It’s time to introduce you to my latest niece as baby Alice was born at home in the morning on Saturday 27th February in the UK. Big congratulations to Stuart and Lorna on child number two. The all-important weight was alb 7oz and now George has a little sister to play with.
Click on the links below for past stories about my nephews and nieces:
Japan is one of those places which really seems to spark an interest in many people and then there are the true Japanophiles who have a real strong obsession with a certain part of Japanese culture. Back on Jan 10th there was a programme on the TV Tokyo channel which featured a young Hungarian guy called Lazlo who had never been to Japan but absolutely loved the Tokyo Metro. The TV company paid for him to come to the county of his dreams and shadowed him as he went about his otaku business. (Watch it here – Japanese language only)
This film, which is now over 50 years old, starts off with the fabulous four being pursued by fans at Lime Street Station in Liverpoool…except for the fact that it was actually shot at London’s Marylebone Station; a station which has featured on screen many times over the years with it’s most recent appearance in ‘Paddington‘ (2014).
Paul’s grandfather John McCartney goes gambling on 20 minutes at Les Ambassadeurs Casino which is a five minute walk away from Hyde Park Corner Underground station on the Piccadilly Line.
In many ways February 6th really was a landmark day in the history of Leicester City Football Club as, following their crushing victory away at Manchester City, the world sat up and took notice of what has been happening to a club that 12 months ago were pretty much dead and buried at the foot of the Premier League.
It really has been a miraculous turnaround in fortunes and the aforementioned game just happened to coincide with the inaugural LCFC Japan supporters club meet-up. Ever since then the media have been lapping up just about everything concerned with the club. No stone has been left unturned and even a certain Tokyo Fox has been in demand. In the fortnight following that game (including the heartbreaking injury time defeat to Arsenal) I have done two radio interviews as well as Continue reading
It’s hard to believe that the Tokyo Fox blog has been up and running for a decade now. It began in February 2006 as a fun pun-based place to keep an online journal to let friends and family back home know what things were like for me living and working in Japan.
Forgive the pretentiousness of this post but to have kept this site going for a decade is no mean feat given that so many others have come and gone in that time. Furthermore, this blogging business all started in an era before social media had become the beast that it is today. Though it moved away from your typical online diary the person that it’s most aimed at is actually myself and if anyone else cares to read it then that’s just a bonus. Continue reading
Tokyo Fox is ten years old this month and here are the posts which have had the most number of hits during the last decade.
1. Tokyo Filming Locations #2 – Lost In Translation (2003): 29 November 2011
This one just goes from strength to strength and is undoubtedly the most famous movie to have been made in Japan with some pretty famous filming locations in Shinjuku-ku and Shibuya-ku. More details here
2. TF Top 10……Music Videos Filmed In Japan: 10 June 2014
Tokyo may seem like it’s a huge metropolis of never-ending concrete stretching as far as the eye can see but if you go far enough west then there are actually some mountains. Mount Takao (599m) is the most famous and just over 30km north of there is Mount Mitake (929m) which is similar in that it can be ascended via cable car thereby making it a good day-trip alternative to the world’s busiest mountain.
At the summit is a Shinto Shrine and there are many hiking courses stretching to the other mountains (Mt. Otake, Mt. Nabewari, Mt. Ohtsuka, Mt. Takamizu, Mt. Sougaku etc) in the area and beyond. I have been meaning to go to Mount Mitake for quite some time but it is actually a place that I have visited before. That was back in 2005 and I probably would’ve included it in the TF Flashback series on Tokyo Fox except for the fact that I could hardly remember anything useful about that trip, and also I have no idea where the photos are! On that occasion I stubbornly refused to take the cable car and walked up the mountain but as it’s just a winding concrete road and not a hiking trail I decided to take the easy way up this time.
It was 15 years ago that I set off alone on a journey to a huge island country on the other side of the world with just a backpack to my name. Other than the Australian soaps, ‘Crocodile Dundee‘ and typical TV footage of Sydney Harbour I really didn’t know too much about the place and I certainly had no idea about backpacking!
After all these years in Tokyo I pretty much assumed I was the only Foxes fan around here and it was hard enough just trying to find a Japanese person who had even heard of the city of Leicester or Resuta (レスター) as they call it. Back in 2010, I thought the signing of Yuki Abe would make my home city known here but it never quite materialised. However, a few things in the recent years have helped to raise awareness of the place. First, there was the story of Richard III (King of England between 1483 and 1485), then Princess Mako (a member of the Japanese Imperial family) went to the University of Leicester to study museology and finally last June the Japanese international striker Shinji Okazaki signed for Leicester City in a £7m switch from Mainz in the Bundasliga. Continue reading
When it comes to snowboarding in Japan there are many good places but it is Hokkaido which is the place held in highest esteem by those in the know. As much as I enjoyed all my previous snowboarding trips to Nagano-ken there has always been that desire to partake in some action on the mountains in Niseko where the all-too-common icy slopes (in my experience!) give way to some fantastic snow in one of the worlds best ski resorts.
Last weekend I was back on Japan’s most northerly main island just over half a year since I last visited and yet again I was joined by my regular partner-in-crime Ethan……but we only just made it though! On the Friday we travelled I was heavily delayed on the train and only just managed to check-in in the nick of time. Meanwhile, Ethan’s flight was delayed too and at the airport I had already told the bus company we’d take the next one an hour later……when suddenly Ethan and a bus staff member came sprinting through the terminal with just a couple of minutes to spare. Continue reading
Tokyo Fox (東京狐) 