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Address: Assorted places in Karuizawa and Tokyo

A best friend’s wedding invite. A small gathering of friends in a foreign country. A celebration by close knit friends from childhood. It was an anticipated trip. A joyous getaway. A memorable excursion. A journey to remember for the couple and attendees alike.

The journey started with a flight on the national carrier. Professional stewardess with heavy makeup paid careful attention to all the passengers (with probably some additional care given to those with the fairer skin tone). A renowed inflight service. A world class outfit (one of the few world class tags that our country boasts that I agree with). Similarly, you can expect high quality food even in the economy section.

Pickles and cold fish. Bread and butter. Cold soba noodles to be dipped in soy sauce. Miso flavoured beef with rice. And dessert was Magnum ice cream.

Touch down in Narita Airport, Tokyo. Efficient, quiet, business-like. Words to describe the scene at the airport. Perhaps punctuated with the boisterous laughter of an american, the scowl of an European, the chatter of an asian…Rushing through customs and the baggage belt, to stake a claim on the 745pm train to Tokyo station. There was no time to lose, no delay that can be afforded. The train leaves on time. It waits for no man. The train stewards rush me through with haste. They provide gentle shouts. Me getting on the train on time was somehow of personal interest to them. Thankfully, I did not let them down.

Tokyo train station was a blur of people. Everyone striding with purpose through the underground halls. The tourists all look lost. They struggle to avoid the crowd. They mutter probably the only Japanese phrase they have learnt “sumimasen” or sorry. I had not had my dinner. A quick buy of the take-out bento at the local food outlet there would suffice. I hurried to my connecting train to Karuizawa. Settling down, I began to unpack my food. A bustle of activity suddenly erupted near my seat as a group of the locals boarded the train. They gestured and seem perplexed at my presence. A few more gestures and a lot of uttering of “sumimasen” from me later, I evicted myself from the train. I had hopped onto a train bound for destination “somewhere else rather than Karuizawa”.

Thanking the stars for small miracles I got the right train.. The locals on the train all had little packages of food. Seems like a common thing to have dinner on the trains.

This particular bento (850 yen) was quite a popular item at the store. There was rice sprinkled with egg bits and olive rice. The centre compartment was the various cold meat and fried chicken. There was even a siew mei embedded inside. The right most compartment contained broiled beef and rice again.

Upon arrival in Karuizawa, a boys’ night was hastily arranged. It was a sleepy town. We settled on the singular drinking joint left open at 11pm. Drinks flowed. “kempai” was shouted liberally. Sake was poured continously into our cups. It was one of the best nights ever. We roamed Karuizawa unhindered. We danced on the streets at night. We sang our school song. We hugged, we rejoiced, we celebrated the ending of bachelorhood for our dearest friend.

As an indication of how inebriated we were, do note how easy it was to encourage the groom to partake in the utterly pointless act of throwing one’s own luggage in the air (he was to regret it a subsequent moment later..).

It was not all fun & games for me though. There was a slight tinge of sadness. The realisation that there will not be many chances for us to do the same shit anymore. It was bitter sweet. I would have teared a bit if not for the fact that I was rather dehydrated from peeing all over town (the person in the picture wasn’t me btw).

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Probably the reason why the next day was sombre in comparison. Lunch was a quick affair at one of the eateries.

Miso Ramen (850 Yen) was, to say the least rather healthy, with a generous dose of vegetables.

Proceeded by lots of shopping at the nearby factory outlets. It was a case of the feminine side in us going wild as we basically splurged half of our travel budget on the shopping.

A cool down at the hot springs was also on the afternoon agenda. A day in which we saw too many wrinkled scrotums for our liking.

The main event was due. Everyone was dressed in their finest. It was reminiscent of our prom night. The difference being that the limelight would only be on the wedding couple. The parents were there. A hint of anxiety but beaming with joy. The bride and groom arrived. They were stunning. They were the celebrities. They posed as flashes exploded around them. This was their night.

A simple ceremony at a outdoor chapel.

A toasting of the newly weds and an ushering to the long awaited wedding dinner - French food. Due to the fact that the menu was in French, which would be totally greek to me, I do apologise for mixing up the names of the dishes. I will welcome any help I can get in assigning the right names to the food items.

Fritto de crevette (or whatever is left of it).

Royale de ormeau aux “YUBA”.

Supe de amandes en consomme gelee.

Croquette de porc au pomme.

Carpaccio de turbo en sesame.

Saint-jacqus en mousseline saveur noilly-prat.

Salade de canard a la japonaise

Tartare de “SAKURAMASU” en sauce varie

Le filetde daurade poele basilic aux tomate.

Core de boeuf enrobe de gros sel aux herb.
Roti de homard sauce beurre blanc.

Risotto a la saison-legumest.

Grand-dessert.

To kev, wishing you the best in your wedding, the road ahead, and to our friendship. “Kempai”.

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The festivities concluded…It would be back to Singapore for us. But not without some sightseeing at Tokyo and a gastronomical account of mine and my buddies’ adventure. It was always going to be an adventure due to our complete lack of understanding of the Japanese language.

First off, we stumbled into a Garlic restaurant that specialised in western and korean cuisine. No Japanese food here…hmm. We picked the next best thing then .. Bibimbap (800 yen)!!

Dinner was Yakiniku - bbq meat (1500 yen each for a table of 4) . Yeah baby. It was smoky. It was noisy. It was good fun.

Supper was at a Udon restaurant with an interesting concept. We get to pick our udon dish and have side dishes of tempura prawns, tempura squid, tempura vegetables (average price of 600 yen)…

It was also the venue of the epic battle of “Chi Ku Pak” between the dudes on who would get to sleep on the only available single bed in our hotel room. I lost. Thus a night of relative misery as me and my hopefully straight dude snuggled into bed rather awkwardly.

The next morning, my friend had a brunch appointment with a local gal he had just had the fortune of making the acquaintance of. I was the self-appointed wingman (aka. tag along, sidekick, non-important person, hanger-on..you get the picture). It was also the occasion where we had a rather bed bout of ramen (800 yen) served on us.

Followed by Japanese baseball. Yeah baby. This means beer and hotdogs (380 yen). The food of champions..heh.

My bud and I then went for Crepe (around 300 yen) at Harujuku. At around this time, a distinctive unease at the fact that I was spending so much time with a guy was creeping up on me. This was compounded when we found ourselves the only two guys among a queue of girls going for the decidedly girly food…

And if you would have noticed now, there was a distinct lack of fresh, raw seafood in our diet. To remedy that, we stepped into the first Sushi restaurant we could find. We started well enough by picking off plates of the sushi from the conveyor belt. Then disaster struck. We ordered from the menu. We agreed on the choice of the Futomaki. This was despite warnings that it would be a huge portion. Thus, any other food options was swiftly eleminated when we saw the huge mountain of rice that we would have to ingest.

THE Futomaki. (We swear the chef and the waitresses were sniggering when they presented this monstrosity to us…it may not be apparent but each piece of Futomaki was fist-sized). Anyway, our meal came up to only 600 yen per person..I guess rice is cheap over in Japan.

The following day’s plan of going to the Tokyo fish market morning auction followed by morning sushi was discarded due to laziness and the desire to sleep in (”the fish market will always be there” I quote the eloquent argument for staying in bed ) .. Instead we had curry rice for lunch (350 ~ 600 yen) at Akihabara.

Order your phone at the ticket vending machine and present it at the counter for the food. Simple, elegant and elminates the need for a cashier.

We actually saw a guy just having curry sauce and rice (around 180 yen). Sigh..the plight of the poor.

A farewell at the airport and a conclusion to 5 days of revelry.

To properly finish off this entry (I attribute this to my anal personality), this was what I had for my inflight meal on the return trip. Teriyaki Beef with rice.

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