Tako á Feira

Sometime ago I came across one of which I consider the best sushi restaurant in Tokyo. Since then, I go at least once a week (sometimes even more!) to that place to have the best sushi!

Sushizanmai is the name of the chain of restaurants present all around Tokyo, but the principal ones are: Bekkan (別館 – Annex) and Honten (本店 – principal). Both of them placed in the area of Tsukiji, next to the biggest fish market in the world.

Personally, I go a lot to Bekkan as the “Sushimen” already know me, it was the first I came across, there is a lot less queue to do and it’s bigger (two storeys). The only fault is that they do a lot less live-auctions: to get a fish from the fishtank and prepare it in sushi.

Furthermore, the Akihabara’s Sushizanmai is good as well. Located in the same building of Yodobashi (the biggest electronic goods department store in the world). It is really suitable to get some rest in Akihabara after a hard day freak-shopping!

There you have some pictures of the Honten:

Sushizanmai: Honten

And Bekkan:

Facade of Sushizanmai Bekkan

Waiting outside

Fishtank where they catch the fish for the auction

Counter where you can order the sushi

In this small menu you can see the whale sushi ad (I don't believe it's whale)

Sushi 24h! Wohooo!

Website: http://www.kiyomura.co.jp/sushi-e/

Access map:

Esperando fuera

nally we got to the last article about the travel to Philippines. Early uh?

The last stop we did was at Boracay, well known place for beaches and tourism. Before continue, I must say I liked Palawan much more but Boracay was good as well even being much more touristic. As  we got to the beach, we had this beautiful sunset waiting for us:

After wandering around a bit along the beach we decided to indulge ourselves in a good dinner, as a way of celebrating my past birthday at the jungle as there was nothing in there to celebrate. Soooo… pig out of lobster and crabs with seaside views!

After a repairing night of sleep, we decided to get on the morning to enjoy the beach:

That day Oscar, my Jakarta counterpart arrived so once more we walk around the beach, this time at sunlight to see the street vendor kiosks and shops:

At Boracay, the most typical thing is to enjoy a massage at the beach or in a specialized massage shop:

While walking, we saw a lot of restaurants offering seafood on the street so you could poit a lobster out and get it cooked and ready to eat it!

There was a lot of luxury resorts like the Mandarin, which had a HUGE bonsai at its doorstep:

We spent the rest of the day doing some marine activities like jetski or catamaran sailing and terrestrial  as horse riding

To finish it, we spent new year’s eve at Boracay, it was funny to see a lot of “guiris” with their beers just about to cheer for the new year and a bunch of spanish people with a box of grapes, completely lost trying to know where was the clock that showed the chimes before new year… as usual, pig out of grapes.

It looks that there is some delay… this is the last but one entry about Philippines that one of 2008 December.

This time, The Rice Terraces was the place where I spent my 26th birthday. The Banaue Rice Terraces are 2000-year old terraces that were carved into the mountains of Ifugao in the Philippines. The Rice Terraces are commonly referred to by Filipinos as the “Eighth Wonder of the World“. The terraces are located approximately 1500 meters (5000 ft) above sea level and cover 10,360 square kilometers (about 4000 square miles) of mountainside.

This trip was madness. It started the night of the 27th of December trying to locate a transportation method to get to the terraces which are relatively close to the capital. I say relatively because they are 200 Km far from Manila and it gets one entire night to get there by car. Firstly we tried to buy tickets for the bus from Manila, but there was only left the tickets for the collapsible seats… doesn’t sound good? 8 ours of bus trip in a collapsible seat without backrest. As this was not a choice, we decided to find a rent-a-car to rent a van at midnight. By chance we met a guy whose cousin had a van that could get us there. This is how things work in Philippines! There we went with two unknown people by taxi to the cousin’s house who offered to give us a ride for 15.000 pesos (more or less 220€).

The same night we departed to the rice terraces, equipped with all the necessary stuff to survive in the hostile jungle: Doritos, Pringles, chips, chocolate and beers. It was an interesting night trip. We get to our destination by the morning:

On the top of the hill we found some weird shops:

With weird products:

And pay restrooms:

And of course… McDonalds!

Its a pity we didn’t realized before that there were luxury cottages for rent with excelent views:

What to say about the transportation methods…

As it was early in the morning, we headed to the first dump we saw and ate something that looked like rice with some sort of meat stew:

Everything under the gawp of a mini-native:

After having breakfast we tried to access the more remote areas of the terraces for which it was needed a more rudimentary transportation method, Jeepney!

What constructions we came across…

and this is what it could be seen from that house:

There was a point where not even a Jeepney could go through so trekking was our last chance. Right through the jungle even with rain and I ended up like this:

A couple of hours walk later… it was worth the effort:

Inside the village we could see how people lived there. As a curiosity, this is the toilet of a private house (check the poster on the wall)

Once at the village, we didn’t stop there so we continue walking among terraces…

… until we reached the waterfall:

Up to there did we got on my 26th birthday and now I can say: Conquered!

Little stop of travel articles not to bore you

On May, 23rd of 2009 I went to one of the most important demonstrations in the world of Aikido. The 47th All Japan Aikido planned by the Aikikai Honbu Dojo.

In this event, all Aikido dojos, schools and clubs show their skill at the Nihon Budokan.

Interior del Nihon Budokan (日本武道館)

In 2009’s edition approximately 6000 “aikidokas” took active part.

Here you can see some videos from Youtube and some pictures I took myself:

Now, a video of my Wednesday’s teacher:

Hiroyuki Sakurai sensei, 6th Dan Aikikai

And Thursday’s teacher:

Hiroshi Fujimaki sensei, 6th Dan Aikikai

Last but not least, a video of the actual Doshu:

Moriteru Ueshiba – 10th Dan Aikikai

And his son:

Mitsuteru Ueshiba

I’m going to break this huge stop of posting (you know… golden week… holidays…) to continue with the story of the travel to Philippines. Lots of things happened since then, but first, let’s finish what was start.

Manila is a noisy city, very polluted, but it doesn’t have a bad ambient. One of the first things that call the attention once at the capital of Philippines is a strange kind of vehicles called Jeepney. These are some kind of reinforced truck-tank abandoned after the Second World War by the Americans:

The way you can use them is something between a taxi and a bus. First stop them as a taxi, and with difficulty you get on them as in a crowded bus. Then they leave you somewhere in their established route. Sometimes the interior of the Jeepney looks like a party, completely full of people everyone jumping with the bumps and surrounded by lights of other cars… weird experience..

The second thing that calls the attention is the amount of pollution in the ambient. It’s said that Manila is one of the most contaminated cities in the world… It’s curious to see how the city center is populated by new building as by old skyscrappers half demolished:

In Manila I came across a lot of things that I didn’t expect, for example, I got into a liturgy while shopping in a crowded mall:

It was then when I realized that in Philippines still continues the tradition of Crucifixion, by which on the Holy Week, several devotes get themselves crucified as penitence for their sins. It looks incredible that nowadays still exist this kind of rites.

Manila is a city where you must be alert. Everybody tries to con you whenever they can (this is common for almost all Philippines). The worst thing: The Taxi drivers! Our mates at the Commercial office at Manila commented a few cases of a taxi driver stopping in the middle of the highway asking for more money; if you don’t give them what they ask for, you take the risk of being left there without your luggage (this has happened a few times).

It’s common as well to come across this kind of police armed as a SWAT:

There is no much left to tell about Manila, so this is all folks!

Here I am again with another article, this talks about the past Christmas holidays in Palawan…

The day after arriving at Cocoloco Island, then with a bit more light, we could check what kind of paradise have we got to. The previous article about Palawan finished with a picture of food, and as it should be, this is beginning with another one, breakfast:

Bread, pinneaple, cheese and scrambled eggs

And another one:

Fried egg, fish and cucumber

After having breakfast at the beach:

Paradise

And another one…

The day was really “tough”, you know… scuba diving, sunbathing, swimming in tropical water…

Baywatch

Sun set at Paradise

Because of the size of the island, there was no much people there, just some tourists like us and the natives living there:

Some natives living at the island

Minifilipinas

This was the hut where we slept:

We spent Christmas at Cocoloco island. There, the “resort” natives set up a small Christmas party where everybody was welcome and food was free! what food!

Roasted fish

Crabs

Roasted suckling pig

Peculiar party with dancing natives…

And the musig brought by “PALM RADIO”

The day after Christmas was the last there and we headed to the airport from where we would flight to Manila to spend some days visiting the capital of Philippines and our “icexians” pals.

Goodbye Cocoloco

Little stop on posting about travels to communicate that the new official announcement for the upcoming year’s external trade grants has been launched: Computer Science and Internationalization.

For more information (spanish only): ICEX Portal or Computer Science Grants or simply Grants Department of ICEX

Those who doesn’t know it already, I’m enjoying the Computer Science grant at the External Trade Office of Spain in Tokio, one of the 74 possible destinations of 2008-2009 grants. This year the number of destinations has been reduced to 64… is it the crisis? who’s going to be my kohai next year? Everything and more, in this channel!

After travelling from Osaka to Philippines, we spent one night at the capital: Manila. The next day we had the flight to Palawan. I’m going to comment nothing about Manila now, I’ll dedicate a whole article later on.

Palawan is an island between Malaysia and Philippines that stands out because of its crystalline waters and amazing beaches. Furthermore, being far from the capital, it’s not so tourist as Boracay and it can be seen the poverty of a lot of villages. This is the route we followed in Palawan:

We landed in Puerto Princesa and the first thing we saw was a really minimum airport… in fact I can’t yet believe how the pilot could land in such a runway. When the plane stopped we were about 20 meters of being out of the runway! Impressive!

Once off the plane, we headed to the luggage place, which I don’t know how to call, so I’ll leave this pictures to speak for themselves:

After the first shock seeing the cutting edge luggage distribution system, we headed to the inmigration ofice:

Fine… after registering at the inmigration department we proceeded to exit the hangar, and of course, we found “the ultimate transport method” on the island:

I bet you think it looks like a very reliable, trustworthy and environmental correct transport method… Three people could get on that thing, with 3 huge backpacks… I don’t know how, but we did it, and there were spare room for more luggage! I think that physics are not working as they should in this place…

From Puerto Princesa, we rent a van with driver to get to Roxas, from where we would take a ship to get to that sort of resort located in a 2 square km island. This van:

I won’t tell the story of the bargaining we had to suffer because it would be infinite. Just mention that in Philippines you can’t go to the toilet without haggle first.

After several hours to fulfil 100Km we stopped at a small village to rest a bit and I took some pictures:

Once in Roxas, after waiting 1 hour for the boat to come (things move slow in Philippines…)

…we headed to Coco Loco Island! Where we would spend some days getting a good tan (and sunburn of course) and drinking coco juice. When we get to the island, we had a green coconut opened and waiting for us to drink it while waiting for the dinner:

I ordered crabs… tasty tasty! with garlic rice and a side of banana. The night ended with some freshly mades fruit shakes with a bit of Tanduay, the typical rum of Philippines.

To be continued…

I could get some inspiration after all the emails and comments received to write about the travel to Philippines… better late than never.

I’d like to start with this small article about Osaka, the city from where we started our journey.

Osaka hadn’t awaken a lot of interest in me, maybe because the tropothousands of hours in a bus to get to Osaka from Tokyo or maybe because how ugly is the city (no offense, it is really ugly!) but some people say the night life is far better than Tokyo’s.

The only thing with a bit of interest is the Osaka Castle:

Inside, the castle is a museum of Japanese History in which it’s not allowed to take pictures. There were some Katanas, samurai armors and japanese art. It was fine, but it’s not so good to go to Osaka just to see it.

There were really weird people in the surrounding area of the castle…

A monk close to the castle

A guy having a walk with his parrot in a park full of cats...

A guy feeding fat cats

If you smell my ass I'll smell yours...

A ninja hidden behind a poster

An horde of "japas" after a concert of a Japanese Idol

A man fishing in the mud moat of the castle. I can't imagine what the hell could he fish in there...

Having a walk we got to the city center and we found some strange things like this building:

Hips building

The shopping area:

Zara

One "Tina Turner" free in Osaka

We also find a small temple among skycrapers that had statues covered with moss:

Statues covered with moss

This is all today

The next article will be about Palawan, Philippines.

Once finished the Japanese Course, today I’m taking a bus to Osaka and tomorrow a flight to Manila. I have no time now to sketch all the route I’m going to follow, but I can say I’ll visit Manila, Palawan and Boracay. Until next year there won’t be more posts.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope you don’t get a cold, and think that I’ll be drinking from a coconut in the “Asian Caribbean” in Christmas (hahaha).