Tokyo

Afternoon Tea at Mariage Freres (Ginza)

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You know you’re a tea geek when you spend your weekend (that is, time not at work) hanging out with your boss and your boss’ cousin for afternoon tea. A few weekends ago, actually the weekend after I got back from Turkey, I went to afternoon tea with my boss (my manager at work) and his visiting cousin from New York. My manager, like me, is a huge foodie. And his cousin is a huge tea lover. And by huge, I mean massive. Ah, a kindred spirit. She puts me to shame. I love the whole experience of “Afternoon Tea” – the food, the tea and the ambience. She, however, was a tea expert and Anglophile (lover of all things British). It did not escape my observant spectacled eyes that she was even wearing tea earrings – on one ear was a teacup and the other ear was a teapot! She was visiting Tokyo and during her two-week stay had partaken in at least four afternoon teas. Impressive. So we tried out a different non-hotel tea venue. They call it a Tea Emporium (Tea salon and restaurant). We went to the Mariage Freres in Ginza on Saturday at around lunchtime-ish. Mariage Freres, if it wasn’t obvious, is a French tea brand, founded by brothers Henri and Edouard Mariage – hence Mariage Freres (The Mariage Brothers). They boast a tea menu of about 500 blends. Impressive. Or so their menu would have you believe. It seemed that each tea we tried to order, they were out of stock. Hmmm, perhaps they list 500 teas but maybe they only have about a dozen in stock. I have mixed feelings about this place. Their tea store is impressive, as is their tea selection (all 500 of them). Food was a little hit and miss. But their service was, how shall I say, perhaps very French (and excuse the stereotype) – they lived up to their rude, arrogant service. Or maybe we were just unlucky. We weren’t able to make reservations here. Apparently, bookings are only available for lunch and not if you’re just having afternoon tea. There are four 4 different dining levels here. And the place was pretty full with ladies who lunch. We were seated on the second level dining area. Tea menu was impressive. 500 teas to choose from. Dilemma. Thankfully, the tea menu was nicely categorized according to tea varieties, and also number coded. They also had a tea book (almost like a tea manual which gave an explanation of all the teas). I will go back at some point to buy that book. Yes, it was for sale. It detailed tea history, tea brewing method, plus a blurb about all the 500 teas on offer at Mariage Freres. For afternoon tea, there are a few options available. It’s not the traditional afternoon tea either. It’s more like a little lunch plate. I recommend actually eating lunch before you come here, and then have the afternoon tea here a little later, because you may not leave here feeling full. I opted for the croque monsieur set – which came obviously with the croque monsieur and a salad. It of course included your choice of tea (except the more expensive specialty blends) and your choice of dessert. So no three-tiered platters here. The all-white tuxedo uniforms that the staff wore did nothing for me, except feel as though I was on the Titanic. I like a man in uniform, but these were just tacky, especially for a tea store. I also noticed that ALL the staff that worked there were male. Not that I have a problem with that. They were obviously aiming to please all it’s predominantly female customers. I didn’t spot a single female employee throughout the Tea Emporium. As usual, I got out the SLR to capture and document the afternoon tea. However, no photos are allowed here! Was told off by the staff! I did manage to get a couple of photos in before they saw me and told me off.

From Mariage Freres
From Mariage Freres
From Mariage Freres

I then had to put my camera away for the remainder of the meal. With over 500 teas to choose from, I asked what their ‘ninki’ (most popular, number 1) tea was. Here, it’s the Marco Polo – described as Mariage Freres most famous secret mysterious blend with the aroma of Chinese and Tibetan flowers. The aroma of the tea was very vanilla-esque. It was ok. Not my favourite tea. An impressive selection of tea though, so there’s bound to be one to suit your tastebuds – teas from all regions over the world. The staff are a bit picky when it comes to tea service here. And again, maybe it boils down to a bit of arrogance and the French art of tea, but here the teas are especially timed and brewed by their own tea masters, and all you receive is the pot with the brewed tea – free of the leaves. They are very pedantic about their tea brewing methods. Personally, I like receiving pots with the tea leaves in it. This allows the paying customer (us) to enjoy tea brewed at the strength that we desire. Here, you don’t have a choice. Their strength-brewed tea only. It does dispense with the need for a tea strainer…but I quite like tea strainers. Receiving teapots without the tea leaves in it, means no hot water refill either. You’ll need to order yourself another pot of tea which will set you back about 1000yen. I also think Mariage Freres are tea purists – they don’t give you milk….unless you specifically request it. I can understand that to enjoy and savour the subtle flavours of tea, you shouldn’t add milk, but milk in my tea is a huge comfort thing for me, except obviously herbal blends, green teas, jasmine and Chinese and Japanese teas and the like. What amused me here were the tea warmers for the teapots. The teapots were covered in little armour outfits – a metal tea cozy!

From Mariage Freres

I enjoyed the croque monsiuer – can’t go wrong there. The tiny salad was rather lame and not so tasty. The other lunch plate options were the mixed sandwiches, and something else…I can’t remember. If the afternoon tea plates are too light, there are lunch courses on offer. For dessert we got to choose a selection from the menu or the cake display. On offer are scones, creme brulee, macaroons, and a small assortment of cakes and tarts etc. Normally, I go scones, but on this occasion I opted for the earl grey creme brulee. I hadn’t been too impressed by afternoon tea at Mariage Freres, but it was redeemed somewhat by the creme brulee. I managed to sneak in a couple of pics on my iPhone:

From Mariage Freres
From Mariage Freres
From Mariage Freres

I thought the food was somewhat overpriced for what it was. It’s about 3000yen. I guess, it’s not so bad, considering the tea itself is worth 1000yen for a pot. But for 3000yen I expect to be somewhat full. And sadly, I wasn’t. And the service was really lacking. We then went down to the tea store on ground level. They have beautiful displays of teapots and teacups. (Apologies for poor photo quality. I was trying to discreetly take them on my iPhone).

From Mariage Freres
From Mariage Freres
From Mariage Freres
From Mariage Freres
From Mariage Freres
From Mariage Freres

Being as it were, in Japan, there was a woman in a kimono:

From Mariage Freres

What I also loved about the tea store are the wall-to-wall shelves lined with oversized tea canisters! I love tea stores that do that.

From Mariage Freres
From Mariage Freres
From Mariage Freres

Mari had wanted to buy some tea here, but alas, service was non-existent despite us waiting for about 20 minutes. The staff here are really hoighty-toighty which makes for a really unpleasant experience. Quite the turn-off. They instead bought tea at one of the department stores at another Mariage Frere store outlet. As I mentioned earlier, there are about 4 dining levels here. The venue is narrow but it’s built over four floors: In the basement is the:

From Mariage Freres

(Which I should add, is not a museum at all). On the ground level is the tea store. On the next level:

From Mariage Freres

And then there’s the following two rooms:

From Mariage Freres

Some of their cuisine is made with tea as an ingredient (eg, the earl grey creme brulee). In addition to being a tea venue, they offer French dining.

From Mariage Freres
From Mariage Freres

You might want to take a French cuisine glossary just to read the menu. I took a lot of photos of outside the store where they couldn’t tell me off for taking photos!

From Mariage Freres
From Mariage Freres
From Mariage Freres
From Mariage Freres
From Mariage Freres

Mariage Freres (Ginza) gets a decent rating on Tabelog. As for the no photo rule – no photos my arse. There’s a whole stack of photos on Tabelog. 255 photos from Tabelog reviewers alone have been posted on that site. And I reckon there’d be a handful of Japanese bloggers who have all taken photos on their keitai. We were unlucky to have been seated right in front of all the staff. Had we been seated away from them, I reckon I could have gotten away with a lot more photos. There’s another Mariage Freres tea salon in Shinjuku. I’m game enough to go and try that one despite the rather disappointing experience in Ginza. I’m prepared to give them a second chance. But it might have to wait until next year. Mariage Freres website in Japan.

Rejection…

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sucks.

I (or rather my entry into the 2012 Tokyo Marathon) have been officially rejected by the Tokyo Marathon committee. I missed out on the lottery. Only 35,000 runners allowed, and they had over 284,000 wanna-be participants. I will not be one of them. Boo. Got the official rejection email today. There is an ever slight possibility that I could get a spot on the second round of offers released in November….but I don’t like my chances.

Need a new goal for 2012. Any suggestions? Maybe a sprint Olympic triathlon (would be my first triathlon) or perhaps a marathon in a different city around the world, or even train for a Sydney marathon

Brasserie Le Musee a la Crème brûlée

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So whilst at the NACT yesterday, we had a late lunch at the Paul Bocuse French Brasserie. Talk about elevated dining – literally. The restaurant sits on the third floor of the Art Gallery atop of an inverted concrete cone. And it’s built as a circular restaurant for double awesomeness.

From NACT
From NACT
From NACT

I’m all about novelty, so I was excited to eat there upon a couple of recommendations from some fellow foodies. There’s apparently always a line to get in. And yesterday was no exception. And they don’t take reservations for lunch. Here is everyone lining up taking a seat to get in:

From Brasserie Le Musee
From Brasserie Le Musee
From Brasserie Le Musee

Whilst waiting, I naturally snapped more photos. The line moved quickly enough. Only about a 20 minute wait or so. Enough time to check out the menu and decide what to get.

From Brasserie Le Musee

The restaurant is so cool. And very popular.

From Brasserie Le Musee
From Brasserie Le Musee
From Brasserie Le Musee

We were at last seated for a late 2pm lunch (Lunch is available 11am to 4pm). After seeing the exhibition and taking lots of photos, I had worked up an appetite. Me thinks being hungry is a hobby.

From Brasserie Le Musee
From Brasserie Le Musee

Now, you’d think to eat here would be expensive and fancy and all, but it’s totally not. It’s casual french dining and very accessible. There are two lunch courses on offer. The 2000yen set and the 3200yen. The one and only difference between the two is that the 3200yen course comes with soup. Hard to justify an extra 1200yen for soup, so I was content to order the 2000yen course, and spend a little extra for wine! The lunch course consisted of Rillette, main dish (fish or meat dish), choice of dessert, and tea/coffee/orange juice (choose one). So first up, the Rillette (which is like a pâté) served with bread, and also olive oil. Also a small glass of sparkling wine.

From Brasserie Le Musee
From Brasserie Le Musee

For the main lunch dish: choice of fish or beef. I went the beef. It came out looking like this:

From Brasserie Le Musee

Covered in a sheet of pasta.

From Brasserie Le Musee

But underneath it was some very tender beef.

From Brasserie Le Musee

Probably not the most flattering pictures of that dish. The beef was beautifully cooked. I love it when the meat just falls off. Tami ordered the fish (seabream). I thought this was well plated. There are tiny discs made of potatoes which have been arranged on top of the fish made to look the scales, but really they were potatoes!

From Brasserie Le Musee

For dessert, there was a choice from five offerings. Tami had come here just for the creme brulee. She raves about it. Apparently it’s one of their famous signature desserts. But it wasn’t on the menu. She asked the waiter whether the creme brulee was available and the waiter revealed that it was, even though it’s not offered on either lunch courses. I think the creme brulee is a bit of secret. I considered ordering a dessert off the menu – there were after all, five different options on offer. And for me, creme brulee would not be my favourite dessert. I mean they’re alright, they’re nice and all but meh, creme brulee. I mean it’s translated as ‘burnt cream’. Give me a chocolate gateau cake anytime. Anyway, I did order the creme brulee and oh my god, it was the best creme brulee EVER. It put all other creme brulees to shame. I didn’t know how good a creme brulee could taste until that moment. I was completely blown away. It’s just a creme brulee, right. But no, the creme brulee here is divine. First of all, it came out in a large shallow dish.

From Brasserie Le Musee
From Brasserie Le Musee

My first thought, was ugh, too much. Too much sugar. It’s just going to be sickly sweet. But no, deceptively it wasn’t overly sweet. It was sweet, but only delicately so. The custard underneath was divine. And again only a very shallow base of custard. It was so perfect and full of vanilla beans that you could see. Wow. It tasted so amazing, unlike any other creme brulee. In fact, you’ve not tasted creme brulee until you’ve eaten one of these.

From Brasserie Le Musee

Really, it was most surprising to ME that I would be converted to being such a fan. I was very skeptical that such a dessert could win me over. Wow. And then onto the cup of tea (or coffee or orange juice – your choice) to savour and linger over that creme brulee.

From Brasserie Le Musee
From Brasserie Le Musee

And then some more photos inside or rather ‘around’ the restaurant.

From Brasserie Le Musee
From Brasserie Le Musee
From Brasserie Le Musee
From Brasserie Le Musee
From Brasserie Le Musee

Such a striking atmosphere and wonderful place to eat. They call it an ‘Artistic Dining Experience’. They’re open for dinner as well. And surprisingly very reasonable and good food too. Restaurant details here.

Sky views: Mori Tower

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Because the Sky Aquarium was on level 52 of the Mori Tower and because the ticket included entry to the Mori Tower observatory/sky view – what better opportunity to go check out the view. Normally, it costs 1500yen alone just to go up there! Great views to be had from level 52. If you time it to go in the late afternoon, you get the daytime view and then watch it get dark so you see the night light view as well. The sky was clear on Monday night so we got decent views.

From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View

Tokyo is such a metropolis. So dense. So many buildings. So big. So wide.

From Mori Sky View

The space up at the top of the Mori Tower is spacious and wide, but plenty of people around, especially on a public holiday.

From Mori Sky View

There was also a small clownfish fish tank – I think this was just a temporary installment for the Sky Aquarium.

From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View

Flying Fish:

From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View

Uninterrupted views of Tokyo Tower (modeled on the Eiffel Tower).

From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View

Slowly got darker. It was fun to see all the lights being gradually switched on…

From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View

Got a good arial view of the National Art Centre:

From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View

And then we got the night light view:

From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View

There’s a cafe/bar up there that sells a great selection of teas, and gelato! Highly recommend the gelato! 2 scoops for 500yen! The hazelnut gelato was delightful!

From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View

Sit and enjoy whilst soaking up the view.

From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View

Night views of Tokyo Tower. It really stands out of a night time when it’s all lit up. I heard that they’re tearing this down in a few years…

From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View

It’s hard to take photos of lights at night off of reflecting glass. I tried to do a reflection thing with the tower and the glass window with a random couple. It kinda turned out not too bad. The couple were actually really good models for this shot.

From Mori Sky View
From Mori Sky View

This week has actually been a short week, dubbed a mini ‘Silver week”. Monday was a public holiday, as will be tomorrow (Friday). So only three days of work this week. I can live with that. Two back-to-back long weekends – yay, marked with a typhoon in the middle. Will be going away tomorrow for the long weekend, pending any disruptions/national disasters.

Sky Aquarium

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I recently went to the Art Aquarium in Nihonbashi, but yesterday (a public holiday) I went and checked out the Sky Aquarium which comes to town every summer (or at least it has done so over the last few years anyway). The Sky Aquarium is put on by the same guy as the other exhibition. It’s more a proper aquarium rather than an art exhibit. The Sky Aquarium is on level 52 of the Mori Tower building at Roppongi Hills. I liked the Art Aquarium better, but this was still really cool to see, and a great way to spend a hot humid afternoon. The first part of the exhibit was the Aquarium Theatre which was a large fish tank with changing slide projections and lights – a landscape of the four seasons. Spring:

From Sky Aquarium

Autumn:

From Sky Aquarium

Winter:

From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium

And then there was a series of various fish tanks will all sorts of fish.

From Sky Aquarium

This was some crazy sea slug:

From Sky Aquarium

Some cool fish effects on my camera – which were accidental. I couldn’t get the right settings on my SLR…but they turned out cool anyway.

From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium

These were some teeny tiny fishlets:

From Sky Aquarium

More fish in tanks. Don’t disturb. They’re in school!

From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium

Fish close-up. Nose dive!

From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium

The third part of the aquarium was the Oasis Planet which was the jellyfish area.

From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium

There were four cylinder open tanks with jellyfish. I was surprised they didn’t have lids on them. You could totally put your hand in them!

From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium

Jellyfish galore! Don’t get too close. They’re such spineless creatures!

From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium

These were some polka-dot jellyfish:

From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium

The centrepiece was a giant glass globe with fish inside.

From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium

The whole perimeter of the room was also outfitted with a shallow open fishtank.

From Sky Aquarium

This tank housed oopa loopas. I have no idea what these are. They’re a cross between a fish, a frog and a lizard. These were just bizarre. The first time I had ever seen them. I have no idea what they are called in English – but in Japanese they are ‘oopa loopa’.

From Sky Aquarium
From Sky Aquarium

I did an image search for them in Japanese, so you can get more of an idea of what they look like here. They’re a bit creepy. The Sky Aquarium is on until September 25th – open day and night. Entry is excellent value! 2000yen gives you access to the Sky Aquarium AND the Sky view observatory of the Mori Tower AND entry into the Mori Art Museum (MAM). Got to see a really great exhibition on there, after doing the aquarium. It was super impressive – all about architecture and the ‘Metabolism’ movement. It was superbly translated as well. It’s on until next year and worth checking out. So futuristic and creative, especially for a 60s movement.

Onjuku OWS – not a race report

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I thought that by the end of today, I was gonna be able to post up another ows race report. But you, like me, are SOL today. Instead of a race report you get a whinge session. Try to contain your excitement, please.

I am totally bummed out right now and have no one to whinge to, so this blog bears the brunt of it today. I don’t like to vent too much on this blog, but today I’m gonna make an exception. It’s a long weekend here in Japan, because Monday is a public holiday. I made plans not to do anything this weekend, because I was going to compete in an open water swim race today. I was almost going to enter in two races – one on Saturday and one on Sunday. But the one on Sunday was going to cost me 100buks just in entry fee alone, so I opted just for the Saturday one. Today I was supposed to do a race at Onjuku beach. 3.84km. I had been really looking forward to it. I haven’t done a race since back in July, so was keen to race, and was also keen to do another open water session before Turkey.

Last night (Friday), at around 7:30pm I got an email from today’s race organizers saying that they had cancelled the event! The reason – “bad water conditions”. Yeah, it was raining a little last night…but not so heavy as to cancel the event. They should have made that decision in the morning! It’s been 30 degrees all week, and I pretty much knew that the weekend would be fine. It’s been nothing but hot all summer. It’s an open water swim race – let’s face it, we’re going to get wet anyway…so even in light rain, the event should go ahead. A few raindrops aren’t going to harm any swimmers. We’re used to getting wet and cold and being in rough water. So they made the decision last night to cancel the event. I was so bummed. It was way too early to make such a call. It had better pour torrential rain all day on the Saturday, I thought to myself. “Bad water conditions” – what did that mean exactly….that’s not the same as bad weather conditions. Are they talking about polluted, contaminated water, or just high waves. How could they have known the water conditions for today, last night to make such a call.

And it comes as no surprise to me that, of course, today is not wet or raining at all. No impending typhoon or tsunami, so the race could totally have been on. It’s actually ideal weather conditions for a swim race. In fact, the temp range for today over in Chiba prefecture is 26-31 degrees. Right now, at just after 11am it’s 31 degrees, with a very, small chance of rain, although today will be both sunny and cloudy. I’m sitting at home with the ac on, very much wishing that I was out swimming in a race today. So, yeah, to say I’m disappointed would be an understatement! Especially, it being a long weekend, and I forwent other plans so I could stick around to compete in this race, on this now glorious, sunny hot day! Am also disappointed because I had done a lot of preparation for this race. I had my swim bag already packed on the Friday. Look, I had even frozen 5 drink bottles (water and sports drink) so they could withstand the heat and stay cooler, longer. I would probably drink a litre of it before the race, and than another couple of litres afterwards. Just shy of 4km, I was gonna need all this!

From Random Saturday

In amongst those drinks, I even purchased a sports drink during the week called ‘Thorpedo’ – presumably named after Ian Thorpe? It’s made by Yakult though…the company that makes that bacterial cultured yoghurt…so I’m not sure how it would taste. It’s low GI though and says that it’s diet sports water. I thought it was hilarious and had secretly hoped it would make me swim like Thorpedo. Now it will have to be consumed in vain.

From Random Saturday

The course map of the race I did not swim (I would have been swimming the long 3.84km red course – a full return length of the whole beach bay area): Not to mention the training. I didn’t actually train a lot this week per se as I was easing back a little, but the prior week, I had been training for this swim. Oh, and the fact that I had paid over 7000yen to enter the race, which they have now just pocketed! No refund, and no offer of a free entry for next year’s race. So bye-bye 7000yen – that would have been enough for two high teas! So, yeah, I’m bummed. The ocean is free…so I’m not sure where or whom that money is going to…. They are however giving us a free t-shirt which they will post out to us for those that want one. Yay, a t-shirt proclaiming a race, that we didn’t even swim in! I use all these race t-shirts as pillow covers anyway. Considering that the weather today is awesome, and dare I say, even a little too hot for comfort, I would much rather be swimming and competing in the actual race that I paid for! On the otherhand, it does mean I have the whole day free to do absolutely nothing! Hence the time to write this whinge session. Looking on the bright side, I now have the whole long weekend to do whatever I want. Mostly bumming around home me thinks. Have a lot of preparation I need to do for Turkey, a bit of housecleaning, I’ll swim at the pool instead…and no doubt, I will find something else exciting and impromptu to do over the next few days off. I’m also looking to buy an underwater (waterproof) digital camera so might do window shopping. I am having trouble deciding which camera to buy. Any recommendations, let me know. A picture of a bag I saw in a store once. I loved the slogan on it!

From Random Saturday

Art Aquarium Part II

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I always knew there was something fishy about aquariums. Suspicions confirmed. Here are some more photos of more fish from the super cool Art Aquarium Exhibition. These pics were taken on my pocket digital camera, after the SLR camera battery died. I love this pic! “Watcha looking at?”

From Goldfish Art

The lighting was pretty spectacular, as were the showcase diamond fish tanks:

From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art

The giant fishbowl was perhaps a little too crowded for all the goldfish. Talk about too many sardines in a can.

From Goldfish Art

Pretty spectacular stuff.

From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art

Definitely need some chips to go with all this fish!

From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art

The third part of the gallery was some more interesting aquariums and light features. There was a kaleidoscope aquarium. You could look through these prisms and watch the fish swim by.

From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art

Now, these look like ordinary lamps, right. They were actually lamp fish tanks and there were fish swimming inside them!

From Goldfish Art

This was a lamp aquarium…except I didn’t capture any fish in it.

From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art

The whole point of the Goldfish Art was to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Bridge in Nihonbashi (where the exhibit was on at). Nihonbashi is an area of Tokyo famous for its bridge. Apparently, goldfish have played an important part in Japanese history and culture since the Edo period, as depicted in various artworks through history. The exhibition was dubbed the “Kingyo’s Coolness” (Kingyo is Japanese for ‘goldfish’). Here were some Edo-style paintings which were displayed showing how golfish have appeared in Japanese art.

From Goldfish Art

The last part of the exhibition, was also another highlight. They had a Japanese folding glass screen – but inside it were more goldfish swimming around. It was a fish tank folding screen. Again the lights changed colours and they had some cool silhouette projector screen happening, so the images on the screen would keep changing as the goldfish swam about. Really, really clever. The artist had a great vision with this exhibit.

From Goldfish Art

Up close, it was a fish tank!

From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art

Over the next couple of photos, you can see the background silhouette change…

From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art

Took a nice side angle shot.

From Goldfish Art

Was a really great exhibition to see to celebrate 100years of Nihonbashi.

From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art
From Goldfish Art

The Art Aquarium has sadly finished. It only ran for a few weeks. It was at the Mitsui Hall on Level 4 of the Coredo Building in Nihonbashi, opposite the Mitsukoshi department store. Opposite this building:

From Aquarium Art

The artist behind this exhibition is Hidetomo Kimura. He has several exhibitions which are ‘Aqua’ themed and based around goldfish. He specialises in Art Aquarium. There is also currently another exhibition on in Tokyo called “Sky Aquarium” – an aquarium that has been temporarily installed on level 52 of the Mori Hills Tower – it’s on until Sep 25. It has come to town every summer over the last four years. I’ll probably go check that one out at some point in the next couple of weeks. You can check out info about the artist and his exhibition info in English here.

Aquarium Art: Part I (as seen through the SLR camera)

memoirsofaleisha1 Comment

Last night I caught up with Jeff. I had invited him to come see this really cool art installation/exhibition thing that I had wanted to check out. Today is the last day of the exhibition, so I had wanted to go see it over the weekend before it ended. Ahh, yes, art is fleeting. We met up last night in Nihonbashi where the exhibit was on at. The exhibition was so darn cool. Way cool. I’ll be blogging about it over three posts – taken over three different cameras. I took way too many photos! Today’s Part I are photos taken on the SLR. About a third of the way into the night, my battery died on the SLR. I hadn’t recharged it, so I had to use my iPhone camera and the pocket digital camera for the remainder of the night. So we finally arrived at the Coredo building in Nihonbashi at around 8.30pm-ish. The Coredo building:

From Aquarium Art

The building houses some really nice restaurants. It’s got some great design features in this building. Here were some of the walls and stuff.

From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art

Super cool and stylish. So the exhibition I had wanted to check out was a thing called “Art Aquarium” which featured around goldfish. Lots and lots of goldfish. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. It was part goldfish aquarium, part art gallery, part nightclub, and part lounge/bar. If you go at night time – they turn it into a lounge/bar where you can drink beer and sparkling wine as you peruse the “exhibit”. I was not expecting a live DJ, strobe lights and thumping music – but there they were. But it was so super cool! We saw fish tanks of goldfish.

From Aquarium Art

It was dark inside except for some strobe lighting, and the lights within the fish tanks. The lights changed all the time throughout the whole exhibit, so you’d get all different colours reflecting from the fish.

From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art

Taking good camera shots was somewhat challenging. You had to work with the glass tanks, the water, the moving fish and the changing lighting conditions – all in the dark!

From Aquarium Art

The exhibition centered purely around different species of goldfish…some of which are cross-bred to produce some fishy-looking goldfish. I found myself having to wait it out by each tank to wait for the lighting to change. Managed to capture a couple of good ones though.

From Aquarium Art

This was a freaky looking fish with a red bulge attached to the head. I don’t know much about fish…except for the fact that they taste good beer-battered with chips! Sorry Nemo!

From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art

Lots of fish!

From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art

This was a bizarre-looking goldfish with some beady eyes!

From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art

Same fish, but different lighting. The lights would change every few seconds.

From Aquarium Art

Another fish under changing lights:

From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art

The first part of the exhibition was a series of small fish tanks built into and protruding from a wall.

From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art

The Art Aquarium got even cooler as we made our way into the second part of the gallery. This was my favourite part and we spent sooo much time in here. It was like snapshot central in here. Everyone had cameras of all shapes and sizes. We were like goldfish paparrazzi. I kid you not! It opened out into a bar area with a live DJ, and giant diamond-shaped fish tanks!

From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art

So cool. I love water and fish and aquariums. This was just so much fun! It was really mesmerizing. And the music was pumping too. Such a cool vibe.

From Aquarium Art

Everyone was going nuts with cameras! Jeff managed to capture a photo of a dude who was taking photos with his iPad. Hilarious! Taking photos on an iPad has got to be cumbersome. I always wondered if iPad owners ever actually used the camera feature on it!

From Aquarium Art

And the lights kept changing colours!

From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art

There was a glass mirror panel, so I took a photo of the reflection:

From Aquarium Art

It had a real bar vibe, with drinks being served and people just chilling out listening to the music and watching the fish do their thing.

From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art

I loved the shape of the fish tanks, as if they were also real massive diamonds being showcased! There were two diamond fishtanks – one housed small goldfish and the other had bigger goldfish.

From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art

I like this next shot of a girl gazing at the goldfish:

From Aquarium Art

The whole atmosphere was super cool!

From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art

And then my favourite and the main showpiece was a giant fish bowl water fountain feature.

From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art
From Aquarium Art

I’m going to end it there for today. My SLR camera battery died at this point, and we were only halfway through the exhibit. I’ll continue on with the next installment taken on my other cameras later on in the week. Art Aquarium – super cool! A most excellent way to spend a Sunday night. I’ll post more info about it later on in the week. Entry: 1000yen. Totally worth it! Today (Monday Sep 12) is the last day it’s on. Get ye on down to Nihonbashi! It’s open until 11pm tonight.

September 5km run race

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I started off today with a pathetic 5km run race – one that I’d rather forget. —- Last weekend, I bought new running shoes at a shopping outlet. Super bargain! A pair of Adidas (SuperNova Glide 3W – a wide lightweight running shoe). They are super light. And were really cheap. They were reduced! My current, old pair were also Adidas. I’ve had them for over 5 years, so I guess, I was in need of a new pair – way overdue. If I get accepted into the Tokyo Marathon, I’ll splurge on another pair and get a proper fitting consultation.

From 5km run
From 5km run

Super white and clean. They practically glow in the dark!

From 5km run

I have small feet. I also wear orthotics so I needed a pair of shoes that fit them. My feet are also quite wide. Yesterday, I had to go to and pre-register for the race – pick up my race number and goodie bag. Entry into the 5km race was 2500yen. Running races are so much cheaper than open water swimming races in Japan which will set you back around 7000-8000yen. Here is the goodie bag:

From 5km run
From 5km run

It included some Vaam gel sportsdrink, and a bag. I was pretty happy with the bag. It’s super lightweight and folds and packs up, but it’s also a drawstring backpack. This will come in super handy for my swimtrek. I need a swim bag/day pack that will fit in my luggage, so the bag is pretty awesome. I had a sleepless night last night. Couldn’t sleep at all. I woke up this morning overtired, and I nearly slept in. I also woke up ridiculously dehydrated. It was kinda hot during the night. I guzzled over half a litre of fluids prior to the race. The 5km race was one lap around the Imperial Palace – my favourite running race route in Tokyo because it’s so familiar, and convenient to get to. I rode the train in, with my very conspicuous joggers.

From 5km run

I got to the race this morning with about 15-20 minutes to spare. I was still half asleep and very thirsty. Here are some pics pre-race around the Palace.

From 5km run
From 5km run

It was a very small turnout.

From 5km run

The race was only 5km. And there were two categories: Serious and Beginners. Needless to say I had registered myself for the Beginners and we raced at 9:35am. Here is the line-up for the “serious” runners:

From 5km run

The weather was a tad warm for my liking. If there’s one thing I hate more than jogging – it’s jogging in the heat. The race start was 9:35am, and the temp was already in the high 20s. Like I said, too warm for my liking. I had only one goal for this race. And that was to run sub-30minutes. Not a big deal to most people, but a challenging goal for me. My pace on average is 6min/km. I’m having trouble breaking that pace. So off I went on the 5km run. Torture. The worst 5km run I had ever run.

I started out strong, but then I don’t know what happened. I was still so freaking dehydrated. Super thirsty. Every breath was drying out my mouth, and being only 5km, there were of course no water stations. Crap. So super thirsty and I was also really hot. Reached the 2km mark, and thought crap, I’m already beat. How unfit am I. Another 3km to go! Geez. 3km to 5km was struggle, struggle, struggle. Needed water. Stat. A most bizarre feeling overcame me. I felt so incredibly dehydrated and hot. My whole body was heating up. Scarily so. I needed water like one needs air. I thought about dropping out of the race because I needed a drink so bad. The temperature was one thing, but my God, the humidity was abominable.

Here is a weather analysis of the day (source: Yahoo weather, Japan): Between 9-10am (the race time), the temperature was about 28 degrees (orange dotted line), and the humidity was a whopping 90%! (the green dotted line). You can see that the humidity level really dropped off to about 75% in the hours after. It’s still summer here and Japanese summers are incredibly humid. Dangerously so. Today the humidity really affected me. I felt like I was going to pass out. I’ve suffered heat exhaustion before, to the point of fainting, so I knew something was wrong because I got that same feeling. I didn’t feel ok. So badly wanted to quit, but I’m not a quitter, and I hate to say, that I had to walk a bit of the race. Walk, slow jog, walk, slow jog for the last couple of k’s. I was annoyed that I had to walk but my safety was paramount. My whole body was extremely overheated. I managed to cross the finish line in one piece. I felt so hot and red. I must have looked like an incredibly unfit freak…but the truth was, I wasn’t feeling good. The sooner I got to the finish line, the sooner I could guzzle some water. Got to the finish and sat down. Could barely stand up. Drank lots of water, wet my body, and drank some sportsdrink as well. Needed sugar. Body was incredibly overheated. Such a crazy, unusual thing to happen over such a short distance race. I sat for about 30-45min, not being able to move. Felt weak and headachey. I took my time to relax and for the body to cool. I looked at the time on my iPhone/music player, and had worked out that by my time I had run about 32minutes. Didn’t break my 30 minute goal. But I didn’t much care. I was glad that I had even finished the race, and not walked out on it. 32minutes wasn’t too bad considering I walked a portion of the race. I had run the first couple of k’s strong.

They had the little prize ceremony for placegetters in the serious category. Fastest male did 17minutes, and fastest female did 20minutes. They also had lucky dip/door prizes. I wanted to check out my official race time. I saw on the record sheet that it said: 37min, 23 seconds! What!!!!! I started to mentally flagellate myself…thinking how shit I had run and was thinking about ways to punish myself for such an atrocious time. I wondered how my stopwatch could have been so off. It wasn’t possible that my time could be 37minutes, considering we started at 9:35am and I was back by 10:07am. I then realized that the time hadn’t accounted for the 5min lag between the serious and the beginners start. We started five minutes after, so I needed to subtract 5minutes. So my official race time was 32minute and 23 seconds. That was better. Still not good. But better, especially given how rotten I felt during the run. I got home and crawled into bed with the air conditioner on and slept for a few hours. I was super tired, and had a giant headache, and was feeling not 100%. A little bit lightheaded.

Am feeling much better now though…although I don’t think I have eaten enough today. Here’s what I think went wrong that accounted towards how I felt today: – high humidity. (Major cause). Not healthy to run in such high humidity. And yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I need to HTFU. But as consolation, here is one tidbit I found on the Internet: “Humidity is considered high when the levels go above 45 to 50%. When combined with high temperatures, high humidity can be very dangerous to the body as it interferes with the bodies ability to cool itself down, which may cause heat stroke. High humidity can also trigger an asthma attack.” – total lack of acclimatisation. Today’s race was the first time I had jogged outdoors. All summer, I have jogged indoors, inside at a gym on a treadmill. I had no exposure to running outdoors in the heat and humidity. My body didn’t adjust so well. I think it was a bit of a shock to the system, especially given how much I swim – I’m too used to being in the water where it’s wet and cool. – lack of proper hydration.

I don’t know why I woke up so thirsty. I had drunk plenty of water the day before but I guess the heat during the night took it out of me a bit. Even now as I write this at 5pm, it’s 29 degrees. It’s just hot. And my body does not enjoy running in summer. This is why I swim. – no breakfast, no fuel prior to the race. I’ll often race on an empty stomach, so this isn’t usually a huge problem especially for such a short race. Even though I only jogged 5km, I also somehow managed to get blisters on both feet. Maybe a marathon wasn’t such a great idea after all. Still hoping I get accepted anyway. At least it’s in the winter. I’d rather run in snow than in 90% humidity in near 30-degree temps! Will probably regret saying this, especially if it does actually snow on marathon day next year. I didn’t achieve my sub-30minute goal, but I ran 5km, so I s’pose that’s better than nothing. Gotta start somewhere. Around the Palace moat on my way back to the station, there were some turtles. I felt as slow as a turtle today. But on the upside, turtles live a really, really long time!

From 5km run
From 5km run

Saw a t-shirt today that said: “Run yourself better”. Simple. But nice.

Conrad Tokyo Afternoon Tea: French fizz and mini morsels

memoirsofaleishaLeave a comment

If you want to attract ladies to an event, I have two words that will do the trick: “Unlimited champagne”. Well, make that three words: “Unlimited sparkling wine” – coz let’s face it, it did not come specifically from the Champagne region. The folks at the Conrad Hotel, Tokyo, know how to get bums on seats at their Twenty-Eight Bar and Lounge. If the 2 x Michelin star Gordan Ramsay restaurants at the Conrad Hotel (part of the Hilton chain) aren’t enough to attract people, then their Afternoon Tea set with 2 hours of unlimited french fizz/champers/”I can’t believe it’s not champagne”/sparkling wine, certainly will. I had no trouble recruiting fellow tea lovers for September’s Champagne Afternoon tea – 8 people in attendance!

So Sunday afternoon was spent at the Conrad Hotel at their Bar and Lounge – called “Twenty Eight”. And guess what level it’s on? If you guessed level 28, you’d be right! I had originally wanted to do this venue back in August on the weekend that I went to Bvlgari, but they were booked out, hence I arranged to go to Bvlgari instead. So I booked a month in advance for this one. The Afternoon Tea is called “American Classic” and the food was amazing! So darn cute. Everything was mini. And nothing is cooler than miniature food…except for giant oversized food. And to top it off, for a limited time there is a champagne offer which half of us took up on – 2 hours of unlimited Chandon to accompany the afternoon tea. Yes, please! I’m going to launch straight into the food. Another venue that does a modern take on afternoon tea – they’ve done away with the three-tiered platters here. Instead, mini food is presented on a flat glass platter. And the mini food was soooo cute. We oohed and aahed over it. You’d have thought it was a baby shower. No one ate for a good 15 minutes as we happily admired the food and snapped away. Each platter held two servings. I’ve heard of super size me…but this was super shrink me.

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

How cute and awesome is mini food. There’s not enough mini food in this world, I say. Proof that good things come in small packages.

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

Savouries, sweets and scones all on the one tray, so beautifully presented. Talk about so much fun with food.

From Conrad Tokyo

I’m rather obsessed with this mini food.

From Conrad Tokyo

Food for little people = fun.

From Conrad Tokyo

Can. Not. Get. Enough. Photos. Of. This.

From Conrad Tokyo

We were in for a fun afternoon. Mini morsels of delectable food, washed down with unlimited glasses of Champers!

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

The way to a woman’s heart (or at least mine) is champagne and cute mini food (or giant food). And the food not only looked good but was pretty darn delicious too! It was so hard to pick and choose what to eat first and save for last. My ritual is to eat the savouries first – of which there were three on this occasion. This was the walnut bread with Iberico ham scented with truffles. OMG. So tasty. Love nuts. Love bread. Does that make me carb crazy. And Iberico ham is a really famous, amazing, tasty ham. And it did not disappoint. Sooo good. This was definitely one of my favourites.

From Conrad Tokyo

I think the highlight of the day was the mini burger (slider for you American readers). Mini burgers are so the food of du jour. We were all rather besotted with this burger. It was a perfect miniature burger. God bless burgerlings.

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

I couldn’t resist doing a cheesy burger pose! (Clearly, I have no shame.) What can I say, I’m lovin’ it. This is one very happy meal.

From Conrad Tokyo

And inside was juicy. Mini sliders have a tendency to be on the drier side but this surprisingly juicy and not dry. It also had a tasty harisa aioli for extra flavour. The burger was another winner.

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

Yum. Yum. It was interesting to see what everyone was saving for last. Someone was clearly saving the mini burger for the end. The last burger standing:

From Conrad Tokyo

Next I had the brie cheese on cranberry bread sandwich. I thought that I would love this, but I didn’t.

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

I then moved onto the sweets next. There were a lot of desserts in this afternoon tea, and normally it’s my least-favourite tier. But everything on this plate was awesome and I loved the desserts portion of this particular afternoon tea. Desserts were their forte here. And I appreciate that it took skills to make everything in miniature. There was a lime marshmallow which was very limey – nice and tart, yet sweet and marshmallowy too.

From Conrad Tokyo

This was followed by more miniature food – a tiny devil’s chocolate fudge cake.

From Conrad Tokyo

And then a miniature cupcake. This was really yummy. A pistachio and cherry cupcake. Cupcakes are pretty small to begin with but this about a quarter of a size of a full cupcake.

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

It was sad to see the platters dwindle down as the mini morsels were slowly picked off and devoured.

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

Getting smaller…

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

So next I tried the New York cheesecake. Personally, I’m not a huge cheesecake fan in general. The only cheesecake I really love is my mum’s cheesecake which she always makes for birthdays and special occasions. It’s a favourite at family and relo gatherings. Anyway, this was the cheesecake – still good nevertheless.

From Conrad Tokyo

Now normally I always…always save the scones for last. I never deviate from this ritual. But I did on this occasion. There were two scones – a plain one and a mango and coconut scone. It was a face-off between the lemon meringue pie or the scones. The lemon meringue pie won! Yes, lemon meringue pie was on offer. Awesome. Especially since just a couple of weekends ago I had been in pursuit of lemon meringue pie. And the only thing better than lemon meringue pie is MINI lemon meringue pie!

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

So I broke with tradition and ate the scones next. I just can’t get decent scones in Japan. They are dry, hard, American ‘biscuits’. I preferred the plain one over the mango and coconut one.

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

And then down to the last lemon pie standing:

From Conrad Tokyo

I had saved it for last. And it was pretty divine, and so cute to look at!

From Conrad Tokyo

Check out the detail to the mini meringue peaks.

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

It was yummy. It was actually way better than the other lemon pie that I had bought. There was such a tiny layer of the lemon curd, but it was so incredibly tarty and awesome. The only downside was the pastry on this pie. It was too flakey. It had been made with puff pastry rather than being a shortcrust pie pastry. Still bliss.

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

And then the whole platter was empty. What a sad moment.

From Conrad Tokyo

You might recall that I’ve mentioned before in other tea reviews that it would be nice if they gave us fresh plates. Essentially we are eating savoury foods, scones, and desserts all off the same plate. Today was a prime example of needing fresh plates. Here’s what happens when you eat randomly (this is why I save the scones for last). Someone had obviously saved the mini hamburger for last but was left with a jam-smeared plate. Any afternoon tea venue that offers fresh plates will definitely earn brownie points with me, so as to AVOID the below travesty:

From Conrad Tokyo

I really enjoyed the afternoon tea arrangement here – glass platters of mini food. I noticed that for other guests there in groups of twos – had different glass platters – they were glass platters that were in a staircase arrangement. I was a little jealous of their servingware. Super cool. I zoomed in a random person’s afternoon tea set. You can kind of see in this photo, what I mean:

From Conrad Tokyo

Here are some photos of the Twenty Eight Bar and Lounge. Plenty of natural light streaming in from the tall glass windows.

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

Seats by the window only seat two people, but there are great water views over Tokyo Bay.

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

It was a lovely afternoon tea enjoyed with a great bunch of friends, including a couple of newbies to high tea. Eight has been my record number of attendees in Tokyo. Our little high tea societea obligatory group shot:

From Conrad Tokyo

I highly rate the food here. Service was only a ok. Views are nice too – over the water. The French fizz offer – always a welcome bonus. Oh, I nearly forgot to talk about the tea. Only three teas are on offer here – Assam, Darjeeling and Ceylon. Nothing special. But for those who declined the champagne option, they went through a couple of pots of tea. Everyone chooses a tea and then you need to stick to it. No tea sampling here. Also coffee on offer as well. Once you’ve selected your tea for the afternoon – it’s as much tea as you like (unlimited refills). I went with the ceylon tea. I’m a little ashamed to say that I did not even drink a whole cup of tea. Was too busy drinking the french fizz!!! The Afternoon Tea – American Classic – was really good here. I thoroughly enjoyed the food.

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

The Afternoon Tea set on its own (food platter plus tea/coffee) is 3950yen (tax included). For the 2 hour free-flowing sparkling wine offer in conjunction with the Afternoon Tea set is 6000yen. Pretty good value, I say. For an extra 2000yen you can easily down 5-6 glasses of Chandon comfortably. More, if you’re really keen to get bang for your buck. (NB: That the sparkling wine offer is only valid at certain times of the year. Check with the hotel. It ends at the end of September…which is why we went when we did). The afternoon tea here is like the amuse bouche version of afternoon tea – and my bouche was amused. Touché mon amie.

From Conrad Tokyo

I liked that you can totally relax here and take your time. There is no ushering you out the door in a hurry. Afternoon tea is on offer from 2:30pm, so we booked for right on that time. I was running late, so we probably didn’t start until about 3pm. The unlimited sparkling wine is valid for two hours, and then after that you can stay and continue to have as much tea as you like. Most people left at about 6pm, but I stayed back with a couple of the other girls, and we probably didn’t leave until about 7-7.30pm. It got dark, so I was able to take some night shots of the Lounge in Bar mode.

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

Night view:

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

I do love a champagne afternoon tea.

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

The Conrad Hotel is a very nice hotel. Modern and contemporary design. I liked it.

From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo
From Conrad Tokyo

I won’t be doing another afternoon tea for a little while now, which is why I indulged up (not that I need an excuse). For a least another 4-6 weeks. No more teas in September because the next few weekends are taken up with a run race, an ows race and little long weekend trip. And then off overseas for two weeks. The Conrad Hotel, Tokyo is located at Shiodome/Shinbashi area near HamaRikyu Japanese Gardens. From the subway you’ll need to alight at Shiodome station. The hotel is connected to the Shiodome exit. Shiodome station is the most convenient access. If coming by JR, alight at Shinbashi station. I got lost coming from this station. And it took me over 15 minutes to get there, although it should have taken way less than that. It can be a little confusing…so allow a little extra time. Hotel website, afternoon tea menu, info etc can be found here.