My bikes take me lots of interesting places, each week I will be sharing the places I go, so you can go an explore on your bikes too!
Today we are starting with My Sweet Memory Cafe in Bathurst street in the city. It’s part meeting place, part coffee and tea and part stationary. It sounds odd but it really is the most wonderfully quirky blend of place and they make actual tea with real tea leaves not a tea bag! oh and amazing cake…the cake didn’t survive to the photo that’s how good it was.
Woke up to a stunningly sunny day and was sad that this would be our last day in Japan. But no time to mope we had to make the most of our last day.
Lockering our bags at Tokyo station we also took the time to book our tickets on the Narita Express train (NEX) it only leaves once an hour for the express so good idea to book ahead.
Some quality fashion spotting in Harajuku was next and then we finally found the green tea shop we’d been hunting for on the day of FAIL. Cho Cho Na Ma is super cute.
More cafe than tea shop so we decided to grab some lunch there. The food portions are so huge it kind of was like lunch and dinner rolled into one. But the prices were reasonable and the food was yummy.
Once again I had some issues with my ordering. The English description was sauteed ginger with vegetables and rice. I thought that sounded great and The Englishman had chosen hashed mushrooms. It turned out my sauteed ginger was sauted pork! So we swapped meals and all was well. The hashed mushrooms turned out to be a thick almost stew like mix of mushrooms, root vegetables and sauce on mixed rice. We also picked up some green tea to bring home with us.
We took a walk through the back streets of Harajuku to walk off the enormous food portions and finally found KiddyLand! It’s this great toy store which used to be on the main intersection but has been moved due to construction. We saw some be@rbricks there but decided to head back to Shibuya and 1/6 and get some more there before we left.
beautiful entrance in Harajuku
We'll miss seeing the enormous pimped out scooters
I'll miss seeing cute collections in windows
In Shibuya there was some kind of Pirates of the Carribbean treasure hunt walk on which of course meant someone dressed up their cat as a pirate.
Some shopping and a stop at 1/6 to pick up more be@rbricks and then head on over to Akihabra but not before once last crazy dash through Shibuya crossing.
At Aikihabra we went to Yobidashi electronics store and got a few pieces including a crazyily tacky pink hello kitty phone cover for me (I mean if you can’t leave Japan with one totally pink crazy accessory what’s the point of going to Japan? ha ha no really it was so bad I had to have it).
Back at Tokyo station we were packing the days purchases into our luggage when The Englishman asked me for the be@rbricks. I said you’ve got them, he said no you’ve got them. Searching through our bags from the day and they weren’t there, they’d been lost. I was devastated, even though they weren’t very expensive they were something we’d brought ourselves from our trip and I’d lost them. With not enough time to go back and search for them there was nothing to do but wait for the NEX and in my case have a cry. Such a bad way to end such a good holiday I was just so upset at having ruined everything.
At the airport we were leaving from the second terminal and almost nothing was open, nowhere to get food and the only stores were luxury handbag places so it was impossible to even buy some snacks for the plane. Jetstar had changed our original flight plan so now we were going from Narita to Osaka and then on to Cairns before having an 8 hour wait in Cairns before heading to Sydney.
We’d been told when we booked in at Narita to not get any liquids there but to wait and get them in Osaka as we’d have to go through a second security check. Problem was once we got to Osaka the stores were all closed. Literally only one tiny little cafe was open. It sold out of almost everything as everyone was trying to get some food for the flight and buy a drink. Plus it meant no duty free of any kind. Nice way to screw over your customers Jetstar.
The flight ended up leaving after midnight local time. Being a night flight we thought they’d have the lights turned down and we’d get some sleep and it would make a long flight seem not too bad. How wrong we were. It seems Jetstar no longer has hosts on it’s flights more like sales people who ruthlessly shove their overpriced crap products at you relentlessly for the length of the flight. Till well after 3am it was the sales assistants walking the aisles calling out over and over again what products they had and how you could purchase them for. Finally the lights were slightly dimmed but only for about 2 hours because by 5am the sales pitches started again and continued for the rest of the flight.
Arriving at Cairns airport with almost no sleep and no food since lunch the following day you are then shoved through the duty free store which only stocks to most common of alcohol and none of the Sake we’d actually hoped to pick up from the Japanese duty free (considering Jetstar flew us via a route that made it impossible to buy any duty free I would take a guess they either own the duty free store in Cairns or at least are shareholders in it).
Through customs and picked up our bags and headed straight to the domestic terminal where we were greeted with the sight of huge numbers of bike bags and boxes. Seems a triathalon had been on over the weekend and everyone was heading home.
Speaking to some of the ground staff I managed to get us on the next flight to Sydney instead of having to wait till almost 4pm to get on a flight (it was now about 8am). A quick flight back to Sydney then a train and finally back to a very noisy but well cared for cat.
It was a wonderful holiday but just so upset that the last few hours were ruined by me losing the be@rbricks and then by the horrible flight back.
So for awhile now I’ve been sticking to my 1200 calories per day with one cheat meal a week*. Some days are a breeze and other days I don’t feel hungry as such but more that “am bored want something to eat” mindless eating that so many of us fall trap to.
While one of the tricks I use to prevent this useless kind of eating is to drink water some days I find a cup of tea even better. Black tea with no milk or sugar is zero calories. I have black teas with flavours added, herbal teas, green teas, actually pretty much name any kind of tea and we have it. Not only does it taste delicious the very act of making a pot of tea (no teabags real tea leaves only) and sitting down to a cup of tea makes you relax and as you tend to drink slowly it helps your mind think you are full and suddenly the mid afternoon snack attack is gone and you didn’t consume any unnecessary calories.
Afternoon tea from Monday
For some yummy tea check out T2 and for more information on tea in general take a look at Tea Classified a great book packed with information on all things Tea.
*a 1200 calorie diet is not suitable for everyone. If you wish to lose weight research and visit your doctor before limiting your calories. If you just want to be more vigilant with your food choices then reach for the cup of tea rather than the cake at morning tea time.
As a creator of things I love to see how things are made. Be it from cooking to movie making I love seeing the processes. So each week I’m going to share a few photos from around the studio with you so you can have a sneak peek into the inner workings of the Rocket Fuel studio.
Afternoon tea with two new magazines to read, the ever lovely frankie and the 2nd issue of Treadlie.
Today’s tea is New Zealand breakfast by T2 a light black tea with a hint of kiwi flavour. Yummy but not too heavy so perfect for that mid afternoon break. The staff of the two closest T2 stores know us by name we are in there so often to restock our shelves.
After an early morning ride on Sunday the road bikes got some TLC with a clean. While they weren’t overly dirty it was a good chance to get rid the road grime, droppings from fig trees and re oil the chains.
They looked very sparkly in the sunlight after we’d finished but I forgot to snap a pic to share. Of course cleaning the bikes did mean that it had to rain today though didn’t it?
The last of the cat toys. I know I had a large collection of small mice, feathers and sparkly balls for mini to play with but she seems to have squirrelled them away someplace and this is the sorry collection of toys leftover. So high on the to do list is to make some more toys for her to play with. Might even make her a new bed for the winter time so she has something to snuggle up in when she’s not trying to steal the blankets off me!
