earbuds

i'm in love with my earbuds that i bought while in japan.

the thing that made me appreciate them so much right now is that they were buried somewhere at the bottom of my backpack after a trip downtown (toronto) a few days ago and i was too lazy to get off the couch to get them. i was catching up on my youtube subscriptions and i didn't want to disturb my husband playing his rockband endless setlist (he's so cute~ haha).... so i used the earbuds that came with my ipod. ouch!

i had been using those giant sony headphones that cover your whole ear for several years but they are very cumbersome to travel with and to use in bed and even they hurt my ears after awhile (smooshing them to my head). regular earbuds that have been around for 15 or 20 years have never worked for me. they are my nemesis! they kill my ears. i don't know if i just have teeny tiny ear canals or something but i can't imagine they are comfortable for anyone.

so... before going to japan, i picked up a pair of those silcone ones that fit inside your ear snugly and more comfortably for $5 at superstore and changed them to the smallest size (they come with 2-3 different sizes per pair). they were horribly girly looking. pinks jewels with giant rhinestones on the outside. (see my previous post on the things i purchased before going to japan). oh well. i'm still only 30!

i was all ready to enjoy listening to my extensive j-pop collection playlist on my ipod on the disgustingly long 13 hour flight to japan when ~argh! the left ear gave out before the flight even took off. and then, only a few hours in, the right ear as well. i guess that's what you get for paying $5. so, for the rest of the flight, i was relagated to the huge honking old ones...

needless to say, i needed to find a new pair before heading home again. you can find these new style of earbuds anywhere and japan is no exception. and with it's kawaii fetish/obsession, your choices are endless! we actually ended up buying a rilakkuma pair for my neice and a mameshiba pair for my nephew. i didn't want to pay 2000 yen like we did for them... i thought another cheap pair will do me just fine. and where else would you look for cheap electronic goods in tokyo other than akihabara?! i can't remember the name of the store right now but it's that famous building just outside the electric town exit of akihabara station... the one with the different coloured pod-looking projections around the stairs... next (or close to) kotobukiya... 
anyway, that's where i bought them. i think they were 800 yen or something. there were a ton to choose from but i bought the purpley-blue ones because they were cute.

i absolutely love them! something to be said about electronic stuff made in japan... not much more expensive than the crap pair i bought here but so much better in quality! it's been 6 months since i bought them and i use them almost everyday. i hope i'm not jinxing myself by saying so because i don't know how i'd live without them at this point! unfortunatley, it looks like it'll be quite awhile before i get back there again. X(

something else i like about them is that the different sizes you can put on seem even smaller than the ones here. maybe since everything is smaller there.... maybe japanese people have smaller ear holes?! regardless, they are super comfortable. i wear them for hours at a time and they never bother me. i've even slept with them in on several occaisions.

kenzo ramen restaurant in toronto

i grew up eating dehydrated instant ramen, which in my family we called it "ichiban" although we didn't eat the sappora ichiban brand... just no name crap. but that's how it was introduced to us by my cousins back in 1987 (who probably did eat the brand... or at least would have seen the commercial. remember it?! SAPPORO SAPPORO SAPPORO ICHIBAN!! haha) 

i didn't even know that it was called ramen until i was in high school. although, that's probably a good thing ~ because my brain never properly linked that... stuff... to the ramen i heard about when i started getting interested in japan. to me, dehydrated instant ramen is not ramen. and i can guarantee that anyone from japan or anyone who has had REAL ramen would agree.

anyway~ when my husband and i were in japan we ate quite a bit of ramen. it was at the top of our list of things to do while we were there. (we still eat the crap stuff at home but are fully aware that it is not ramen.) when we got home, we were in withdrawal. after a few months, my husband was desperate one day so he went online and searched for a ramen restaurant nearby. i had never seen any in my wanderings around downtown toronto. i don't think toronto has much in the way of japanese stuff in general. lots of sushi restaurants but they are mainly owned by korean of chinese people. i've HEARD of an area that has some shops and a cultural centre of some sort, but i've never been able to find it!

i was skeptical that he would be able to find anything authentic. he came up with, i think, only 6 ramen restaurants in all of toronto. he picked the one with the best reviews and the night we were downtown for the fan expo, we decided to try it out. my expectations weren't high but i was pleasantly satisfied with it. not the best i had ever had but, as far from japan as we are and with the unlikelihood that we will be returning any time in the near future, it's still pretty good.

we liked it so much that we are going again tomorrow! i'm excited ~ i'm dying for some ramen. we went there in august.

so~
if you are in the toronto area and have a craving for, or want to try out authentic japanese ramen, go to KENZO RAMEN. it is located at 138 dundas street west in between elizabeth street and bay street. (it's on the north side.) if you are taking the subway, get off either at dundas or st. patrick and walk the rest of the way.

street view


checking out the menu


decor ~ they have booths (shown), tables to the right of this, and a counter at the back of the restaurant. my back was to the front door as i took this.


specialty house cocktail menu


i ordered tea but was disapointed that i got a bag in a cup of hot water.


i ordered shoyu and hubby ordered chashumen ~ but when it came, we switched.



so good that we had every last drop (almost... the meat in the shoyu was a little fatty.)

sorry i haven't updated yet

obviously i've been to japan and back ~ i just haven't gotten around to updating... i have a lo~ot of pictures and videos to sift through and organize. i will do it soon! i'll back date the entries as i put them in so it doesn't seem so disjointed.

this is my favourite picture we took ~ it's that famous river in gion where sayuri first meets the chairman in memoirs of a geisha.

note: i was wrong. i just watched memoirs of a geisha last night. they show this almost exact scene in a montage type thing after the war ended and she is going back to gion. (October 30, 2014) and i JUST started finally updating. day 2 is up! yay.

day 5: tokyo tower, harajuku & meiji shrine

we had a little bit of a late start. we didn't get to tokyo tower until almost 10:30. we also took an extremely long, boring route to get there. the hotel concierge guy drew on one of the hotel maps which way to go, but after i realized where it was in relation to the hotel from looking down at it, i saw a much more convenient and visually appealing route (which we took on the way down to the subway afterwards). 

the bottom (entry) level of the tower had tokyo tower related souveniers and, oddly, a michael jackson wax museum. the japanese just love mj. 

they have their own character mascots (of course) - the noppon brothers. hubby bought me a stuffie.

does it look like a tower to you?
yeah, me neither...

there was a marion crepes (same chain as in harajuku) just outside so i naturally had to partake.

the route we took down to station passed by the other side of the shrine that we saw from our hotel room. the street was tree-lined and beautiful. it was a surprise as we walked along to see the backs of the jizo peeking from between the trees.

the little stone statues are jizo - the buddhist protectors of babies that either died before/just after/during birth or unborn. parents often buy these little red hats to clothe their jizo and leave flowers and small toys.

we got to harajuku around 2pm - much too late to see anything really fun on the bridge. it was pretty disappointing. we didn't even bother trying to find the rockabilly dancers in yoyogi park. 

yep. that's a dude.

FREE HUGS

nice boots

the very first track on my "japanese on the go" tape (i'm sure i've mentioned that before...) starts off with this introduction:

"on a sunny tokyo morning,
you're strolling through the elegant gardens of the meiji shrine.
the only sound is the crunch of your shoes on the gravel path."

from the very first time i heard that sound, i always thought 'someday, i have to go there myself'. today was that day.

taking video of everything

we saw three separate wedding parties

photobombed by this little guy

i made a prayer to one day return to japan

 

miko-san

i bought amulets for us
i THINK mine was just general good luck and
hubby's was for good business

on our way back to harajuku, we stopped to eat ate at restaurant near the gardens 

hubby had regular meat spaghetti and i had mushroom
(but i picked out the mushrooms)

my staple drink - milk tea
always served as "make it yourself" with a liquid sugar and a creamer

hubby's beer was the size of his head

sitting behind us was a group of women in kimono. i liked the green one and wanted hubby to take a picture. he kept pretending he was taking pictures of his beer or of me.

busted!

finally got one though
pretty colours!

we decided to take another trip down takeshita dori. i had more crepes. cause... crepes. 

there is a karaoke place in hamamatsucho that we went to on the way home. it was way nicer and easier to use than the one in shibuya. they gave us an english instruction page. 

btw~ our bed in this hotel was HUGE. just thought i should share that. when we were booking our hotels, it seemed as though the biggest available was queen. only doubles in most places. i guess we lucked out.