Hokkaido 2015 Pt I: Mt Meakan

Posted on July 1, 2015 by tokyofox

Less than a month since I last saw him and I was again with Ethan for a road-trip around Hokkaido; Japan’s most northerly main island. It was my first time to visit Hokkaido and after meeting up at New Chitose Airport early afternoon we were soon in our rental car driving east with a boot full of bottled water supplies towards our destination of Obihiro. With no accommodation booked for the whole trip we were just thinking that we could roll up wherever we like and get some kind of room! Wrong! We tried about seven or eight hotels and all of them said there was no room at the inn! Continue reading →

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My Leicester City Memorabilia

Posted on June 30, 2015 by tokyofox

One of the presents I got last Christmas was ‘Got Not Got! The Lost World of Leicester City‘ which is co-written by Gary Silke who is the editor of ‘The Fox‘; the long running City fanzine that’s been going for 27 years! This excellent book is crammed full of pictures and stuff from a time before Sky Sports and modern-day football when things were more simple. I was so impressed that I fairly quickly purchased the Norwich City version for my dad for his birthday. Continue reading →

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TF Flashback: An Epic One-Day Trip To Izu Peninsula (2004)

Posted on June 27, 2015 by tokyofox

The Izu Hantō Peninsula is an area possessing some splendid coastlines, beaches, mountains which is home to larger cities such as Atami; famed for it’s many hot spring baths and less so for the “Adult” museum which I visited back in March 2010.

Back on the 12th of August in 2004 I went on a day trip of sorts to the Izu Hantō Peninsula which was a very exhaustive 100km+ drive southwest of Tokyo in Shizuoka Prefecture. Setting off from Minami-Urawa station in Saitama just after 1am, my girlfriend of the time and I arrived shortly after 7am at the port harbour. Continue reading →

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Japan: Earth’s Enchanted Islands

Posted on June 24, 2015 by tokyofox

There have been plenty of TV programmes about Japan over the years but they only really ever focus on Tokyo and Kyoto so it was refreshing that this three-part BBC documentary series exemplified that there is plenty of life beyond those two particular cities.

In the land of noisy, dumbed down terebi it was so nice to see Continue reading →

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South Korea 2015 Pt III: Exercise, Games & Activities In Seoul

Posted on June 20, 2015 by tokyofox

This mini-break (three days, two nights) was not really about experiencing the sights, sounds and smells of Seoul this time. Sure, we did that a bit by sampling local food a few times and visiting the Memorial of Korea museum but generally this trip was just about hanging out with Ethan, Kaori and particularly their daughter Kaylee who I really enjoyed messing about with. Continue reading →

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Avengers Age Of Ultron Filming Locations In Seoul

Posted on June 17, 2015 by tokyofox

Over the years Seoul has lived very much in the shadows of neighbouring places like Tokyo and Hong Kong when it comes to Asian locations being featured in western movie productions. This time though, Marvel Studios agreed to portray South Korea as a high-tech, modern country during its 15 minutes of air-time. Mind you, it did cost the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism nearly £2.5m for it to be shot there on the condition that it showed the city in a positive light. Continue reading →

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South Korea 2015 Pt II: Dining Out And Other Such Cultural Stuff

Posted on June 14, 2015 by tokyofox

Our first taste of Korean food came in the wake of our trip to the War Memorial Of Korea museum. From there we took the train the short distance to ‘Meat-ing’ in the university area of Hongdae to go out for a yaki-niku (grilled meat) meal that would please everyone. With no-one able to speak the local language this was a reasonable choice as signs were in English and some of the staff could speak it. The choice of meats, vegetables and so on was varied enough in my opinion and we were all very happy with it though I get the feeling some locals may look down on such a place for its cheap and cheerful style. Continue reading →

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South Korea 2015 Pt I: The War Memorial Of Korea

Posted on June 11, 2015 by tokyofox

Following the previous nights earthquake interruptions we were up very early on Sunday morning to take the short flight from Haneda Airport to Seoul to spend a few days with my mate Ethan and his family.

South Korea was actually the first foreign country I visited after moving to Japan. That was back in January 2006 when my friend Asif and I went to the capital city for a few days in extremely cold conditions. We went on a DMZ tour which included actually crossing the border (of sorts!) to stand on North Korean territory which I talked about briefly in the inaugural Tokyo Fox post. Continue reading →

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Back To The Hitachi Stadium After An Absence Of 11 Years!

Posted on June 8, 2015 by tokyofox

Seven years to see Kashiwa Reysol in live action and then I end up seeing them play on consecutive weekends! The previous weekends game at FC Tokyo was a kind of bonus as when I looked at the fixture list a while back the main match in my mind was the one yesterday at home to Sanfrecce Hiroshima; the team that I went to watch whilst I was over that way during Golden Week.

This was my first time to visit the Hitachi Stadium since Continue reading →

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Football Match Held Up By An Earthquake!

Posted on June 4, 2015 by tokyofox

During the thirty years I’ve been attending football matches I’ve seen games delayed for injuries, floodlight failure, streakers, broken goals, overcrowding but J1 Matchday 14 added a fairly lengthy earthquake to that list. This wasn’t just any old delay though as it just happened to be at the most crucial and pivotal of moments in the game I was at between FC Tokyo and Kashiwa Reysol. Continue reading →

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