Maruichi Bagel

I thought I was SO original with my "New York Minute" video.

I was surprised to find someone else had made the SAME titled Youtube video, and used a fast photo slideshow too. (His was first, 2006). Strange thing was the guy's name was Jimmy as well! I definitely hadn't seen the video before I did mine, so I have to say that was an amazing coincidence.

Since coming back from New York, I'd been trying to find the same kind of bagels as Ess-A-Bagel. I've had Bagel & Bagel ones here. While they actually taste pretty good and offer quite a few fillings, I've always still felt hungry after eating them.

Scouring the net, I came across Maruichi Bagel. There's an interesting story how she went to New York working at Ess-A-Bagel and bringing the New York's style bagels recipe back to Tokyo.

Her unassuming storefront is located in Shirokane-takanawa station on the Namboku and Mita subway lines.

The map on their website is very clear. It's only two streets away from the station. Unfortunately there's not much else to do in this area.

There are quite a few options to choose from. Each bagel is around 200 yen. A half bagel sandwich with a cream cheese filling is 250 yen.My verdict? These bagels although seemingly smaller than Ess-A-Bagel ones, were definitely more filling than Bagel & Bagel.

The taste compares favourably to the New York version too. My only small qualm is that it'd be great to have more variety in the cream cheese options that made Ess-A-Bagel the greatest thing since sliced bread.

If you're in the area though I think it's worth your time to check it out.

Blade Number 2

As you might remember, (but probably not), I don't go through those Gillette blades very often.

The last time was here. So that's ONE YEAR, 3 MONTHS and 25 DAYS. Impressive huh? It didn't beat my previous record, but once I used that new blade, my face was grateful. I'm don't think Gillette are going to call me for endorsements anytime soon.

Spring Has Coming!

And with that, so do the Cherry Blossoms. I've said it before, I'm not a flower lover per se, but seeing Cherry Blossoms bloom is a definite highlight of living in Japan. And the fact that they go all too soon, it's hard not to feel a sense of loss. No one takes sakura for granted here.

I was considering going to the Penis festival again today, but damn, I had a hard time waking up early enough to see the procession.

Instead, we went to Yoyogi Park to catch the hanami parties, helped along by some Asahi "Strong Off" and some Bagel & Bagel bagels. Not to the high standard of the New York variety, but they did the trick.

To give you the idea of how big hanami is here, I had a good excuse to do a panorama shot of the people around me. With people moving all the time, I thought it wouldn't come out this good.

After Yoyogi Park, I did the biggest impulse buy ever, and got a Master Replicas Star Wars Lightsaber in Shibuya like the one I tried year's ago in Shinjuku. The alcohol helped me make that decision. It wasn't so great that I had to lug it to Chidorigafuchi to have our second little hanami fun.


We bought Sbarro pizza slices and I also had a Chocolate beer to chug down under the Cherry Blossoms. Yes, that's my lightsaber I'm holding.. Hey, it looks like I threw my saber in the tree behind me, ne?

April Fools Headphones

The Sennheiser headphones I bought barely a few weeks ago have already started to lose the rubber shielding at the plug.

Considering their price I would've expected them to hold together longer than this. Even my old el' cheapo Panasonics held together better than this.

Lucky then I have a 2 year warranty on these, and that the Sennheiser office is not too far away in Aoyama. They said it'd be ready to pick up in a week. While we were in Aoyama, we took in a nearby cemetery that had a lot of sakura.

Also today the painters have finally taken away all the scaffolding to reveal that I now live in.. the White House!

Jimmy In New York : Day 5

The plan was, for the last day that we were going to book a hotel close to the airport because our flight was scheduled to leave at 7am. We really liked staying in Manhattan, and the Pod Hotel was quite comfortable both in location and cleanliness.

I'm really getting hooked on those Ess-A-Bagels so much that we're going to have a hard time finding the equivalent in Tokyo. This morning I had a "Chocolate Chip" cream cheese and she had a "Very Berry". A little bit too sweet, but they were both delicious.

We went to the Met, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I didn't want to be there too long. It's such a large place we zipped through the places that interested us the most, namely the Roman and Egyptian, and Japanese art exhibits.

From there we went to the Guggenheim Museum.

We didn't go in. We would've been totally burnt out if we did. I took a few photos from outside, then we went into Central Park around the Jackie Kennedy Onassis Reservoir.

One "landmark" I wanted to check out was the Seinfeld diner, Tom's Restaurant. (Also "Tom's Diner", the Suzanne Vega song). From the outside I could see that it looked nothing like the Seinfeld set.

At that moment I thought it'd be cool to go to the "Soup Nazi" Soup Kitchen International, but looks like I'm quite a few years too late. Also was a bit disappointing I didn't get to see the CBGBs facade either.

We walked to the nearby Columbia University where we sat on the library steps where I picked up some free wifi.

I wanted to go to the Rockefeller Center before dusk, so we could go to the "Top of the Rock" observation deck during the day and the lights at night. In my opinion I think the view from here is superior to the Empire State Building.

One highlight of the Manhattan skyline is the Empire State itself and the Rockefeller is in a great mid-Manhattan position which shows off Lower Manhattan to the south and Central Park in the north.
By day..
.. And at night.

We would have stayed there longer, but I thought we'd have one last crack at the cancellation line for "Wicked". Nope, we missed out. I'm happy I still got these panoramas looking really good. I did another for Times Square.
..And one more of the rooftop view from the Pod Hotel.


For the whole trip I'd taken about 466 photos. I managed to squeeze them in a New York Minute (and a half). Don't blink or you'll miss something. Look carefully for that pesky Battery Park squirrel!

Thank You New York for the most interesting experience. Worlds away from Japan, and another world away from where I'm from. It's definitely help me understand the New Yorkers that I've met here in Japan.

I'll be back again someday, for sure. But next time it won't be via San Francisco. It's the longest 6 hour flight you could imagine. Still 'Frisco looked great from the plane. Might be a worthwhile destination to visit.

Jimmy In New York : Day 4

This morning we decided to have another Ess-A-Bagel. I had a strawberry cream cheese one and she had a sundried tomato one. They both tasted great, but the strawberry made it taste more like a cake, than a sandwich. Very filling though.

The sun finally came out so it was time we went to the Empire State Building.

During the day from the outside, the building doesn't look as good as it does at night, but now that it's the highest in New York it does have a commanding presence in the New York skyline. Actually, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the NTT docomo building.

Again we waited for quite a while in a security line before going up to the 86th floor. Along with our CityPass entry, we got a very informative audio tour player. Looking out at the view I couldn't help but think of the Twin Towers and how it was a long way down.

From there we went back towards Broadway and Times Square. We went to Sam Ash Music where I bought a really nice microphone preamp (RNP). Compared to Australia or Tokyo, it was much cheaper here, even with the sales tax. One thing I don't like about America is how they don't quote prices with tax. I hated seeing a price and not knowing what the final price was until I got to the checkout. What's up with that?

In Times Square we happened to see the Naked Cowboy strutting his stuff on the streets.

We overheard a scalper selling tickets for "Wicked". I was close to buying them, but I was scared to be risking buying counterfeit ones.

Instead we went to the Museum of Natural History as it was one of the included tickets on our CityPass. A LOT of the museum was dioramas of stuffed animals. It might appeal to the kiddies but for me it was kind of boring. What WAS really interesting was the planetarium show narrated by Whoopi Goldberg.

We were close to Central Park so we went past the Dakota Apartments where John Lennon lived, and was shot outside by Chapman. There isn't any indication to tell you this is the place. There is no name on the building, only a gate person with Dakota on his uniform.

Across the road in Central Park there is a memorial to John Lennon.
A full and tiring day.

Jimmy In New York : Day 3

Nothing says New York more than the Statue of Liberty so it wasn't till I finally saw Ms Liberty herself, that I felt I was really in New York city.

Before getting on the subway, I asked a station employee on the platform for directions. I asked for "Battery Park" and he asked twice where I was going. In the end I said "to catch the Liberty ferry" which happens to leave from Battery Park.

One thing I noticed straight way when I arrived is that New Yorkers can be quite, how can I say, abrupt? Not exactly welcoming, but I did realize that once disarmed, they can be quite friendly.

There is a security line to board the ferry. Although long when we got there, it moved fairly quick.

As we got closer to Liberty Island, I was surprised about the size of the statue. Of course it's much bigger than the replica in Odaiba, but from pictures and movies I envisioned a gigantic monument.

The ferry stopped at Ellis Island before heading back to Manhattan. We didn't get off. There was still a lot to see today.

Most importantly I HAD to take a picture of squirrel in Battery Park that didn't stay still long enough for me to take its picture. Well worth it. Cute huh?

From there we went to Ground Zero. If you didn't know what happened, it just looked like any other construction site. I wish I was here before the towers came down. I think New York really misses the Twin Towers. I think they should build two towers at the same scale to bring the Manhattan skyline back to (almost) how it was.

Before going across Brooklyn Bridge we went to Burger King. I ordered Quarter Pounders. The checkout guy didn't understand me. I thought it was my accent until I realized Quarter Pounders are Macdonald burgers. Oops.

I wanted to go to the place on the Brooklyn side where I always see Twin Towers pictures looking into Manhattan. From this view the missing towers were even more obvious.

After Brooklyn we caught the subway to SoHo. There are a lot of great, cheap clothes and shoe shops in this area. I saw a pair of Docs for cheaper than I paid secondhand! We went to Uniqlo (the Japanese clothing store) where I bought two t-shirts, a Mickey Mouse and a Star Wars one, and also a nice cap. Mouse over (haha) the above image to see my "serious face" in the Star Wars shirt.

We were going to go to Katz Delicatessen in NoLita, famous (or infamous) for the Meg Ryan orgasm scene in "When Harry Met Sally", but it was further than we thought, and instead tried to make it back to Times Square to hopefully score cancelled tickets to "Wicked".

No luck there, so we decided to call it a day.