Jonbu the baker

I love this place. It’s almost like a mini theme park inside a classy building. It’s got western style gates, a grand staircase, and the soothing dessert buffet. You get to see all the dessert chefs at work behind the glass walls that make up the bakery, while tasting the finely crafted desserts. Best of all, admission is free (Pay for the buffet).

“Factory Factory Factory”

I tuned this picture red for my own liking. The original colour of the building does not fit with the rest of the street.
Somehow there’s an excess amounts of powerlines running on the streets surrounding the chocolate factory. Must all be connected to their animatronic clock, and the six giant speakers that pumps out disturbingly wholesome lahlahlah-ing song.

“it’s..closed”

That’s what this picture is trying to trick you into thinking. The factory was open. This was just a side gate. I guess they open it when the nekobus comes.

“chip chop away”

This special cake is freshly cut when you ask for it. They also give you the sauce to your liking. After about 2 hours they throw the un-served portions away and bring out a new roll.

“Desserts Desserts Desserts”

v

Most of the cakes are not so heavy. They’re really light and lives up to the Ishiya name. They don’t make it heavy or extra sweet like what the chinese buffet people would to do in Richmond.

“Cakes”

With the buffett you’re free to go up and ask for any cake you want.

“Everything else”

Sandwiches, chocolates, puddings, and what else are over there.

“So.. painful..”

This is shyaarii at her very last piece of chocolate. It’s really heavy, I gotta admit. Not sure if she actually ate that piece, or put it back down. She went and get icecream soon after, tho.

“I don’t think i should move”

This is stibu contemplating. People don’t usually smile when they’re in deep thoughts. I’m sure that grin is just the semi-permanent side effect of the buffet.

“chill, have some tea”

And I’m just all relaxed, having tea like a gentleman I am.

“Mona Lisa”

She’s great. Always grinning.

“Atom”

He’s great too.

“The grand staircase”

It’s great.

These Gun Gun Fish Sausages from Glico are really great snacks. Today I took the effort of finding my scissors and opened it the controversial way.

“Shiny at the tip”

And I can’t believe downloading pictures from a canon took so much effort.

(More Hokkaido posts coming up. Hopefully.)

First day of our Hokkaido trip. I have No Inspiration for this post.. not after staring blankly, daydreaming, sitting in hot water.. kk i’ll do it freestyle and wing it.

“ is emailing again?”

There’s looking all innocent and confused, just like her bb pictures that I’ve yet to see. Steve’s at his beloved keitai. This is at the airport, by the way. We just got our tickets and checked in, ready to go to the boarding gate. We arrived too early so had too much time.

“Another Macro shot”

This is at the boarding gate. We took like 15 pictures each because it was so exciting just sitting there. Plus we had too much time.

“Wow, they printed our names in katakana”

These names don’t mean a thing, unlike international tickets. Wow, my thumb is so slender. at this angle you can almost see steve on the ground. is he still on his keitai..?

“Aye, can’t eat mos burger here”

The only way to eat a mos burger in Gifu would be to bike almost an hour. Seeing a mos burger 15 steps away is really enticing. Throughout the trip I saw various McDonalds and KFC. And kfc smells so good, especially in the snow. If only they have KFC ramen. Warrrrgh..

“I feel like bungie-jumping”

This is the view from our Sheraton hotel room. It looks great at night. But no, I didnt take a night shot on day one. Can’t put it in this post.

“We know no shame”


This is on the sapporo subway. We barbaric gaigin went in and took the only available courtesy seats. Handycap, Elderly, Pregnant. We’re neither, but we’re gaigin. Of course we’d have offered the seats when the opportunity comes.

“I love McDonalds”

See? McDonalds. I didnt imaginarily place various McDonalds on the streets I walked by. (just to make sure, there is a McDonalds in this picture, right?) And this is near the ramen street of Susukino, which also happens to be the home of the overly famed Keyaki ramen.

“Chashu mo NAI”

The Keyaki ramen line up. Not that long until you realize how slowly it moves. And especially when you realize that you’re waiting for the chashu ramen that’ll never materialize. “Chashu mo NAI” will be a good title if I were to write a book about this hokkaido trip.

“Who cares about chashu”

ste-”sexy-beast-inside”-bu struck a conversation with the lonely girl behind us in the lineup, and we chatted like 4 namacha pandas. Her name is Chie. She’s from Osaka, works for a milk company that also has office in hokkaido, and she lined up for plain miso ramen with no toppings. Took the picture, but never really exchanged contacts.
She finished her ramen before us, and disappeared into the snowy glittering streets of susukino.

“Poster child ramen, right in front of you”

My personal keyaki ramen. I was disappointed that there’s no big chunks of meat. Good ramen nevertheless. The store lady was quick to kick us out into sub zero temperature once we finished. I guess if it weren’t for her, the line would’ve been longer than the 1 1/2 hours that we endured.

“Slurp”

This pretty much ended my day. We walked around susukino more, but I somehow forgot about taking pictures. Must be because of the cold. We walked around trying to look for second dinner, but no avail. Saw many girls in short skirts, while we were wrapped in jackets. By the way, this is a good chance to check out my new haircut.

I went for a haircut yesterday. Wanted to get one in Nagoya, but in an effort to save a measly few hundreds of yen, I got one locally. Never thought I’d get a haircut at a salon built for farmers. But this is Japan. Even farmers are a stylish bunch that does street racing in the middle of the night, waking up neighbouring sanyo intern students in their sleep with the engine revving.

It was called “Salon France”. The salon itself was pretty much an extension of someone’s home. The door at the back of the salon leads to the guy’s house.

When he was working on me, his head was always turned to the tv at my 4 o’clock position. The world’s greatest show, the Japanese “Who wants to be a millionaire” was on. When I first came to Japan, that show’s suspense would kill me, many times over. At the answer-revealing moment, they would take the drumroll soundtrack from the American version, and loop it eight times. And I’d keep wanting to watch more of it. Now I’ve gotten numb to the way they create suspense. It’s gonna be so boring when I go back to Canada.

Here’s some initial feedback I got when I returned:
(Paraphrased into jonygrammar)

Steve: “You actually look more Japanese than you did with that previous cut from HK.”

Alex: “This isn’t much of a haircut, it’s more of a dye job.”

Boss: “O! Ohaiyoo gozaimasu”

Co-worker: “I called you earlier”

Not to confuse the matter, I was half an hour late this morning. My co-worker was asked to call me. Incidently I forgot my cellphone on my floor when I left, so never got the call. This lateness cancelled out the haircut. So all is good.

Shirley surprised me with this picture. (“oh my god”).That’s me having a haircut in oblivion, totally oblivious to her presence.

“The Anpachi salon with someone in it, for once.”

As you can tell she was probably laughing while taking this.

Here’s what she had to say about this picture:
“keekee.”
.

Me and alex rode our bikes in freezing air alongside that secret river everyone knows about, and arrived at the landmark carved stone of the Ume garden. Shirley greeted us at reception with a whole grilled squid in hand. We were rushed to the food voucher line up, and the next thing we know we were all eating Ika-yaki at the fureai koonaa table.

“So good”

“This is really good. But why are we here again?”
“Oh yeah, the ume”
“I’m a little thursty”
“I’ll go buy some tea”

We went back to the food voucher line up and got Omatcha vouchers. After wandering around in search of people willing to spare us tea in exchange for the pieces of paper, someone pointed us to the building and said “Naka, Naka.”

“Very green tea”

We were gestured by the old lady to sit down in the tatami room, and while looking around being excited, some ladies in kimono handed us giant bowls with thick green tea in them. “Please have some okashi.” The sweets looked like giant erasers, but tasted really good. I canNOT tell what it’s made of. Likely erasers.

“Hello Alex, Hello Shirley”

(repeat photo, so I will shrink it.)

When we got out it’s already snowing. And we headed towards the Ume in case we eventually forget all about it. Casually walking over to the garden, a crowd of photographers stunned me. The ume they’ve found must have been pretty damn spectacular.

“Think of all the films”

Of course no ume in the world can entice Japanese men (and me) like the Japanese girls do.

“I call her Umeko”

I wonder if this girl lives in Anpachi.

Right, the Ume. Half the shots I forgot to use the macro mode, and the other half I just randomly took whatever. Good thing randomness always ensures some probability of success (If there are zero probablilty for success, than it’s not called random, it’s called sabotage). (I need a new camera!)

“Red”

“White”

After the chore was done, we celebrated with Tai-yaki. It tasted extra good knowing that it was handled by a rough, likely unwashed, professional, tai-yaki-handling hand. Gives it an extra fatherly touch.

“Tai yaki”

I liked this day because it was so easy and fun. No planning needed, no struggling with speaking polite Japanese (everyone was casual), no trains to miss, no police that would come and ask me for ID.

I would want to go back again next week, and the week after, but this was a once-a-year event that’ll never come again in my lifetime. Oh well, there’s always the Richmond night market.