Okinawa 2016 Pt III: J3 Football At FC Ryukyu

Posted on October 23, 2016 by tokyofox

Going to watch the local football team wasn’t in my mind when I booked this trip but as soon as I found out they had a home game on that weekend I couldn’t deny myself the chance of seeing the match. After all, it’s not everyday that one is in Okinawa!

Chizu said she’d hook me up with a football bar owner called Hiro who is a huge FC Ryukyu fan that would take me to the game. Along with another guy called Austin, who we met in Hiro’s bar the night before, we were driven up to Okinawa city to the home stadium of FC Ryukyu. I don’t think I’ve ever parked anywhere near a stadium car park on a match-day before but that is what you can do in Okinawa and when he opened the car boot I was surprised to see that he had a drum in there for he is one of those fan leaders! Soon after that we met up with the other Ryukyu fans in their supporters group including Chizu’s friend Aika who I met the night before.

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As there were still a couple of hours till kick off (we left Naha three hours before kick off!) Austin and I walked round the outside of the stadium before Continue reading →

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Okinawa 2016 Pt II: Dining Out In Naha

Posted on October 20, 2016 by tokyofox

Mention any part of Japan and it’s fairly likely that a Japanese person will be able to tell you the food specialities of that area. Food really is something of an obsession here and it took me a fair few years to find any appeal in travelling for food reasons. Okinawa is famed for it’s cuisine as it’s quite different to mainland food due to differences in culture, historical contact between other regions, climate, vegetables and other ingredients.

Even though I know I sampled some Okinawan food during my original trip to the islands  in 2006 I don’t really remember any of it so it wasn’t till last years ‘Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown‘ about Okinawa (s06E03) that I had any real idea about the local specialities. This particular episode of his CNN show sparked some kind of online conversation with an ex-student of mine who I knew lived in Naha.

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The plan to meet up with Chizu was inevitable as soon as we got round to Continue reading →

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Okinawa 2016 Pt I: Sightseeing In Naha

Posted on October 17, 2016 by tokyofox

Even though it was not actually filmed in Okinawa the ‘Karate Kid Part II‘ (1986) actually gave me my first glimpse of Japanese life back in the eighties. I actually wrote about this ten years ago when I went to Okinawa-prefecture for the first time to do some island hopping taking in the likes of Taketomi-jima and Ishigaki-jima.

A decade on and my wife and I were very much looking forward to experiencing Okinawa as she had never been there and I had never done anything more than transit on the main island. Naha was to be our destination for a three night break but due to the typhoon it was extended. We were supposed to be flying back on the Monday (3rd October) but my wife received an e-mail from the airline the day before saying it had already been cancelled. This wasn’t the first time though that I had missed a day at work due to flight problems!

We flew over Yoron-jima (actually part of Kagoshima prefecture) as we came into land and things had been going well although it was something of a dark start. ‘Joanna Lumley’s Japan‘ on ITV came at a good time for me as I hadn’t done too much research. In the third and final part of her travelogue series she visited the former Japanese Navy Underground Headquarters and though she said the tunnels were unbearable I felt we should visit them to get an understanding of how the Okinawan people fought the war.

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The Memorial Museum costs nothing but it’s the Continue reading →

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On The Fox Trail……At Toyakawa Inari Tokyo Betsuin (Tokyo)

Posted on October 14, 2016 by tokyofox

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Making this ‘On The Fox Trail…’ stuff into a series was never really my intention but dipping in and out of ‘The Fox And The Jewel‘ (1999) by Karen A. Smyers has certainly increased my knowledge about this topic. As I had a few hours to kill between lessons in Shibuya recently, I got on my bicycle and headed the 4.2 kilometres distance to Toyakawa Inari (1-4-7 Moto-Azabu, Minato-ku) in Akasaka and it took just 15 minutes to reach  along route 246 with the place located not too far from the likes of Hotel New Otani and Hooters!

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Toyokawa Inari is one of the major centres of Inari worship and, unlike  Continue reading →

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Joanna Lumley’s Japan (3 Episodes)

Posted on October 11, 2016 by tokyofox

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The celebrity travelogue is a well-worn but fairly trusted way of delivering ratings for TV stations and when this three part series aired on ITV last month I expected more of the usual formula of looking at everything weird and whacky that Japan has to offer. Instead Lumley delivered a Continue reading →

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A Weekend Away With The Family In Atami

Posted on October 7, 2016 by tokyofox

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Sandwiched in between our Okayama/Hiroshima and Thailand travel was a family trip to Atami in Shizuoka prefecture back in late August. The rest of the family all congregated on the Friday and I joined up with them straight after work on Saturday evening having taken  Continue reading →

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Fourth Tier Football Frolics

Posted on October 4, 2016 by tokyofox

Football is a game spanning the globe and is played at all levels with the likes of the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and erm, the J-League taking all the glory! Even though I am a fan of the current English champions I won’t lose my interest in following the beautiful game at many different levels and nowhere is that better exemplified than by this latest trip to see a JFL (Japan Football League) game.

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Grass roots football is where it’s at and that’s what I’m all about! Yokogawa Musashino are the only Tokyo-based team in the JFL and, having Continue reading →

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Review: Films Set In Japan – The Sea Of Trees (2015)

Posted on October 1, 2016 by tokyofox

The infamous Aokigahara is at the centre of this fairly slow moving 110 minute film directed by Gus Van Sant. Located at the northwest base of Mount Fuji, this 35-square-kilometre forest has the nickname of Suicide Forest or Sea of Trees and sees an American man called Arthur Brennan (Matthew McConaughey) travel to Japan to kill himself in the forest where he ends up meeting Takumi Nakamura (Ken Watanabe); a Japanese man  who has the same thoughts.

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One critic said that it was “a film for nobody” following it’s May 2015 debut at the Cannes Film Festival (where it was loudly booed and laughed at by an audience of critics) but he’s obviously oblivious to Tokyo Fox who is always excited about any film set in Japan. It has to be said though that the trailer didn’t Continue reading →

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Thailand 2016 Pt IV: Damnoen Saduak Floating Market

Posted on September 28, 2016 by tokyofox

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Despite having visited Bangkok three times before this trip I had still never visited any of the floating markets lying within an hour or two of the capital city. These markets have always looked so cool when I’ve seen wonderful pictures of them in magazines or clips on TV and, even though I knew the images of all the boat vendors selling a variety of goods  were probably a bit dated, I was still keen to see the Continue reading →

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Thailand 2016 Pt III: The Leicester City Temple!

Posted on September 25, 2016 by tokyofox

Ever since it appeared in a number of media outlets in early May, I have wanted to visit Wat Traimit to see if lived up to the hype of being a venerated site for us Leicester City fans. I didn’t really expect to see it so soon but being in Bangkok for Japan’s World Cup qualifier against Thailand gave me the opportunity.

The temple’s chief monk Phra Prommangkalachan, revered by the club’s Thai owners, had blessed the team, and as the Foxes closed in on the Premier League crown the world’s media were searching high and low for just about any story connected to the team that were 5000-1 outsiders at the start of the season.

As part of their promotional tour on May 18-19, the squad received a royal seal of approval at the Grand Palace followed by an open-top bus ride through the centre of Bangkok and they also visited this temple in Chinatown which houses the largest golden Buddha image in the world.

A collage of my pics mixed in with the media reports and photos from when the club visited the temple

A collage of my pics mixed in with the media reports and photos from when the club visited the temple

In the wake of Leicester claiming the top prize in English football last season, I Continue reading →

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