Sanpuru

Short note: 「チンチン好吗？」と日本人のクラスメートに話しかけられちゃった。
Greeted by my Japanese classmate, who took Mandarin as his optional subject - "How is your [insert that body part]?"

Sanpuru is the Japanese version of the word "sample", which refers to the plastic food display which you see so often in front of the restaurants in Japan. Perhaps it is not a trend in the restaurants, including the Japanese restaurant in Malaysia, to have a set of plastic food displayed at the entrance of the restaurants, but it is a very common sight here in Japan. Maybe one day, we also can have our own nasi lemak and char koey teow which are made from plastic to be displayed in front of the stalls.

These sanpuru shops can be found along the Kappabashi Street, which is located in between Ueno and Asakusa in Tokyo.

No, no, no. A sanpuru shop doesn't sell this huge pig haha.

So, what exactly can you find in a sanpuru shop? Since it came from the word "sample", you might guessed that these shops sells sample food stuff. But no, that is not what exactly sanpuru shops sell. To make this a simple entry, I will not write much, just pictures taken from a couple of these shops.

Entrance to the shop.

Big lobsters are not for sale haha.

Colourful sushi. They call this nigiri sushi (握り寿司).

This would be temaki zushi (手巻き寿司).

Onigiri with different kinds of filling.

Various kinds of ramen.

Meats for yakiniku and other common Japanese dishes.

Ebi tenpura.

Grilled fishes.

These plastic food are made to look so real that sometimes I thought the food displayed in restaurants are real. But they are quite pricey at the same time. Some were made into little key chains and magnets to be sold as souvenirs. There are also some other shops which sells plastic bento sets and I bet those stuff look even cuter. Too bad it was a Sunday and most shops are usually closed on the day. Maybe I will go there again one day.

Mich suggested that I get a whole set of the food from this shops so that we would not have to cook everyday in the future. Just buy these plastic food and put them on the table every time it is eating time. Save time and cost haha.

Cakes and buns.

Pizzas and breads.

Breads.

Beers, which look really real.

Ice creams.

Fruits. No durians though.

Vegetables.

Of so many stuff displayed there, I was only interested on one thing.

Japanese curry rice and of course, naan!

Don't you feel like taking a bite on the naan haha.

Kappabashi Dougu Street

A giant chef marks the entrance to the southern end of Kappabashi-dori

Kappabashi-dori, also known just as Kappabashi or Kitchen Town, is a street in Tokyo between Ueno and Asakusa which is almost entirely populated with shops supplying the restaurant trade. These shops sell everything from mass-produced crockery, restaurant furniture, ovens and decorations, through to esoteric items such as the plastic display food or sampuru (サンプル) in Japanese found outside Japanese restaurants.

The street is also an off-beat tourist destination.

Images of the kappa appear on shops along the street and web pages, just like this one in of the shops.

The street's name is believed to come from either the kappa (raincoats) of nearby residents which were hang out to dry on the bridge, or from a merchant named Kihachi Kappaya who funded the project to build Shinhorikawa River for water management.

However, due to the homophone with the popular mythical creature, Kappa, the group of shops along the street officially adopted kappa as its mascot. The reason I ended up in this area was a coincidence.

Cute shuttle bus in this area.

The main street along Kappabashi Street.

I was supposed to meet up with my former lecturer in PPKTJ, Kimura Kaori Sensei at Ueno station. Kimura Sensei is currently doing her post-graduate study in Waseda University and she wanted to do a meeting with me for some work-related stuff. We planned to have lunch in a family restaurant nearby, around the Asakusa area, while working on the task we had. However, due to our poor navigation, we were lost in directions and realised we were already walking along this street.

While continuing the effort to find the location to have our lunch, we took the chance to look at the restaurant's wholesale stuff sold here. They includes plastic food called sampuru (which I will blog on that in the next entry), metal spatulas, deep fryers and an immense variety of affordable crockery. Some shops sell only in wholesale quantities, but many are happy to sell single items and factory-made Japanese pottery (which to the casual eye is indistinguishable from the handmade kind) can sell for as little as ¥100 a piece.

One of the many shops along Kappabashi Street.

Potteries and bowls.

Does anyone have any idea what is this used for?

Oven to make pizza.

Another bargain is high-quality Japanese kitchen knives, which are generally much cheaper in Japan. Most stores here are closed on Sundays (taken from Wikipedia).

In the end, we decided to have our lunch at Bamiyan, a Chinese restaurant.

My lunch set, consisting of sweet and sour pork, ramen, and salad.

Kimura Sensei's noddle with various kinds of vegetables and prawns.

Siew mai as add-on dish.

Took a picture before leaving the restaurant.

A day earlier, WinD had no lectures and he wasn't working. So, the two of us went out to Chiba to settle on something and go around the city to shop as well. I will only disclose on that stuff when the time is right, but for now I will just save the details. However, to those few people who already know what is it about, please do not reveal it here, yet.

First destination was the Chiba city centre.

Upside-down monorail in the city.

Compare the water quality with Klang River. Klang River has no chance at all haha.

For the five days I was in Chiba and Tokyo, this is the first and only time I ate outside. Remember I once mentioned that on my next trip to Chiba, the first meal I will have would be at Ippudo.

I made sure I stick to that promise and there we were, at Ippudo for our lunch.

Ippudo once again.

The interior design of the ramen restaurant.

白丸元味 (Shiromarumotoaji), which I haven't tried yet before this.

つけ麺 (Tsukemen) - ￥850.

博多バンズ (Hakata Buns) - ￥200. Super delicious, highly recommended.

After having out late lunch, we headed to IKEA to shop.

Initially, I wanted to get my futon there but too bad they didn't sell in one whole set, so in the end, I only got a blue pillow haha. But it was fun to shop inside IKEA. I still remember the first and only time I have ever been to IKEA was a few years back, but that was in IKEA at 1Utama.

One of the classic train which heads to Tokyo.

One our way to IKEA, there was one incident which was really silly and we couldn't believe we could be that stupid. We got down at the wrong stations not once, but twice! Neither me nor WinD has ever been this careless. On the first time, we were talking and we forgot to get down at the station we were supposed to get down. What made matter worse is that we were inside the rapid train, which means the next station will be a few stations away. On the second time, we got down a station earlier than we should. Damn stupid, right?

Those mistakes cost us more than thirty minutes to get to the opposite platforms and take the right train.

IKEA, decorated with Christmas decorations.

It was a day full of incidents. I got myself a set of new futon which was packed in a huge cardboard box at LalaPort, a shopping centre just a stone's throw from IKEA. The box was easily more than 1.5m x 1m. On our way back from Lalaport, in which we got to take the shuttle bus to the nearest train station, was the time when everything went wrong. We knew it would happen when we were lining up to board the bus. Even the two guys behind us decided not to board the same bus because it was so packed already, mainly because my box has occupied spaces for about three people haha. The lady who was sitting in the bus saw us, holding on such a huge box and she started to laugh to her friend next to her. The point is, she laugh in such a Japanese way, using her palms to cover her mouth while trying to sneak at our directions lol.

I have been in Japan for more than two years, and I think I have never felt so embarrassed like that haha. I couldn't do anything, so I just buat bodoh and luckily enough, the ride was just a few minutes; otherwise I don't know where I would put my face. Maybe I would hide my face inside the box since it is so huge haha!

Lalaport Tokyo Bay.

But sorry-hor, so far I have never heard of Si Ham Port yet in Japan.