Finally in California!

I have finally arrived in San Francisco, CA, for the beginning of my 12 week internship.

Wish me luck!

Nespresso store in Omote-sando

The title says it all :)

Dinner at Roy's!

Today's dinner was at a place called Roy's in Roppongi Hills. It's a Japanese-American fusion place, and man was it delicious. Unfortunately, I forgot my phone, and so there are no pictures of this glorious dinner. However, my ever-awesome descriptions will still be there, so we're all good.

We got to the restuarant and the first thing I noticed was the view. Roy's has a fantastic view of the Tokyo skyline, especially Tokyo Tower. The orange of the tower looks beautiful against the night sky.

The second thing I noticed was the fact that the waiter poured some water into what looked like an empty bowl. But in reality, the bowl contained these rolled up towelettes that expanded when water was added, so that guests could clean their hands.

Drinks were also awesome at this place! I had my first alcoholic beverage with my parents - it was an apple Mojito and tasted just like fizzy apple juice. 

Appetizers were two different types of sushi. One of them was warm, and it tasted surprisingly good.

Main entrees for me was a tuna steak. If was delicious, but because my stomach is still a bit sore and the sauce that the steak was sitting in had wasabi in it, I traded with my brother, who had mahi mahi as his entree. That was also pretty yummy, except I only had half of it since again, stomach.

Dessert was not at Roy's, but rather, at Coldstone Creamery. That's right folks, this wonderful dinner was topped off with a Like It sized bowl of Chocolate Devotion. And it was scrumptious. 

Thai dinner

As promised, here's the blog post about the Thai dinner that we had yesterday. It was at a place called Ananda in Akasaka. The food was delicious, although I only had a little bit of everything because my stomach was still a bit sore. Here are a few pictures of what we ate!

Thai fish cakes, as an appetizer. The fish cakes were perfectly sized, and the cucumber-peanut sauce went perfectly with it. 

Thai papaya salad, otherwise known as my favorite Thai dish. This dish is the reason that we came to this restaurant in the first place. Last time my parents came here, they asked to make the salad at an authentic Thai spice level. And it was so spicy that only my mom could eat it. She said it reminded her of a Thai papaya salad that we had in Bangkok, and so she had to make me try it. Now unfortunately we couldn't have that level of spice, but it was still spicy and still delicious. I think we're planning on going again sometime in the week so that we can have just the Thai papaya salad at authentic spice level and mango sticky rice.

This was salted chili soft shell crab. I haven't really had crab much, but this was good!  It was pretty spicy, and the outside of the crab was crispy and the inside was nice and soft.

Rice in a pineapple - this was just rice with chicken and pineapple pieces in it. Nice and mild!

Thai red curry! Definitely different than the red curries that I'm used to, but equally as good. There is jasmine sticky rice on the side. 

And finally, mango sticky rice. A perfect end to a good meal. 

Japanese English

We went out to Thai food for dinner tonight, and it was delicious (more on that in a different post). What this post has to do with it is a funny sign that we saw on the way back. Japan is still a place where it is hard to get around without knowing Japanese, but there are signs in English sometimes.

Some of them are spelled correctly and are grammatically correct, but some of them are not :)

Bakery in Azabujuban!

Today we went to one of my favorite bakeries in Azabujuban. Below is a picture of some of the baked goodies that we bought!

The cones are the chocolate cones that I love so much. The chocolate donut on the top left is apparently really good, according to my brother, and so we bought one for him. And the two donuts-without-holes in the upper-middle part of the picture are red bean donuts. I'm excited to try it, since a) I like red beans and b) red beans are a popular part of Japanese cuisine. Hopefully it's good!

Shibuya round 2

We went to Shibuya today again, this time to visit two stores. Or well, one store and one mall. The store was Forever21, which I am proud to say had prices comparable to those is the states, but the store itself was a lot cleaner, a lot more organized, a lot bigger (it was 6 stories, after all) and had much more variety. 

The next place we went to was Shibuya 109, which is a 12 story building with about 8-9 shops on each floor. These shops were reminiscent of boutiques, and had every style from girly to western to goth clothing. While I didn't buy anything, the people watching was still fun.

Some of my observations:

1) Each boutique had 2-3 girls working in them. 90% of them had dyed their hair blonde or light brown, and had curled their hair at the bottom. Apparently, this is considered to be fashionable. Those who didn't had dyed their hair another color (for example, one store was pink themed. The girls had, you guessed it, pink hair).

2) Said girls also wore heels that were greater than 3 inches tall. I was wearing wedges about that tall, and after 20 minutes, my feet were screaming for rest. Working in those heels must be hell. I too my hat to all of you.

3) Said girls also wore lots of makeup, making them look almost doll like in appearance. This is a wider trend I've seen while in Tokyo - very few girls don't have layers and layers of makeup one. And it's nothing extreme, they all conform to having the "natural" makeup look.

4) If you're not thin, you will not be able to find anything to wear. For reference, I'm 5 foot 6 inches, and weigh about 110 pounds. At the Forever21 in the states, I wear a size small. In Japan? Medium to large. At Shibuya 109, I tried on a one-size-fits all dress. I couldn't fit into it. And honestly, it was depressing. I'm not used to not being able to fit into something. But that was exactly the case today. 

It makes me wonder - what about people who are actually bigger than the norm? How do they feel, especially in countries like Japan and South Korea, where conformity in appearance is key? 

This might, however, explain why plastic surgery in East Asia is as common as it is though. 

Thoughts?