Late night or early morning flights in my experience tend be just after midnight or at about 6:00 am. On this occasion though my flight from Amman (Jordan) to Istanbul in Turkey was right in the middle of that time zone.
The 3:15 am flight might have saved me on a night’s accommodation, but I did Continue reading
12 months on from our last trip to Hiroshima and we were back but this time things were a bit different and not in a good way.
At the start of the year beloved family dog Cocoa Continue reading
“The miracle of Brighton” in 2015 helped propel Japan’s national men’s rugby team towards the upper echelons of world rugby. That famous win against South Africa in the Rugby World Cup in England was one of the greatest upsets in global sport and things got better four years later when they hosted the tournament and defeated the likes of Ireland and Scotland in the Pool stages. Japanese rugby was very much on the rise but could it be sustained?
Sadly, Japan is located in a remote part of the world compared to all the other powerhouse nations of the sport. Joining the Six Nations tournament in Europe was never really likely but the southern hemisphere Rugby Championship did seem a more likely proposition for helping the Brave Blossoms progress with regular top-tier matches. That has never materialised though leaving the Continue reading
There’s nothing us Brits love more than a bit of toilet humour so when I heard there was a museum devoted to such matters I thought it was a place I just had to see.
Whenever I hear the word Toto two things come to mind. One of them is the American rock band famed for the early 80s hit single ‘Africa‘ and then there’s the toilet manufacturer. The latter has a museum in Continue reading
Usually when one visits a museum, it is to see whatever is being exhibited inside but the beauty of this place is very much the distinctive external appearance.
With two rectangular prisms protruding from the building, the cantilevered structure of this museum resembles bulging robotic eyes or binoculars. This aesthetically pleasing structure is the Continue reading
The ever-changing poses of Tokyo Fox!
In 2025 I went to 33 football matches in Japan and the UK which was the most I’ve ever done including my years as a season ticket holder at Leicester City back in the 1990s. Yet again the idea was to scale things back a bit this year but here we are just ahead of the midway point of the year having already been to ten matches in Japan as well as two in the UK. For the record, I have decided not to include the UK ones in this ranking list.
This first batch of matches features six different stadiums and grounds in Tokyo, Kanagawa Continue reading
Needing some original Sunday morning dog walking ideas, my wife and I decided to walk round the famous green train line which passes through most of Tokyo’s urban centres in a loop. I should point out that our Continue reading
When I decided to visit the Middle East, the likes of Iraq, Israel & the Palestinian Territories were my top choices but I felt they were probably too much of a big step for my first time in the region so I subsequently went for a safer option.
It may be surrounded by more news-prevalent countries like Syria, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia but Continue reading
The ever-changing poses of Tokyo Fox!!
The first half of 2026 has been a busy one for watching rugby and I’ve already managed to attend enough matches to warrant another compilation post series. There’s a couple of international matches coming up but it’s highly likely that they’ll be Continue reading
A couple of days before last year’s Star Wars Celebration Japan event at Makuhari Messe, there was a specially themed Star Wars Night sports event at the nearby ZOZO Marine Stadium. I never really thought about going then as I didn’t want to take another day off work or make the two-hour journey to that part of Japan knowing that I’d be doing it for three days in a row once the convention began.
However, when it was announced a few months ago that Star Wars Night would be returning in 2026 to tie in with the ‘The Mandalorian & Grogu‘ movie release I decided to Continue reading
Tokyo Fox (東京狐) 