Ramen: some streets in the Ginza area have a collection of ramen noodle restaurants. Often you see a line outside the stores. The two Korean girls in front of me in our line told me that “this restaurant is famous on the Internet, so we came. It’s our first time. Right after food, we will go off to catch the plane going back to the Korea”. We were chatting about our travel experience of Tokyo. The girls were recommending me their favorite snack they bought. Through the chats, the lines moved quickly.

The store is small and we order through a machine at the entrance to select choices of meat and side dishes. The vibe eating at the counter is exactly same as the Japanese restaurants in New York City.

Yummy food came in 2 minutes. The food is not super but a very pleasant experience.

Golden Nai: Near the red light district, there are two sections of street food and bars. People call this area Golden Nai. It is not only the place to find the tasty food and drink but also to experience the special Japanese culture — small streets, small bars with only being able to accommodate a few people.

Some small bars have live music and some bars only serve members. When we were here around 8pm, it seems not to be crowded, but we heard that late at night, there will be more people coming over to drink.

Another section of Golden Nai is mostly for food, especially skewers. When we were there around 8pm, the streets were already full of people. This section looks newer and more modern, and have great vibes.

The stores are small and people sit at the counter. Every store has some uniqueness. The food looks super yummy. I did not see many long lines.

Traditional Japanese cuisine: Omakase means “I’ll leave it up to you” or “I trust you, chef”. It is one of my favorite fine dining experience. It comes in small and beautiful dishes like this.

The place we went is called Minemoto. A lot of items on their drink menu look interesting. We heard that the famous ones are whisky highballs and Kamakura Beer.

Here are 10 or 11 courses of different ways of Japanese cooking. I often try to cook similar dishes at home when I tasted something yummy on my trips.

Nowadays, I go back to Tokyo, I don’t schedule many things ahead. There are so many artsy shopping and tasty food anywhere. It is easily having a great day when you are out.

Kyoto was Japan’s capital and now is Tokyo. The east of Tokyo is the old part of the city like in Asakusa, and there are many temples and shrines. The famous one is Sensoji (浅草寺). Then there is this Ginza area, a relatively old shopping district. The famous Tsukji fish market is nearby, and so do the famous department stores like Ginza six (三越百货). After some earthquakes, the west side of Tokyo such as Shinjuku and Shibuya becomes important. Shibuya has this world business Shibuya crossing and the sky observatory. Shinjuku has the largest subway station. Current Japanese government office buildings are located here. You go out to Shinjuku at night 10 or 11pm, the streets are full of people who were wandering, eating, drinking and having fun.

Traditional Japanese breakfast: Ginza Choshoku Lab is located at the second floor of hotel Musse near Ginza. The breakfast here is a 2-hours buffet. It is a very popular place so you will need to make reservations. Their online reservation website only accepts Japanese characters’ names; I have to randomly copy some Japanese characters from the Internet to fill my first and last names to book successfully :). The food and drink here are good, but it looked better than it actually tasted.

Tsukji fish market: Last time, when I visited Tokyo in 2012. Tsukji fish market was still super big and was selling large fresh fish and other seafood. Nowadays, the “fish market” was moved out of the city and only food stands and shopping stores remained. Remember to prepare 100-200$ cash as here some food stands only take cash.

The famous gyudon beef rice bowl. The line is very long but it moves fast. The waiting time probably is 10-15 minutes.

You stand outside to eat. It tastes good but it is not a big deal if you missed it. But still I would visit here again.

This is a little food stand, where I came for fish. Coincidentally my high school classmate and his family were visiting here the day before I arrived at Tokyo, and he recommended me this place. The fish indeed is really good.

The staff was cutting slices of sashimi right out from a fresh fish at the counter.

There are all sorts of food here. You will need to stop losing weight for a day 🙂

Wagyu beef set: Wagyu is tender, fresh and importantly cheap in Japan. Walking along Ginza and Shinjuku streets, there are a lot of advertisement about such restaurants. I randomly selected one called “black hole” in Shinjuku. It turned out cheap (about 67 something dollars) and very good. The food arrived at the table very quickly too.

Pufferfish/Blowfish: This type of fish is rarely served in restaurants because it is poisonous if not processed properly. Not many restaurants in the world have certified chef that can serve this type of fish. Even so, I heard there were a couple of people died every year in Japan from eating such fish. That evening, my academic friends and I were exploring the Golden Gai area for food and ran into this store, called “Japanese-made Tiger Blowfish Specialty Shop”. We all screamed “blowfish!”

The restaurant does not have a scary halloween atmosphere. From the window, people seem to be drinking and smiling relaxly. There was no waiting at all. We had the entire table immediately and food arrived soon. We ordered a set menu to share. It consists of variety of cooking styles such as hotpot/soup, porridge, grilled, sashimi, sake (soaked with dried blowfish fins).

I love Tokyo so much that I plan to go there often. Like this summer, I will drop by Tokyo again on my way to China and hang out with my son.

The red light strict is located at the heart of Shinjuku. There were so many people walking around in this area even it was late at night in an ordinary week day. I went there twice, once with my academic friends and the other time with Paulo and his folks. Paulo was born in Malaysian but now live in Tokyo, so he knew stories related to the red light district, from his friends, and his friends’ friends.

Along the main street, the top ranked hosts are advertised on the street bill boards. They made more money then I do monthly. Paulo said that currently, Japanese women like thin, feminine looking guys. So some hosts went for cosmetic surgeries to boost their careers.

Unfortunately, this one in the bill board failed the cosmetic surgery. Stories happen in this industry. Paula said sometimes the customer fell in love with her regular host, then drama happens between love and money.There was a recent crime related to this.

I was told that the prostitution is illegal in Japan but if the actual activities do not happen in the shops, the police will not come to arrest you. Additionally, due to the high rent in the main street, the actual service rooms are located in the back streets or high rises in the nearby buildings. There are sales who will spot potential customers at the exit of the train stations and on the streets, and then take you to the buildings.

You think there will be only lonely-looking men or rich and old women who come here for service? No, young girls in their twenties and early thirties come here often and quite some of them come here regularly. Of course, there are also birthday parties and bacheloress parties happening. Their service is diverse. For example, you can order a co-bath/shower service only for 200 dollars but that gets you a 40+ man; with 400 dollars, you can have a 20+ man — it sounds hilarious.

Guys have many choices also. You can do window shopping at the Girls Bar Milky,

or select a favored girl to do some role play, from a girl friend up till a wife, from going out for a dinner to going home to sleep together — as short as a night or as long as months (if you are rich :)).

Down the street, you see the hand job service advertisement stands besides the advisement for the ramen noodle shop 🙂

Besides sex industry, several shops on the street offer drinking buffet. You will hear many sales standing on the street to pull you in. Paulo said sometimes these buffets can be tricky– they did not list certain types of drinks in the buffet menu, and then after you drink it, the shops charge you a lot of money. The whole streets are mixed with also many other shops like restaurants and snack stores. You see a lot of tourists and even kids.

I was told that those people standing in the street are the sales. They left my groups alone for twice when I went there, it must be that I look more like a journalist than a customer 🙂

Such an adventure to explore here. It totally satisfied my curiosity. I think if it is not for health reasons, it might be fun to try some services 😀 Then oh well, I never found those feminine guys attractive, haha

Marina Bay Sands is beautiful from every angle. My favorite place to view it is to walk along the Marina Bay Waterfront Promenade (on the way to the Merlion).

I lived in Marina Bay Sands when I visited Singapore in 2014, back from India and on my way to China. At that time, I had no idea that Marina Bay Sands is such a fancy hotel. My collaborator then just said “it is a good hotel, you can book it”, so I did. Wow, it turns out a super cool experience.

I lived on the high rise (16th or 19th? can’t remember) with a lot of space and big windows (considering this is Singapore and the space in downtown is very precious). The room faces the Merlion side so the view was of course memorable. I still remember that their customer service was instantaneous. The front desk picked up my call without even a ring. I was shocked and tried again, and indeed, it happened again. Another thing I remember clearly is their infinite pool. The guests of the hotel can go there any time, and the non-guests can also buy tickets to go to the rooftop. I was up there at night. It has beautiful views and New York vibe. People was there drinking and chatting. In 2014, that’s probably the first roof top infinite pool in the world. Unfortunately, some of my pictures on that trip are lost. I hate I can’t show you what it looks like 🙂