Fresh off the hook at Jiro-san's

Written by Travis Chan




Our group had the opportunity of visiting Tsukiji Fish Market two days ago and while we left the hotel a bit too early for our brains to fully function, we were certain about one thing – that we were definitely in for a treat for breakfast today!

Tsukiji Fish Market is a wholesale market for fish, fruits and vegetables in central Tokyo. Think about it as Japan's equivalent of our country's Jurong Fishery Port, except we were at the area for quite possibly THE sashimi meals of our lives, served as fresh as you can get off the hook at a small street laden with little shops that seat no more than 10 to 15 people.

The reason for our early arrival was due to the fact that long queues for the restaurants start as early as 8am, from both locals and tourists alike, ergo explaining the need for us to get there pronto!

Along with fellow travelmates Charmaine, Jerald, Nicolene and Xavier, the five of us settled for one of the smaller restaurants with a simple exterior decor that made its presence so inconspicuous, we didn't even notice that there was nobody queuing outside of it when we were walking down the street!

While the other restaurants had vibrant, elaborate visuals displayed neatly right by the entrance for potential customers to see what they're going for, this one had none of that, which probably meant that deciding to dine there was not the best decision considering there was a dubious exterior and lack of a queue compared to the other stores. But craving for an adventure, we took the risk nonetheless. How wrong can sashimi go when you're at the fishery itself anyway?

To our surprise, the interior of this little shop was stunningly different – the walls were covered entirely with photographs of the shop owner posing happily beside people who have patronised his humble restaurant previously, mostly tourists, and pictures of the menu items. The shop space was just barely 4 metres wide and could only seat about 10 people at a time.

The owner, Jiro-san, was enthusiastic in greeting us and was surprisingly rather fluent in English! He then proceeded to serve us green tea in big mugs, which we found out upon scrutiny came from various countries in the world. My cup was from a Starbucks in Switzerland, and Jerald's was a mug from Taiwan.

What made this an interesting experience was the fact that the Jiro-san backpacks often and is able to speak a total of 9 different languages, including English, Mandarin and even Thai! I can't even master my own mother tongue, and thinking about learning another 7 languages fluently just sounds like a nightmare.

He even took the effort to teach us basic Japanese, such as saying "onegaishimasu", meaning "please" and gave useful examples that we can apply to our stay in Japan. He even used Singlish comparisons to aid us in our learning - instead of saying "Ok lah" and "Thank you lah", you simply replace it with "Ok desu" and "Thank you desu". Yes, Jiro-san knows his fish, but he sure knows how to teach Japanese too!



Jiro-san's restaurant has amassed widespread media coverage over the years, including our very own 8days publication! He proudly showed us a collection of magazine clippings, mostly reviews of his restaurant, as we devoured our sashimi bowls, which we all agreed was the best breakfast we've had in our lives.

I think what impressed me the most about Jiro-san was the fact that not only was he well-travelled, but he even took the effort to learn and remember characteristics of each culture he experienced. I think we can all learn from this because learning about someone's culture is not always about asking questions. It's all about listening - and not forgetting what you encountered.

Upon mentioning Singapore, Jiro-san was immediately able to tell us about Jurong (of all places!), Singlish, and many other things that are uniquely Singaporean. This guy clearly knows what he’s talking about.

Japan’s service standards are probably one of the highest in the world, and Jiro-san has clearly shown us that hospitality goes beyond work efficiency and smiles. I will probably patronise his humble restaurant again when I come back, and bring back this photo for him to add to his wall collection!

22 Students, 1 Cup

Written by Travis Chan




We are all too familiar with instant noodles. Despite our parents' warnings that our luscious locks of hair would fall out if we eat too much, it's still our number one go-to food when those hunger pangs kick in in the middle of the night.

Yes, we all feel disgusted by ourselves after slurping up an entire bowl of classic chicken-flavoured maggi mee at 3am in the morning, but at least this revolutionary invention has saved the world from hearing more rumbling tummies than warranted.

Laziness was brought to a whole new level in 1958 when Momofuku Ando invented cup noodles sold in styrofoam bowls, and you know what that means - no more washing!

Today, the FMS in Tokyo team had the privilege of visiting the Cup Noodles Museum in Yokohama, and let's just say we instantly fell in love with it! Apart from the usual museum exhibits like hundreds upon hundreds of cup noodles displayed behind glass walls from way back in 1958, we also got to create our very own cup noodles at the My CUPNOODLES Factory!

At just 300 yen per cup, you get to customise YOUR very own cup of noodles! From the design, to the soup flavour, and even the toppings with a total of 5,460 flavour combinations, this certainly warrants some bragging rights when you've created your own unique cup of noodles. Here's how it all went down:

1. Purchase a cup

Vending machines are located at the very start of the queue where you pay 300 yen for your instant noodles, but it's EMPTY! Look how shocked Charmaine was when she found out she paid ~SGD3.75 for a cup of... paper!

2. Clean your hands

Or rather, sanitise your hands! Nothing is worse than suffering from food poisoning from a cup of instant noodles. We had a friendly staff member going down the queue, spraying a liberal amount of hand sanitiser on both our palms to ensure the highest standards of hygiene at the "factory".


3. Bring out your inner designer



With your cup in hand, another staff member will lead you to a table with an assortment of markers to start personalising your very own cup noodles! For those of you who did badly for art classes in secondary school (including me), good luck.

4. Get your noodles in!



After designing our cups we headed straight for another queue that led us to an area resembling a factory with elaborate (and a little scary-looking) machine manned by staff dressed in aprons and headscarves behind an enclosed glass barrier, hastily yet systematically working to get the noodles done efficiently.

The first step, of course, is getting the noodles packed into the cup! My eyes only just about managed to register the massive conveyor belt with cakes after cakes of noodles laid out neatly on top of them, after having had so much to take in at the museum. They did, however, sanitise the inside of the cups before inserting the noodle cakes in. Hygiene always comes first after all!

Everything at the factory from start to finish is made interactive too! Your cup of noodles will be flipped upside down onto the noodle cake and you will be instructed to turn the lever in front of you to squeeze your noodles in tightly, leaving no redundant gaps at all!


5. Choose your seasonings



You have a choice between four soup flavours - original, seafood, curry and chilli tomato. I opted for the chilli tomato flavour as it is the only one I have yet to try, and I personally looooove my soups spicy and tangy ;)

12 ingredients are also at your disposal, and you get to choose 4 to be included in your awesome cup noodles. Choices include ebi prawns, cheese, onion and corn, but the ingredient that really takes the (noodle) cake is the naruto fishcake with the cup noodle mascot, Hiyoko-chan! I opted for the ebi prawns, cheese, dried pork cubes and Hiyoko-chan as my ingredients for the Travis Cup Noodles!

6. Seal the goodness in

After completing your concoction of flavourful goodness, your (insert name here) Cup Noodles will then be transferred to the next station where a machine seals the cup in an instant before having the cups wrapped in plastic film.

They are then transferred onto a conveyor belt that removes all the remaining air pockets and heats up the cups just a little bit to ensure the seals stay glued tightly - you wouldn't want to risk the contents losing their crispness now, would you?

Voila!

7. Bag it all up!

Of course, now that you have your very own cup noodles, surely you would want to show it off to the world? Well, the factory has got that covered. With a clear plastic bag given to you, you simply have to place the cup upright in it and pump air in with the air pumps provided at a nifty little station, after which you simply have to tie a red string on top of the bag and you're good to go!

Enjoy your very own cup noodles, and I will be enjoying my own cup of Travis Cup Noodles very soon!




The Cup Noodles Museum certainly brings audience interactivity to a whole new level. It seems like I'm attending a cup noodles workshop rather than simply visiting a museum, and how often do you actually get the chance of tasting your souvenir?


Every single one of us had fun and cannot wait to try them out! If all this noodle talk has got you craving for some, hold up before you reach for that pack of maggi mee! We have not one, but TWO limited edition cup noodle sets from the Cup Noodle Museum up for giveaway!




All you have to do is to like the photo above on either Facebook or Instagram and comment what cup noodle flavour you would love to create (let your imagination go wild!). 2 lucky people will win a cup noodle set each and the winners will be announced on 29 March 2014 at 10pm GST. So what are you waiting for? Time to get your creative caps on!

J-Pop – my first love

Written by Travis Chan

Left photo from http://www.reformatt.com/blog/tokyo-lifestyle

The last time I went to Tokyo in 2010 was also the last time I got to see the iconic billboard of British entertainment retailer HMV’s flagship store in Shibuya, which shut down that same year and has since been replaced by Forever 21 (right photo).

This was a major milestone in the Japanese music industry as it was an exemplification of the deteriorating state of the music industry, especially considering how Japan is the world’s second-largest music market after America.

Not only that, but walking along the streets of Shibuya today, I saw a familiar face looking down on me (literally) – a rather big one, at that. It was the then 15-year-old face of none other than popular singer Utada Hikaru plastered across the gargantuan billboard, which is also the cover to her debut album, “First Love”.

This may seem insignificant to the average traveller, but definitely not to the Japanese – “First Love” happens to be Japan’s best-selling album of all time, having sold over 7 million copies in Japan alone back in 1999. This album is largely dubbed as Japan’s equivalent of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, and “First Love” was given a re-release recently on 10 March 2014, the 15^th anniversary of its release.

Being a fan of Utada Hikaru’s music myself, nostalgic memories brought me back to the time in 2007 when I first discovered her music. Having debuted in an era where female pop singers were the biggest musical fad in Japan, Utada Hikaru was one of the few ladies who wrote, composed and arranged her music all by herself – that is, to me, the true hallmark of a talented musician.

I was feeling rather bittersweet too, as it was only recently that Utada Hikaru announced she was going on an indefinite hiatus, yet at the same time, only further seals her musical legacy in Japan. I’m sure most of us have at least heard her biggest hit, “First Love” at some point, or her more recent hits like 2007’s “Flavor of Life”.

Today also happens to be a Wednesday – an important day to Japanese pop music, as music CDs are traditionally released on Wednesdays in Japan. Music retailers would send in their sales numbers for each release every day to Oricon, the Japanese equivalent of Billboard in America, to be calculated, ranked and published on their website.

As a Japanese music fan, I would remember myself sitting in front of the computer when I was younger, constantly refreshing the front page of the Oricon website, hoping that my favourite singer would get the #1 spot that day.

As you walk along the roads in Shibuya, more often than not, you would see the occasional truck with advertisements of upcoming music releases in Japan, and trust me, they're not that hard to spot – not when they're blasting the songs through powerful speakers loud enough for passers-by to take notice. This method is actually considered one of the most basic forms of promotion for a musical release, which is interesting because there is no other country I can think of that does this.

Despite consistent promotional efforts by record companies, the Japanese music industry has changed drastically over the past few years. As with the rest of the world, people are buying lesser and lesser music in physical format, opting for digital formats instead as they are cheaper and more portable.

While singers could easily sell a few million copies of their CDs from the early to mid 2000s, today, selling half a million copies of an album even for veteran singers are pretty much non-existent. To put things in perspective, 2003’s best-selling album in Japan sold a total of 2,001,917 copies, while last year’s best-selling album sold merely 796,525 copies.

Japanese pop music is unique enough to be an entire genre on its own, and as an avid follower of the music industry here, I still remain optimistic that one day, J-Pop will restore its former glory and reclaim its musical throne in Asia after the K-Pop wave.