Usually when we go to Hiroshima to see my wife’s parents we either go there directly by Shinkansen (bullet train) or fly. Occasionally we go separately due to work commitments which has resulted in me once going all the way there by local trains (16 hours!) and another time, as will be detailed in this post, I flew to neighbouring prefecture Okayama early one morning and spent a few days in that region before going on to Hiroshima.
Day 1: Around ten Continue reading
After the disappointment of so many top players withdrawing in 2025, my expectations were lower and more realistic for this year’s Toray Pan Pacific Open (TPPO) tennis tournament in Tokyo. Luckily, a lot of my interest isn’t so devoted towards the very top players as I enjoy seeing some of the fringe players up close away from Centre Court. I certainly got to do that this time!
If you include the two qualification days (I certainly do!) then there were nine days of action taking place down in Tokyo’s Koto ward at Ariake Coliseum, and my plan was the same as last year in terms of attending Continue reading
Straight into the action in Tokyo and Italy’s Jasmine Paolini has three set points to level things up against Naomi Osaka and take it to a deciding third set. As a big fan of both, I am really enjoying the sight of two of my favourite current players going head-to-head and looking forward to a third set but first let’s rewind back about 50 hours.
On the second day of qualifying (October 25th) for the Toray Pan Pacific Open (TPPO), the bad weather meant I went to the indoor courts which was something I had Continue reading
Whilst I don’t really expect to see a Brit in action at the back end of tennis tournaments, I always hope that the stars align so that I can follow the fortunes of them, and this time I got to complete the full set of British players taking part at this year’s Japan Open.
Qualifying started last Saturday (October 24th) but my Toray Pan Pacific Open (TPPO) experience began the following day on the Show Court (the second main court) where a Grand Slam champion was taking on Continue reading
Japan’s international rugby test match against Fiji last Saturday afternoon (October 24th) was the second time the two sides had faced off against each other in five weeks. Whilst this one was basically just an exhibition game to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Japan Rugby Football Union (JRFU), the previous one (September 19th) was arguably a Continue reading
According to the online dinosaur museum website there are nearly 1000 dinosaur related places in Japan with the vast majority of them being parks and playgrounds. I thought I’d visited a fair few but it seems that I’ve barely scratched the surface!
To be fair, I have visited some of the major ones as many Continue reading
In the wake of the Tim Burton directed ‘Batman‘ (1989) I remember seeing a fair few people wearing the t-shirt with the bat logo on it. Indeed, my wife had one in the early years of us first meeting which I was sadly impressed by! Other than that classic t-shirt design and the mug I had as a child, I really cannot recall seeing too much other merchandise available from that franchise as the years and even the decades passed by. Fast forward to the present and things are quite different.
The success of multiple Star Wars and Marvel pop-up shops in Japan has seen other franchises sit up and take note. With the huge influx of tourists visiting the country these days and a very weak local currency, it’s an Continue reading
After finishing #LionDay, I soon began to think about the next tenuously themed day building up to a sports event. It was admittedly a bit of a struggle but after looking through the names and nicknames of many, many Japanese football, rugby, baseball, volleyball, basketball, table tennis and American football teams I finally hit on the idea of #ZDay.
It was good to approach the theme day from yet another angle too rather than going down the previous colour/country/animal (that will happen one day though, I’m sure!) route. You could call this a spin-off of the Continue reading
Two trips of a lifetime in just over a month surely can’t be real but that is exactly what I did when I booked both of my trips to Jordan and the USA at the same time 15 years ago. Whilst the former was my first trip to the Middle East, the latter was my return to a place I first went to nine years earlier. On that occasion I was on my own at the end of a 15-month backpacking trip around the world that concluded in California but this time I was in the USA with my number one American friend Ethan for a road trip through four states.
Day 1: After a night flight from Tokyo, I was met at LAX by Ethan for our first adventure together in a few years. After renting a car we had a quick stop at the famed Continue reading
Whilst football teams usually only play once or twice a week, it’s very different in baseball where the sides are in action for five or six days meaning that for the real hardcore supporters ten games can be racked up in about a fortnight. I am not really a baseball fan though so a few games each year is usually more than enough for me.
When I went to my first game of 2026 in early March I did not think for a moment that I’d ever go to ten games. However, that is what happened and I even managed to Continue reading
