The sight of a frog temple in Japan is quite a rare one but this region possesses two of them, and I hopped on over to one of them to see if it was a ribbet-ing place or not!
Unwittingly I had chosen to visit the secondary temple which is said to be Continue reading
When planning any trip it’s fairly usual to check out the weather forecast for the place you’re going to. In my experience, the sight of rain every day in south-east Asian cities has been quite a common occurrence but has rarely ever been correct. That was indeed what was predicted for my three night trip to Malaysia 15 years ago but reality was just a few brief moments of drizzle amidst mostly hot weather.
On arrival at the airport, my girlfriend-of-the-time and I took Continue reading
Think of train stations in Japan and the mighty Shinjuku station is sure to come to mind for many people. That is the world’s busiest train station, and Japan monopolises the top 50 list with only five of them not in this country. However, at the other end of the scale are some tiny stations which are usually unstaffed and used by very few commuters.
Station: Sue
Prefecture: Continue reading
The use of the word derby in football seems to be more and more prevalent these days as the people behind club social media accounts think of interesting and creative ways to market fixtures whether it be based on personnel who have represented both sides, shirt colours (the orange/green/purple derby etc), similar sounding names (Kashiwa and Kashima), anagrams (Tokyo & Kyoto) or whatever. There really seems to be no end to it but there was no need for such tenuous links last Sunday (30th March) though as this fixture was actually related to good old-fashioned geography.
The combination of relegation for Continue reading
In the latter half of the last decade the ‘On The Fox Trail…’ series spawned over 20 posts, and I really did think I had covered pretty much any fox-related place in Japan. That wasn’t the case though as this fox-blessed hot spring town somehow bypassed my attention.
It was only whilst I was checking out the nearest stations on Google Maps for accessing Renofa Yamaguchi’s football stadium last August that I came across a few interesting sights. Yabara is actually the closest station to the Ishin Me-Life Stadium but Yudaonsen is also within walking distance and proved to be an Continue reading
At the start of this month I was looking at Futbology (an app for ground hoppers) when I noticed someone had been to Miyagi Stadium. Not only that but he had actually seen Vegalta Sendai in action rather than Mynavi Sendai Ladies team or Sony Sendai FC * who sometimes play there. I was somewhat surprised as Vegalta play their home games at the Yurtec Stadium but subsequent research told me that new turf was being laid there so Continue reading
It seems like many Buddha statues have some kind of claim to fame whether it be the tallest, longest or biggest one made of whatever material in whichever country, city or region.
This Buddha statue in Japan is the largest bronze statue in the world but I sadly wasn’t aware of it until shortly after I’d made a Continue reading
Just three nights after seeing Kylie, we were at another concert but this one couldn’t have been more constrasting in style!
It was back to more regular and comfortable territory for me as my wife and I went to Toyosu Pit in Koto Ward (Tokyo) to see the genius behind The Continue reading
Over the last few decades I’ve seen around 150 live music performances (mainly thanks to seeing multiple acts at UK summer festivals) but very, very few of them have involved pop groups or singers. Whilst I have seen the likes of Robbie Williams and All Saints as part of festival line-ups I’ve definitely never seen a pop act in their own solo show but that changed very recently when my wife and I saw Australia’s greatest export live in concert.
Whenever I go to Ariake in Koto ward (Tokyo) it is almost always in the name of tennis but this time it was to see the princess of pop who was back in Japan performing live for the first time since 2011. Until this concert date was announced last year, I was completely Continue reading
After moving to Tokyo, it took a while for my first foreign trip to happen but when it did the destination was South Korea which is no real surprise given its close proximity to Japan. That initial trip to the capital city for a few days in extremely cold conditions was mentioned briefly in the inaugural Tokyo Fox post but it then took nearly a decade for my next trip. That was when my wife and I spent a couple of nights with my number one American friend Ethan who was living in Seoul at that time with his family.
This three day trip was never really going to be a big dive into Korean culture but there was still a smattering of local Continue reading
Tokyo Fox (東京狐) 