Japan for the Muslim Family with Kids (Part 1/3 - Tokyo)

Edited on 29 March 2014: Finally! I added pictures! Dunno how long it'll take me to add pics to the Disneyland entry, though. Do wait patiently. :D 

Alhamdulillah.

We're almost reaching the end of our Japan holiday and it has been an uneventful one. That is good. Very good.

Getting there. I think we took SIA (or some other full-service flight 
judging by that screen at the back of the seat)

I also promised a few friends that I'll write about my trip. If they wish to come to Japan, I hope that this will be helpful to them. Just like last year, we spent an inordinate amount of time finding out about food. we don't want to depend on just plain bread for survival during our 2 weeks in Tokyo/Disneyland/Osaka. For those with no dietary restrictions, a trip to Japan will not require as much planning as food is not an issue. 

FOOD

It's quite easy getting halal food in Tokyo. South Asian restaurants are aplenty. But just because it sells curry, it doesn't make it halal. We stayed near the Shinjuku area and here are the places where we ate:

1. Taz Mahal

Alight at Shinjuku Station

The building is behind Odakyu shopping centre, 

Buffet meal. Unlimited servings of rice and curry (normally about 3-4 types) and a fixed number of plain naan for 1000¥. This is the standard price for buffet meals at Indian restaurants.

Entrance to Taz Mahal

2. Merah Putih Cafe

Station: Shin-Okubo

Address: Shinjuku-ku Hyaku Nin Cho 2 – 10 – 9 Shin Okubo Initial House 304

Go out of the station, cross the road. Turn left. The restaurant is on the 4th floor. The building is opposite a 100yen shop.

Website: http://merahputihcafe.wordpress.com/

Tips: Go during lunchtime when the Nasi Padang set goes for 650¥

Entrance to the shop. Just a small restaurant on the 4th floor.

The Menu

The girl and her food

  3. Indian restaurant 

Station: Okubo

Go out from the North exit, cross the road, turn left. The shop is some distance before the intersection.

Tips: The owners claim that everything is halal but we had our doubts so we stuck to rice with shrimp and vegetable curry. 

(Basically, that's how we do things when it comes to food in Japan. Unless we are very sure that it's halal, we stuck to seafood.)

I don't have any pictures of this restaurant. This is the place which is nearest to our apartment, Hundred Stay. The shrimp curry is NICE! 

4.  Kebab & Indian Restaurant (Cannot remember the names)

Location: Ameyoko - which is somewhat like Bugis street, only much better

Station: Ueno

We ate at two places here last year. One was a kebab place which has the halal sign on the board near the stall and the other one was an Indian restaurant. 

At this juncture, you're gonna think, Indian restaurant again? I have kids! What will my kids eat? Don't worry. The Indian curry has been tweaked to suit Japanese taste buds so they are perfectly kid-friendly. However, Farah is quite fussy about food so she survived on our home-cooked dinner (see #7 below) and lots and lots of milk.

There are 2 kebab stalls here. One does not have the halal sign while the other one has. The 2 stalls are near each other so if it's not the one in the background here, it has to be the other one a few metres away.

5. Gyumon

And for some yakiniku -

Restaurant: Gyumon

Address: 3-14-5 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

Station: Shibuya

Go out from the South exit. Climb the overhead bridge and go diagonally opposite where there's Shibuya Police Station. Go straight along Meiji Street. Walk walk walk. Just before you hit the Nami-Kibahsi Intersection, turn left. It's a small restaurant.

Here, we ate Japanese beef. 

It was divine. 

Website: http://www.mhalalc.jp/img/MalaysiaHalal13.pdf

Initially I was quite skeptical about halal Japanese beef. How is that even possible? But our good neighbours, the Malaysians, have made it possible.

Entrance to the restaurant

All the tables on the ground floor were occupied so we were led to the second floor. 

We had our own room and we sat on the floor to eat! So quaint! 

 Yummy yum yum!

We grilled the beef on the charcoal stove. Three different plates of beef slices were given, each from a different part of the cow. One of the parts (can't remember which one because I was high on beef) was amazingly tender. It melts in your mouth! I wish I had a bigger stomach. (It's big enough as it is but not big enough for this!)

By the way - not quite related - according to lonelyplanet, Japanese Kobe cows are not fed on beer and given daily massage. That is just a myth. Lonelyplanet researches did not see a single drunk cow in their visits to Kobe. 

6. We took a day trip to Mount Fuji on one of the days. (Mount Fuji's direct distance from Shinjuku is at least 95km, based on googlemap's calculations. So, that info will come in handy for those concerned about solat jamak/qasar.)

Lunch was provided during the trip and we asked for a vegetarian + seafood - alcohol meal for lunch. We booked the tour with Yokoso Japan and they went out of the way explaining what goes inside every part of the meal when it was served to us. Such excellent service! (Then again, this is Japan. If there's no service, it's not Japan.)

http://www.yokoso-japan.jp/en/index.htm

One of those rare times when the girls sat with TheAyah instead of piling on top of me

7. Self-cooked meals

For dinner, we have cranky kids who did not nap. We don't want to face the world with two whiny kids who test our patience to the max. So we cooked our dinners. We stay in a service apartment with a fully-equipped kitchenette. We brought a bottle of sabun sertu and used it to cleanse all the pots, pans, crockeries and cutleries before using the kitchenette. 

We brought a lot of instant food. Brahim's, Knorr's instant soup (the Asian kind of clear soup; not angmoh style of creamy soup because my Asian kids only consume Asian soups), Nutella, salt, pepper. We forgot kunyit and bought a small packet of it from a shop near Tsukiji fish market for 200¥. 

Dinner is often the same. Knorr's instant soup with fresh vegetables bought from the supermarket. Salmon (sooooooooooooo fresh!) pan-fried in salt and pepper. And when our pepper ran out, salt and the 200¥ turmeric powder. Eggs. Oh gosh! The eggs are beautiful! They have perfect white shells and the yolk is so bouncy! Salmon and eggs from the supermarket, of course. Occasionally, we'll have one of Brahim's instant something - Rendang, Ayam Masak Merah, Sambal Ikan Bilis etc. Served with rice. We didn't bring rice from Singapore so we bought Japanese rice from the supermarket. Cooking the rice is a time-consuming affair especially if your kitchenette only has that one stove top for you to use. 

Then we found out about instant rice. The Japanese are such clever people. They think of everything! We got to know about these packs of rice when I talked to an Indonesian lady who has a sundry store at Ameyoko. This nice lady, Fauziah Al-Attas, even brought us to a nearby shop to show us where we can buy the rice and also some jars of salted salmon that we can use in times of emergency. If you are in the area and need some Indomie instant noodles, you can get it from her shop. 

Fauziah Al-Attas

This is the sundry store owned by Fauziah Al-Attas. This woman is so nice; she brought us to a nearby store to show us the instant rice that we could use.

That's what ready-to-eat rice looks like. She also recommends this jar of (preserved?) salmon that was a tad bit salty but good enough for an instant meal.

You can either heat this up in a microwave oven or if you are in a hotel room without a microwave oven, by soaking this in hot water. Not boiling. Because the rice is already cooked. This can be found in many shops, sold singly or in packs of 3s, 4s or 5s. 

8. Supermarket Buys

We also had Japanese instant noodles. I came across this website: http://junjungbuih.multiply.com/

This belongs to an Indonesian lady who is living in Japan. She diligently checks the ingredients of all the foodstuffs that she wants to buy and if things like emulsifiers appear in the list, she calls up the company and asks what kind of emulsifiers are used. So, based on her good work, I bought lots of stuff from the supermarket. And of course, chocolates. 

Unfortunately, this website no longer exists thanks to multiply's demise. I wish I had copied the entire blog post or something. Such a pity. It was super super super informative!

PLACES WE VISITED

1. Akihabara (TheHusband's thing)

All techies should pay Akihabara a visit. For me, Akihabara does not make my heart flutter at all so, TheHusband went alone while I tended to sick children in the hotel room. 

Fortunately, the first leg of our journey was not Disneyland. I wouldn't be too pleased if they fell ill at Disneyland. In Tokyo, they took turns falling ill. First Farah. Then Huda. So, we couldn't do as much as we would like to. Thankfully, our apartment was near the train station and it was easy getting around so we took turns going out while the kids rested in the room. 

Getting around is easy as long as you are near a train station. You may have to change trains a couple of times. If you have a stroller, it's best to avoid peak periods.

2. Shinjuku shopping area

There are plenty of things to buy for those with deep pockets. I was looking for raincoats for the kids and me but most of the raincoats I saw in this area was above 10,000¥. That's about $160. Urh, not for my pockets. But there were nice things to look at. Like, there was a rack of pretty pink suits that cost 99,000¥ each. They were placed openly just like how Metro in Singapore would display some random tops. 

In the shopping areas, there will always be at least one building that will cause severe palpitations in TheHusband's heart - buildings like Bic Camera where there are floors and floors and floors of TheHusband's toys. What I like most about these buildings is that there is one floor dedicated to children's toys. There are also lots of hands-on activities for the children. So, while TheHusband salivates over the latest gadgets, I take the kids to the toy section.

 I love these train sets. Thankfully, I don't have space at home for all these things. 

Shiok sendiri girl crooning away

3. Ueno Park - There happened to be some kind of beer-sponsored ice festival going on at that time and Huda got to sled down a pile of fake snow. There were blocks of ice, ice sculptures, ice kachang (minus the kachang) and lots of food.

Throughout the trip, Farah refused to take photos. She would either close her eyes or cover them with her hands.

We gave Ueno zoo a miss. It was a Sunday and it was so crowded. We should have gone on a weekday.

In Ueno Park, there is a shrine that we visited. I'm intrigued by all the stone structures that were built in the 1500s. There are all these big stone lanterns that lined the path leading to the shrine. 

4. Ameyoko (near Ueno)

This place reminds me of Bugis Street. There are lots of things to see and buy here. Lots of seafood, shoes, bags, clothes, fruit etc. You can imagine it, can't you? There's a whole lot of stuff sold there. If you want to get bars and bars of chocolate as souvenirs, you should get it from here too. Cheaper than the supermarkets. 

5. Meiji Shrine/Akihabara

We didn't go to the shrine this year. We went there last year. The path to the shrine from the Akihabara station is lovely. With sick kids, we gave this a miss.

6. Mount Fuji 

This is not Nadirah. She forced me (TheHusband) to write this despite my vehement protests.

We had to get out of our hotel pretty early to get to Shinjuku Washington Hotel, which was where the day tour was scheduled to depart. We finally arrived at the 5th station of Mt Fuji after spending about 1-2 hours travelling on the bus.

But alas, it was drizzling and visibility was poor, so we did not see the top of Mt Fuji itself from the 5th station. We spent 1 hour there (in the souvenir shop and surrounding shrine) and from there visited other places like Hakone, took a cable car and a cruise boat. 

We also were brought to a shop where wasabi ice cream was sold but we did not buy it since it was cold.

Cold cold cold

 Orh. Cold because it was 2305m above sea level. 

We bought black eggs. 5 for 500¥. The eggs were dipped in the boiling hot sulphuric water on the volcanic mountain. Due to the chemical reaction or whatever, the shell turned black. The egg tastes of regular boiled eggs. But it was nice to tuck into those warm eggs in the cold.

Huda writing a postcard to her grandparents

In the cable car

 The cruise ship to Hakone. We were awed!

7. Tokyo Camii mosque

TheHusband has retired from writing so it's back to my primary-school style of constipated writing.

TheHusband did Friday prayers here. So did we. There were about 20 females in the congregation. Some Malaysian tourists, some of South Asian descent and also a number of Japanese ladies. 

Here's specific instructions on getting there: http://www.tokyocamii.org/messages/cform/inqtype:0/lang:en/

Those two heads in white and pink are Huda and Farah.

8. Tsukiji fish market

We reached Tsukiji market at 9am. The market activities were winding down. But there was still much to see. Unfortunately, we did not get to see any whole tuna. But we saw the heads and they were huge.

I suppose this would be the size of a regular tuna sold there:

(Is that even a tuna in the first place?)

When visiting the Tsukiji fish market, it's important to realise that tourists are in the way of the workers so it's best not to bring strollers, stay by the sides and be aware of the surrounding.

We saw giant octopus arms, various shellfish and a whole lot of unidentifiable sea creatures. We also saw people expertly filleting fish! I just stood there, transfixed at their skills.

  

This nifty little vehicle was used to transport stuff all over the market. Remember to give way to them.

There is a lot of sushi place at the fish market. We ate at one and we had rice with sashimi. The seafood is so fresh!

There is a train station just outside the fish market. That was how we got there in the first place. On the way back, we intended to take the train from the station to Ginza but the stationmaster said that the change of trains would be 'complicated' so he suggested that we go to the next train station a few hundred metres away which doesn't require a change of trains. We were glad he made the suggestion because we came across a dry market. I bought the most delicious anchovies there. 

And I also came across shops selling pretty tempura paper. After frying your tempura, you should place it on the paper which will absorb all the oils. Tempura paper sold in Daiso are plain and come in A5 size. But the ones here are so pretty!

I regretted not buying them. :(

A box of cherries for 8000 yen. That's about $130.

9. Ginza/Sony Showroom

We ended up walking to the Ginza area because it was just one station away from the other train station. We wanted to visit the Sony Showroom because according to various Internet postings, it's an interesting place to take kids to. Well, not really for my kids. We watched part of Spiderman 3 there in cinematic comfort. But the gadgets are more suited for older kids.

OTHER PLACES WE COULD HAVE VISITED

1. Sky Tree

This was open just a few days before our arrival but we did not get to go.

2. Toto Building

In Japan, Toto is the brand-name in toilet technology. We were impressed by Toto toilets and I considered visiting their showroom, as suggested by my trusty lonelyplanet guidebook. But, with sick kids, we had to cancel things off our itinerary.

3. Harajuku on Sunday

It would have been interesting to be able to go here on a Sunday to look at all the cosplay madness.

4. Imperial Palace East Garden

It's closed on Mondays and Fridays.

5. Odaiba

The kids would have enjoyed this, I'm sure. 

6. Ghibli Museum

The kids do not know who Ghibli is so this might be lost on them.

LANGUAGE

We got by on basic greetings in Japanese, like

• Good morning/Good afternoon/Good evening
• Thank you
• You're welcome
• Sorry
• Excuse me

We used English for everything else. Japanese can understand English but if that fails, gesturing and pointing at maps help. 

PEOPLE

Japanese are polite and helpful. Some will go out of their way to help you. If you show them your map and point at the place you intend to go, they will whip out their phone and use it to navigate you.

You also see how considerate and respectful they are. Just look at the toilets and you know that this is another civilisation altogether. Nowhere else in the world do you get consistently clean toilets everywhere you go. 

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Finally. That's the end of Part 1. Part 2 will be about the Disney Resort.