Yakiniku @ Dotonbori, Osaka

The brightly-lit loud and vibrant street of Dotonbori in Osaka. This is the tourist stretch and basically you can get anything along the same street, from food to drinks, entertainment, Pachinko slots arena, souveniers shops, high street fashion stores and even gals...yes gals...u can get any gals u like on this same street too.

But we were much more busier stuffing our faces with pipping hot Takoyaki. Or busy buying all the limited edition Kit Kats, junk foods, chips in all flavours, biscuits but most of all fries LOL!!!

Every shop here screams for attention. This one is a cute one from Meiji, the selections that they have in Japan is amazing~~~~ the land of fun and cute food.

giant Gyoza on the billboard....
one could easy get entranced along Dotonbori with all these humourous billboard and signages.

We even have Giant Octopus here, reminded me of Dr. Octavius Brine from Penguins of Madagascar hahahahaha....u know the evil Octo that turned all cute pengis into mutated ones?

Giant Fugu fish....so it's obvious that this place serves the potent marine life hahaha. Yep we have eaten fugu before and it was OK.

Kudairo Taro playing drum. He's one of the main attraction here and the symbol of Osaka.
I can't remember how many times have we been to Dotonbori and still be mesmerised by all the energy exuded here. 

the running Glico Man....:))) they have so many flavours here in Japan.


Beautiful scallops being grilled on its shell. The aroma of seafood being grilled along this street was pretty intoxicating. Giant crabs, oysters, prawns and scallops...AaaAAAAaaaaa The aroma just attracted everyone to queue up for these mollusc.

small lil shop tucked in between all the "screamers"
We decided to be a lil bit touristy to dine along Dotonbori. Just for a change. Sometimes during our vacation, we'll make space, a night or two with no reservations anywhere just to eat what we think we feel like on that particular day/time.

Sowwyyyy...both of us are so meticulous, every travels come with itinerary, confirmation and reservation. It's always so well-planned so maybe for certain days it should be free and easy. I guess this was a practice at work...every itinerary has to be well planned, coordinated and efficient. 

So on a casual evening, we just tapped onto our phones to get some recommendations for grilled beef and found ourselves in this lil unassuming yakiniku place. So here we go CHEERS~~~~~

Sweet juicy tomatoes~~~

crunchy fresh cabbage...somehow the cabbage here are alwiz sweet with no tannin.

Nope it's not chicken guys....it's the pork cheeks!!! so yummy :))

homemade pork sausage...that nite we were so pigged out hahahaha

what's a yakiniku without some awesome beef with marblings??
hehehehhe

JS: "Monkey u ready?"
Monkey nodded...u are the chef...u cook!!! I'll just enjoy my Asahi...hahaha I feel like a man...alwiz :P

la la la la la
and JS grilled each piece to perfection, having learnt it from Chef Takashi Kimura during our trip last year to Sapporo.

more beef~~~ gimme gimme gimme

and it sizzles~~~~

It was a rustic and simple meal but extremely satisfying....and we ordered plates after plates of beef :))))

ended our meal with vanilla ice cream in frozen strawberries :))) What a delight

after our scrumptious meal, we walked around hunting for more bites among the huge neon billboard of Dotonbori. :)) If u find yourself with no plans, no reservations and have no idea what to eat, just head down to Dotonbori. Rest assured, u'll find something to nom nom nom but most of all to buy...hehehehe

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

This has got to be the major attraction here in this art museum. Designed by conceptual artist Leandro Erlich, an argentinian who has made it big international.

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art is located opposite the kenrokuen garden - which I have yet to blog, goodness!! GAH!!! Mr. JS we better move faster~~~~~~

The entire museum is of a circular shape and form...with multiple access....so one can approach it from any way they wanted. It's an art!! hahahaha I like the idea that there is no border, no boundary and no rules!!! That's how art should be isn't it? The two architects who gave a new breathe to the city of Kanazawa by designing this art museum were Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa. Both of them were recipients of Pritzker awards in 2010 for numerous designs and works created round the world. Now that I've found them, I'm gonna be chasing after their works round the world, from New York to France to Netherlands and around Japan :))) *new project for us JS!!!!*

Nope, that's not us...hahahaha....this visitor were happily posing for us to snap pics. That would be nice coz if there's no one down there, then a pic of this swimming pool would be meaningless.

and nope, it's not that he went swimming in his sweaters or that he can dive deep, it's just that there is another compartment/room on the basement.

Hello there~~~ now I could see ur face...
Where do you come from???? anyway most of the tourists who visit Kanazawa are Japanese. We hardly find anyone who speaks english or has got natural blond hair. I'm saying that coz these days u can get any hair color that u want.

Then we got down to the basement to visit the pool.
Come on readers, let's take a dive, or a quick swim in the winter months!!!

Where's the bubbles????

No one can do it better than Mr. JS!!!!
he's such a cartoon sometimes....but in reality he doesn't swim like this...kekekekeke

and we returned good deeds by doing all sorts of silly pose for visitors upstairs to have a kawaii pics...so I guessed we must have appeared on other ppl's Facebook or Instagram

>.<
hahahahahahahahaha
nope, I don't wanna see how I looked like and obviously I didn't not sprawl on the floor coz Monkey was wearing a dress :P

Nobody swims in their boots...oh well maybe except in emergency??

Come let's go up???

the sheet of water was only 10cm thick, suspended with glass. So in fact from the top, u could touch the water. I guessed the artist wanted to evoke the feeling of perception and cognition...but with humour. What u see may not be what you experience I guess? But it definitely did create a lot of interaction  among the viewers both above the pool, and those inside the pool. Now we gonna be chasing after his works next in New York :))))


the exterior of the museum is quite minimalist, with more works from other artist....Monkey got tired from running around and laid her bums on the mercury stools...notice there's a mercury speaker too? Designed by Florian Claar.

We then noticed there's many speakers being planted around the ground of the museum. U just gotta try and test which one is connected to which....and we did.

It works!!! this one was connected to another one 10 metres away...and u could really relay messages by talking to it...nope, u dun have to yell...it's just me being drama, as usual.

there were a few exhibition inside the museum, from architecture to anime :P

We really enjoyed the functional architecture especially to resolve problems caused by earthquakes. Temporary housing solutions for victims including a cathedral made from cardboard!!! So architect Shigeru Ban not only built housing solutions and hospitals for victims, he actually did build a cathedral made from cardboard in New Zealand and last week a few friends visited it in Christchurch.

There are a lot of works here in the museum but no photography allowed, including the Lights by James Turrell, which we visited in Naoshima last year.

Monkey got caged!!!
It's called "Wrapping" by Fernando Romero

But I was more intrigued by this simple work....It's called the Colour Activity House by Danish designer Olafur Eliasson....

it only consisted of 3 colored panels....of the 3 primary base colors - yellow, cyan and magenta. It's meant to be in this curved panel for a CMYK experience :))) the only cyan magenta that I know are my printers cartridges!!! *Smacks forehead*

See wat I mean??? Yellow and Cyan interlay n became green

Yellow and Magenta = Orange
while Cyan and Magenta = Purple

simple and yet clever. As we walked around, the colors change and made us glee in delights. This was what the artist wanted to produce --> Visual perceptions.
:)))))))))

this art museum is highly recommended and so near to all the nearby attractions. The other item that I like about this museum was its elevator!!!!

watch it here :)))

For more info on the museum:
https://www.kanazawa21.jp/en/

Back from trips

Stunning impromptu photo taken by Mr. JS :))))

We were passing by the harbour and AquaLuna was just round the corner picking up some guests. JS quickly clicked his shutters and he got such stunning results. When will I ever be able to emulate his nonchalant-ness. I guess you can't have it, u need to own certain qualities in life.

It has been really productive short trips, from Singapore for work and then off to Hong Kong for the weekend. Has been quite a beautiful journey for me, *the work trip* and I came back feeling even more passionate bout my job. Guess it's no longer a job, it's not even passion...I am infatuated by it.

Oh gawd, it's only my 3rd month.....I eat, drink, breathe, sleep and even dream about my career. And can never ever stop talking about it....but best of all, JS entertained all my deep talks and discussions. He's the best :)))) thank you and u will alwiz be number 1 in my life.  :)))

Trip to Hong Kong was also an impromptu one, with not many places left to visit that is within 3-4 hours flight max from Msia, that has got culture and good food and also with less tourists on Wesak day hence Thailand was already out of question. Due to the recent anti-Hong Kong and anti-China protests among these two, guess who visits Hong Kong now??? It's the Kimchi Koreans!!!! So we saw many beautiful reconstructed porcelain-skinned human beings walking around with selfie-sticks in the island. We should have photograph these beautiful human beings but was more bz indulging on the food instead. Hehehehee.

Have you been on Aqualuna? If you have not, it would be quite an experience though it's may been touristy for some of you :))

Check out the posting of our lil cruise back in 2010 *click here*
How time flies :))) so pls do have some patience, as we are busy sorting out more photos from our recent trips for future postings...also bz sorting out work :))) But both are alwiz with pleasure never pressure. That should be the way of life :))))

Have a amazing week there everyone :)))