食べロッグ

That night, we went to PEACE, an outdoor restaurant a little outside of Tokyo in Futakotamagawa. Initially, S~ showed us this place after we watched hanabi in Futakotamagawa this past summer. Since it's getting colder by the day, we wanted to eat here since it's mostly outdoor seating.

Photo credit: 食べロッグ
The inside


Photo credit: 食べロッグ
Peace on a nice, sunny afternoon - Yes it's right on the river!!!


Photo credit: 食べロッグ
This is what it looked like when we dined there! Gorgeous and really romantic huh?!

I think this is our prosciutto plate next to the candle and menu!
The food was quite good as well and very reasonable (it's an Italian restaurant). We had bania cauda and prosciutto for appetizers. I had a mushroom cappucino-like foam pasta for my entree which was creamy but very light and tasty.

REALLY didn't want to go out after dinner, but the girls did and they ended up at my house... So they wore my clothes and we headed to Vanity. Surprise! It was an early, sober night for me. Was nice to just dance and be mellow :) We ended the night with Tsurutontan and the Team Juban walked home together.

Oh ya - I forgot to mention Tsurutontan is an udon place where they serve it in MASSIVE bowls!!! Haha so good though. I LOVE this pic of M~ too funny/cute!

S~ & N~ with N~'s tsukemen + tempura

Wednesday - Hump Day

I am in a burger club :)
S, N, J, A - started this last week when we went to Homeworks. This is a weekly club where we venture to a bunch of different burger joints, eat, talk, etc. - makes hump day a lot more fun :)
Tonight we went to The Authentic Burger in Akasaka. OMG soooo yummy!

While we waited for N~ we played some games they had there... This is like background Connect Four - except you just need to get three in a row.

BROCCOLI BURGER YUMYUMYUM

Soys Cafe for dessert :) My favorite soy soft cream!

Sanrenkyu=Three Day Weekend

My weekend really started on Thursday.

Thursday = Dinner with Famiri at Samrat. Love butter chicken and nan. Stuffed. Jumanji. Famiri out on a school night. Lex. Dance machines. Popping Moet. Thanks E~.
*******
Friday = Zonked. Died at work. Bowling with coworkers (aka Bowlktoberfest). I suck at bowling. Nap time. Woke up>>VANITY!!! So fun. Packed. Elevated platforms. Jager bombs - secretly poured in about 1/4 of the jager shot, dumped the rest on the plastic bar top hehe. Veuve for my promotion. Thanks S~. Stroll home with W&S. St. Moritz Bakery. Teriyaki kitchen sandwich=breakfast. Hello 7AM.
*******
Saturday = Day of rest! Caught up on GG, cleaned. Wanted to go out for a run but it started to pour on me... Opted to eat instead (see below) :)

Omuraisu at Windsor Cafe - so fluffy!

The rain subsided, I went for a stroll around Moto-Azabu and found this cute hedge decorated with lights, jack-o-lanterns and ghosts for Halloween!!! I love walking in the rain with my iPod - so therapeutic! Went home, relaxed and stayed IN.
*******
Sunday = More vegging out. 10/10/10 matsuri in Juban = a big disappointment. Juban means #10 in Japanese so my neighborhood had advertised this big festival. Went with M~ and we were walking around thinking "Okay where are all the food booths, games, etc. WHAT IS THIS?!" Publicity stint!!! Decided to go to Shimokitazawa - one of the many things to check off of our "Tokyo To-Do List".

Artwork in Shimokitazawa!

Stumbled upon Hanjiro - my favorite vintage store

SO BLURRY - but found this incredible vintage steal there! The left side is adorned with tons of chains hanging down.

Veggie restaurant in Shimokitazawa that we need to go to....

CHABUYA !!! Same company as the one in LA on Sawtelle! Apparently their ramen has won lots of awards - Must also go back here... ***Note, we had girls night later so we couldn't eat and I was STARVING the entire time...

Cool crossing - across the train tracks.

More artwork~

Cute yakitori restaurant I'd want to try - mmm smelled sooo good.

As I mentioned previously, I was starving - So I got a tea/milk flavored taiyaki. Was pretty good, would have been better with a coffee (it was SWEET)... After I finished I tell M~ "I'M STILL HUNGRY!!!"

Artist at work.

This shirt embodies Tokyo. KY is a typical Japanese slang that pretty much means no-class, rude, no manners. Thought this was hilarious.

Fancy Muji

After Shimokitazawa we had some time to spare before going to N~'s house for girls night!!! So we took PURIKURA!!! MY FAVORITE!!! So much fun :) Check out some of our poses - sooo Japanese hahah we copied what the models were doing in the pictures....

Girls night!!! Thanks for the curry N&N!!! So much fun. Watched London Namaste - a Bollywood chick flick. Didn't think I would like it but I actually loved it.

Ahem - went out again Sunday haha. This is taken before going home (yes we were out till sunrise AGAIN)... One hour of karaoke turned into three full hours of singing our hearts out - These two are rock stars!!! So much fun to go with people who can actually sing... W&K = Indo/Korean popstarssss... Memorable moments: Love the Way You Lie. I Believe I Can Fly. Dragon Ash. Miss Independent. Empire State of Mind. Maroon 5. OMG so much fun!!!!
*******
Monday = Halloween/M's present shopping.

N & her Corona glasses - perfection.

Barbacoa - My FAT SALAD. SO GOOD!!!

Happy Birthday M~ XOXO

最近。。。久しぶりブロッグ

Funny picture - Longest fry ever that I found at my favorite burger restaurant, Homeworks!

I'm making a more conscious effort to blog more... I also noticed that there is a large two month gap in my updates - I'll try to get to those as well! It's been a busy summer I guess!

As for this past weekend...
On Friday I was told I got a permanent position at my job!! Yipee~ I had been a contract employee thus far. So what this means is I'm guaranteed a position at the firm for however long I want! And hopefully that also means I get a raise :) It also means I won't go through any dreadful visa issues - I'll be reissued another visa in Japan for three years! Wow - that's a long time... Don't know if I'll stay THAT long...

The Akasaka Crew celebrating my promotion! It just so happened there was a little matsuri in Akasaka on Friday!

Friday night French dinner in Kagurazaka - Hello escargot.

On Saturday I went to the Mori Art Museum in Roppongi Hills. The view there is gorgeous!!! You can see all of Tokyo. Check out Tokyo Tower and the view of Minato-ku/Tokyo Bay below...



I found my apartment building too!!!


The actual exhibit was called Sensing Nature... This looks like a painting but it's a HUGE projector screen with a video of moving water...


One of the artist's was a Yoshioka too! :)


My favorite exhibit! This was a huge paper mache project extending out from the walls of the room... You had to duck to get to the other end (well..me not so much cause I'm petite)... But along the way there were all these random holes in the paper mache. When we stuck our heads through the holes it was a forest full of "snow!" I felt like a little rabbit or baby bear hibernating in the winter!


We also went to the rooftop of Mori Tower - where the helicopters land (Actually you can take a helicopter for about USD500 from Mori Tower to Narita Airport). Boy, was it spectacular and exhilarating to be that high!


Sunset and traffic... It's crazy how the buildings and lights are so compact and just go on forever and ever... I love staring at this - No city can compare... LA is not as compact, and the lights in NYC do not go on this far...

Saturday night the girls came over to my apartment for dinner - cheese/crackers, salad, pizza and cream puffs/grapes for dessert!!! It was sooo much fun!

Miz and Nana!

Sunday - Marie & I wandered around Aoyama - OMG in love!!! The best thing about Aoyama is that there are so many back streets/roads filled with cute cafes, restaurants, buildings, etc. I can't wait to go back. One of my favorite things to do in Tokyo is to aimlessly walk, wander and explore - the discreet, hidden hole in the wall places are the best!!!

In the middle of a sleepy residential/small cafe area we stumbled upon this beautiful modern shopping complex right behind a cathedral!



This building is so cool! It's actually a hair salon - I wanna try to get my hair done here just to go inside hehe. :)

Dance, Dance!

I have been extremely MIA with the blogging. So to start off, it only makes sense that I post MIA's Haters dance video *footage courtesy of Ben!*

I started taking class with my friend Ben. It's an amazing workout and a whole lot of fun!!! You can't really see me but I'm the blob in yellow who occasionally pops on the screen :)

Samurai Blue

Someone should have told me that the World Cup only happens once every four years... Oops. Now I finally get what the big deal is! Watched a disappointing game on Tuesday night in Roppongi - But wow it was a good one, and Japan sure put up a great fight!!! Really sad it's over since now that both the US and Japan are out I have no personal ties to any team (which means I won't be watching). I guess I'll have to look forward to 2014!!! Catch some of the madness below...

Pre-game @ Legends in Roppongi - The place was PACKED.









Miki: "It's too crowded, let's just hop through the window." So we did.

Konbini run: Ukon and zero calorie grapefruit chu-hais @ the break before PK...

The crowd

Also... If you watch the video - you see like this older Japanese guy behind us... He was super rowdy, kept cheering real loud - So we kind of made friends with him. When Miki & I went to get a drink we were casually like, "You need something?" (since it was jam packed and impossible to get service). He goes "ohh ohh hai hai get me bottle wine" shows me the wine bottle- gives me ichi-man yen (equiv to USD100) and goes "keep the change". So we bought another wine for our table as well plus a tip. :)