sofamaus

An Ode to Chocolate

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Sofa Maus

Ever since I moved here I’ve been in a serious relationship with chocolate – I religiously consume two squares of chocolate a day, which is more frequent the number of times I call home hehe oops. The selection here is irresistible – I’m compelled to browse the chocolate aisle of my nearby Edeka whenever I grocery shop and inevitably end up picking my flavour-of-the-week.

Cheapskate me never really goes for the Expensive Chocolate because I’m happy with my Milkas and Ritter Sports and Leibniz Butterkekse. Even Lindt is too expensive for regular consumption. But somehow or another, recent events have conspired to overload my fridge and I now have a grand total of FOUR different types of chocolate in my possession. My lowly Ritter Sport Halbbitter (on sale at 0,69 Euros!!) now pales in comparison with my new darlings ❤

1. Gü

Really liking that IKEA-aesthetic!

I have Gü!!

Berlin – Asian Food Trail

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Sofa Maus

I’ve been bitten by the writing bug again – it’s been difficult coming up with words when your day job requires you to churn out coherent sentences, but since moving here, I’ve been itching to write. And so here’s a post to pay tribute to the city I’ve been learning to love and the crazy multiculturalism that makes life interesting.

Funny thing: I hardly ever cook Asian food for myself. Other than dousing my broccoli with oyster sauce and marinating my meat in bulgogi sauce, I’ve been cooking lazy western-style fry-ups and pasta dishes. And yes, I’m guilty of eating breakfast food for breakfast, lunch and dinner (hey, eggs are a cheap source of protein). But thanks to Asian-crazy friends and one particular Asian-crazy Asian, I’ve sampled some of the best Berlin has to offer.

YamYam (Korean)

I’m sorry to our local delicacies, but the first Asian food I truly craved since leaving was Korean. Not any dish in particular, but a general hankering for that sweet, spicy taste of gochujang mixed with savoury ingredients, or the belly-warming, slightly sour tang of kimchi jiggae. Every mention of Sauerkraut brought to mind kimchi, my preferred form of pickled cabbage. Even though my German classmate insists kimchi tastes like farts. OMG. NO.
Read More

Japan 2015: Touristy Hakone

Posted on June 19, 2015 by Sofa Maus

We chose the wrong day to explore Hakone – the photos turned out to be 80% mist and 20% actual substance. Even though we didn’t get to see Mount Fuji and barely made it through all the places of interest, it’s still a pretty place. The shrine is worth a visit and will get you pregnant, or so I heard after the trip!
This is what I mean by 80% mist.

The Hakone Ropeway/glorified cablecar travelled through mist – we could barely see two metres ahead of us. Ironically, it stopped in the middle of the mist and the intercom announced that if we would look to the left, we would see Mt Fuji. Had half a mind to photoshop Mount Fuji in this photograph! Read More

Japan 2015: Hakone Part 1

Posted on June 14, 2015 by Sofa Maus

It’s been ages since I’ve posted because I’m so incredibly lazy to compress and edit photos BUT I did say that I want to get everything posted before travelling to Taiwan!

Hakone – beautiful place, awful weather and way too many people in April. It’s a tourist hotspot (HA because of the hot springs) and the Mum and I enjoyed the less crowded stuff more than the touristy ropeway/ship/shrine combo.

Can I stay in a ryokan every time we travel to Japan please? There’s something so comfortable about sleeping on the floor and in-house hot baths are perfect before bed.

And can we talk about how pampered you are OMG I love ten course breakfasts and dinners. We stayed in a less expensive hotel so the food was a lot simpler, but there were some truly amazing dishes (more in my food post later hehe). Read More

Japan 2015: Shinjuku Gyōen

Posted on May 19, 2015 by Sofa Maus

Sakura time! I’ve missed you, pretty pink flowers.

‘Twas a cloudy morning when we lost and found our way to Shinjuku Gyōen, a dashingly beautiful park full of cherry and plum blossoms. After a series of confusing “refto at Meijijingu shreeto”, it was time for a picnic under some sakura trees. The great thing was that it was relatively early in the morning and hardly anyone was out and about. The park also happens to require an entry fee (quite cheap!) but it’s totally worth it.

Malacca 2015

Posted on May 9, 2015 by Sofa Maus

-insert short musical interlude here-

I got a little bored of Japan and a few people I asked were dead tired of sakura, so here’s a little post on my trip to Malacca earlier this year. I’ve been there way too many times – it’s everyone’s default stop on the way back for KL – and it’s not my favourite place because I got bedbug bites during my last visit. Nasty. I’ve always found the night market rather nostalgic, but during the day, it’s too hot to deal with.

Didn’t bring a camera so all photos are taken with my phone, which doesn’t have the best quality!!

Hi I flew there. This looks like an airplane window photo no??? Took it when we were all jammed up crossing the causeway. Read More

Japan 2015: Ueno

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Sofa Maus

Ueno! Home to a giant park, so many museums I didn’t have time for, a zoo and LOTS OF CHERRY BLOSSOMS. It was really one of the best days – pretty pink sakura against a gloriously clear blue sky.

Snapped this as we were walking into the park (can you feel my excitement omg pink things coming up)

Japan 2015: Tsukiji

Posted on April 25, 2015 by Sofa Maus

4.30am should be early enough to catch all the action right? Nope, especially not during sakura season. The tuna auction slots were all taken by 3 and queues for the two major sushi shops were insane. Insane meaning we’d have to queue for 8h to get a seat.

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

Thankfully, there’s still the outer market!

Beans of all kinds.

There’s still quite a lot of fish in the outer market – caught sight of this dude cutting up the fish and it was fairly bloody, but not as gross as what I saw ~later~ Read More

Japan 2015: Harajuku and Shibuya

Posted on April 14, 2015 by Sofa Maus

Harajuku and Shibuya are notorious youth hangouts known for their vibrancy. Except when it’s raining. We went to Harajuku in the morning: squeezed with teenagers in knee-high socks, queued at the two most famous crepe shops for a snack, browsed the Lolita offerings in the basement of Le Foret and I bought a CATholic school girl outfit. And some pretty shoes (◠﹏◠✿) Am I Japanese yet? And then off to Yoyogi Park! And of course we had to be the dumb tourists who thought it was nearer to Yoyogi station than Harajuku and we had to walk the entire park to get to ~~the shrine~~ the food. Meiji jingu! Read More

Japan 2015: Shinjuku

Posted on April 11, 2015 by Sofa Maus

Hello young grasshoppers,

I’m more than a little apprehensive about starting a ~public~ blog but lazy to repeat my adventures + no way am I using facebook to document my travels so here’s my attempt to start a (hopefully) travel blog! Many thanks to Millie for her encouragement and I hope I’m coherent!

And be prepared for spam because this is the first of many Japan posts. I’m planning to dump all the food pics in one post, can’t wait to share them with you 😀

So it’s my first time in Tokyo and we stayed in Shinjuku, which turned out to be a v good choice because it’s incredibly central. The only problem is that the JR/Tokyo Metro/Odakyo/Keio lines all have different entrances and it can be terribly confusing. And we didn’t have wifi so all we had were a few maps.

By the time we reached our hotel, it was quite dark out, so we headed out for dinner and omg dazzled by the bright lights in the big city. Shinjuku is no Shibuya, but I love it.

Everything is fascinating to the inexperienced traveller.