Trip to Japan and Hong Kong

2024-09-24

Joanne and I went to Japan and China again! The itinerary is: three nights in Tokyo, three in Hong Kong, about a week in Zhuhai (with a one night trip to Guangzhou in between), and a night in Macao.

1 Sunday 2024-09-08: Arrival in Japan

We took Japan Airlines flight JL1 from SFO to HND.

We stayed at All Day Place Shibuya, a hotel catered to Westerners.

1.1 Ikebukuro

My friend Andrew and his wife made a special one hour trip to grab dinner with us in Ikebukuro. We had pork skewers (yakiton), along with two of my other friends.

I then grabbed Joanne and one of my friends to see Uonami Fish Bar in Toshima city. Apparently, this shop is a meme photo spot on Reddit and other social media sites. Little did I know, a festival was going on with a huge amount of people! Also, we had trouble navigating Ikebukuro station (we didn’t have cellular data since I left my phone with free data roaming at home in California), so going to the fish bar was a terrible ordeal that took an hour for what we thought was a mere one mile trip. We were exhausted from the flight, and extremely grumpy as a result!

2 Monday 2024-09-09: Akihabara and tempura

2.1 Breakfast in Shibuya: Shinpachi Shokudo

We went to Shinpachi Shokudo for a quick and cheap breakfast. I got a grilled mackerel teishoku. It was quite affordable:

Set (teishoku): ￥440
Raw egg addon: ￥30
Negitoro (minced tuna with scallions) addon: I forgot but it was very cheap

2.2 Lunch in Akihabara: Gyukatsu

Four of my friends and I went to Akihabara for sightseeing.

For lunch, we had Gyu Katsu Motomura. It’s lightly fried steak which you then grill to your desired doneness. It was very delicious — the beef was very tender and marbled, and the batter was very light.

You grill the meat to your desired level.

Sofmap, known for its cool escalator tubes.

We got ice cream at Azabu Sabo and then went shopping for camera lenses! We went to Yodobashi Camera as well as Lemon and 2nd Base by Sanpou Camera. However, I didn’t find any good lenses to buy.

2.3 Back to Shibuya

Shibuya Crossing seen from the metro station.

I spotted a really cool Porsche 930 slantnose! There are lots of cool cars in Shibuya. I am not sure if this was an original slantnose — only 948 units were built in total. Slantnoses were each built by hand by remodeling the front fenders and cost up to 60% more than the standard price at the time.

I took a shower and rested a bit at our hotel.

2.4 Dinner in Roppongi: Tempura Yokota

For dinner, we booked Tempura Yokota. It’s situated right next to the similarly-named Ten Yokota, which is Michelin starred. Tempura Yokota is supposed to be the (slightly) inferior of the two. It was run by the dad of the guy who runs Ten Yokota, until 2021, when he was replaced by another one of his apprentices. Just like Ten Yokota, this apprentice is also apparently much better than his master.

To save space, I’ll just post eight out of the 21 courses.

2.5 Post-dinner in Shibuya

We went to SOAK at the top floor of Sequence Hotel on Miyashita Park.

Some kind of cocktail. In the background is my friend Anting.

View of the Shibuya Sky Tree and Miyashita Park.

3 Tuesday 2024-09-10: Shibuya, Shinjuku

For breakfast, we had western food in our hotel, that is, Good cheese good pizza. It’s actually really good.

Then we went to Google Japan for second breakfast!

3.1 Lunch: Unaju

We went to Unagi Toku. It’s not as good as Unatetsu which we went to in December 2023, but still vastly better than almost any unagi in the US. The unagi was very charred and smoky which is great.

In the afternoon, I went to Map Camera Shinjuku to hunt for lenses. However, I didn’t find any that I wanted. I was looking for a fast 50mm or 35mm lens that would work reasonably on both my line scan camera and my Fuji GFX camera, but the Voigtländer Nokton 50mm f/1.2 VM is discontinued and impossible to find, and the 50mm f/1.5 is out of stock until November. Oh well.

Anyway, I met up with an online friend, Jake, and we chatted about cameras and then went to take photos of trains!

Voigtländer lenses are cheap at Map Camera in Japan.

3.2 Dinner: Izakaya

We went to Shirubee for dinner. It’s a very local Japanese restaurant where everyone there was Japanese, and the menu was handwritten in Japanese. Fortunately, we can read a bit of Japanese. We ordered a ton of food including the grilled mackerel and pacific saury.

Grilled mackerel. Nothing A015 with , 4.7 mm, F1.9, 1/100 s, ISO 454.

Grilled pacific saury (sanma no shioyaki). It was circled in a big red circle on the handwritten menu so we knew it had to be good. Nothing A015 with , 4.7 mm, F1.9, 1/100 s, ISO 428. — Grilled pacific saury (*sanma no shioyaki*). It was circled in a big red circle on the handwritten menu so we knew it had to be good. Nothing A015 with , 4.7 mm, F1.9, 1/100 s, ISO 428.

Sashimi moriawase. Nothing A015 with , 4.7 mm, F1.9, 1/100 s, ISO 418.

4 Wednesday 2024-09-11: Flight to Hong Kong

4.1 Breakfast in Shibuya: Ichiran

Upon waking up, we had Ichiran Ramen for breakfast.

Then we went to Blue Bottle Coffee for second breakfast! They had a cheesecake brulee which is a Shibuya-exclusive item.

4.2 Morning stroll in Yoyogi Park

4.3 Lunch: Ochazuke

We went to Komeraku which was right next to Unagi Toku from yesterday’s lunch. We were too lazy to search for food based on reviews and despite its rather average rating on Tabelog (which we looked up after the fact), it was still delicious.

Then we took the train to the airport!

4.4 Second lunch: Sushi

I got some takeout sushi at the airport just before boarding the flight to Hong Kong.

4.5 Dinner: Barbecue rice

At the Hong Kong airport we got a late dinner. I got roast goose and soya sauce chicken on rice.

5 Thursday 2024-09-12: Palace Museum

5.1 Breakfast: Cha chaan teng

First we took the tram to get breakfast.

We got breakfast at the Milk Cafe.

5.2 Extreme lens shopping

After breakfast, we went to Sim City in Mong Kok to hunt for camera lenses. This was a terrible mistake since most shops only open at noon! However, I did manage to find a Voigtländer Ultron 35mm f/1.7 which works surprisingly well on the Fuji GFX camera. It cost me HKD 3500. This lens would be very useful for taking line scan photos of trams.

The lens I bought, mounted on the line scan camera.

5.3 Lunch: Rùn

For lunch we went to the Rùn restaurant with two Michelin stars.

Most delicious fried rice we have ever had.

Overall, it was extremely delicious and highly recommended. The service was also outstanding.

5.4 Palace Museum

After lunch, we took a ferry to Kowloon.

Watching the ferry depart as we just missed it upon arriving at the ferry terminal.

We went to the Hong Kong Palace Museum, which was recently built in 2022. It’s very spacious and the exhibits are great. The architecture of the museum is also quite nice. Like many emperors of the late Qing Dynasty, I enjoyed looking at the very elaborate clocks.

5.5 Dinner: Wonton noodle

For dinner we took the bus to Shek Kee Wan Ton. The owner looks very mean but is actually very nice once you start talking to her. The restaurant is very old school and has many photos of celebrities on the wall.

After wontons we went back to the hotel.

Extreme bamboo scaffolding on the Pak Lee Mansion!

6 Friday 2024-09-13: Kennedy Town and the Peak

6.1 Breakfast: Porridge

For breakfast we went to Chung Kee Congee Shop. Whereas Joanne got the porridge, I got the cheong fun. It was decent but not too amazing compared to the thin, wrinkly ones we later got in Zhuhai. I guess they are more known for their porridge.

6.2 Kennedy Town

In Kennedy Town, there is a well known meme photo spot at a basketball court. You’re supposed to take a photo through a hole that someone dug in a chain link fence. So we went there — here’s the resulting photo.

View of Kennedy Town from a basketball court.

I accidentally messed it up since I had leaves in the frame on the right side. If you time it right, you can see a large variety of modes of transportation, including ships, trams, buses, cars, and so on.

Stonecutter's bridge. — Stonecutter’s bridge.

Then we got coffee with a whippet!!! The whippet is a four month old female puppy belonging to a guy who is trying to set up an ecommerce business. The puppy was imported from Australia and is very cute. She can run very fast!

6.3 Lunch: Famous Hong Kong food

We went to Sheung Hei for some classic Hong Kong dishes.

6.4 Monster Building

In the afternoon it was too hot so Joanne stayed in the hotel while I went exploring.

My friend spaqin took me to see the Yick Cheong building, affectionately nicknamed the Monster Building. He used to live there! It has two atria, the first one which is more popular since it is colourful and enclosed by another building, and the second one which is a bit more drab. But I actually prefer the second one.