T.C.S.S #2 - Japanese food and neko

I am just going to ramble on and on today. No specific topic in mind.

kuro.shiro.neko was blogging about all the great Japanese food she had the other day and it got me drooling again, even though it was after a very hearty fan chai lunch from the canteen.

I guess that she may be making a trip to Hokkaido soon. Then her meow meows how? For us, it is always such a difficult decision whenever we need to leave for long trips. What will happen to those little monsters when we are away? Will they miss us? Will they miss the human companionship? Who will clear their litter ad fill their water and food dish? Never an easy decision to make. Luckily for us, my MIL likes the little monsters and is willing to make the daily trip to our place to do the kitty chores and keep them company for an hour or two. That sort of eases our minds a lot more.

Ah, good things in Hokkaido. We made a 9-day trip there last year in Aug which was the end of the summer season. Quite hot. We were hoping for milder temperatures.

It was our first trip to Japan and I would have to say that Japan was like how it looked like on Japan Hour. Very clean and systematic with very friendly and helpful natives. It was a breeze to move around even though both of us do not speak a word of Japanese.

We had always wanted a big big 招财猫 from Japan but it seems that Hokkaido does not really have a good selection. The only place we found some good招财猫 was from a small little shop in Otaru. Very good workmanship and it would have cost us another 20% to 30% more if we had bought it in Taka Singapore.

But what did left a deep impression on us was all those good food we have. Heavenly. Very single meal. K.S.N (I think I got it right this time), you must try this yakitori shop if you are in Sapporo. This yakitori shop is damn good. Locals and office workers frequent it and we were the only foreigners there. The shop only has Japanese menus and we took the dinner set after a lot of referencing to our Japanese phrase book. Price is a bit on the high side but the food was real good.

Name of shop: Palace Toriyoshi (don’t know the Japanese name)
Map reference: S5 W5
Address: Japan Land Building 2nd Flr
Nearest tube station: Susukino (3 mins walk)

This shop is rather difficult to find but it is right in the middle of the soapland district (I hope you know what soapland refers to in Japan). The environment is a bit shady but full of eye candy. So much to see but nothing to do. Too bad the Wife was walking beside me.  Hahahaha…

Now for the neko in Hokkaido. We stumbled into this super big pet shop in Sapporo which sells goldfish to puppies to a single monkey to snakes to kittens. This is a very well run shop and all the animals there are very well taken care of. We spent quite some time in the kitten section and there were so many breeds there. Abyssinians, BSH, Ragdolls, Persians and some I can’t remember. The kittens are very well taken care of. They are very lively and healthy with bright clean eyes and ears. Their noses look clean and even their little nails are clipped. It puts all the pet shops in Singapore to shame as I think the best in Singapore is nowhere near that standard.

Ok, back to the pet shop in Sapporo. Very beautiful and healthy kittens. When we saw the Abyssinian, we went crazy as it reminded so much of our Chang Chang. And the shop girl even let us cuddle the little thing (after disinfecting our hands. Wow wow, super good habits the Japanese have) even though she knows that we are tourists and will not be buying anything. We showed her Chang Chang’s baby pics and we got a Japanese machine gun reply from her. All I caught was “kawaii”. So if you are in Sapporo, take a peek. I think it is called the Sapporo Factory and is a 12-minute walk from the Sapporo Beer Museum. Map reference is N2E4 Chuo Ku.