Sandstorm in Tokyo & a Lot of Pollen

Posted on March 10, 2013 by tokyofox

Almost two years to the day of the big earthquake there was a sandstorm in Tokyo earlier this afternoon which I witnessed first hand from the inside of the Keio line train around the Fuchu area of west Tokyo. With temperatures at a soaring 25 degrees celsius I was on my way to Tama Zoo and checking Facebook on my phone when friends pictures started to emerge online showing the skyline. I didn’t think too much until moments later I began to notice that the outside view was not that of its usual colours. I initially thought, in my not-looking-too-closely-state, that it was just a huge sandy coloured building when it suddenly dawned on me that we were experiencing a sandstorm which left me a bit shocked as I have never seen such a thing first hand. I felt like I was in a movie scene for I did not know what was going to happen next. This was certainly no Universal Studios type-tour and it reminded me of when young Anakin Skywalker took Padmé , Jar Jar Binks and Qui-Gon Jinn back to his home (below) in ‘Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace‘ (1999) to seek refuge from the oncoming sandstorm.

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Whilst it may be a common sight on Tatooine a yellow-brown sky blurring visibility is not something you expect to see in a concrete jungle like Tokyo with no desert anywhere near. Thankfully by the time I reached my intended destination it had all erm pretty much blown over and normal life quickly resumed. Naturally the government denied that it was a sandstorm and maybe it technically wasn’t but as far as most locals are concerned it was. As I didn’t capture the moment on film myself I have nicked the photo above from my friend Misaki!

In other such wind-related news the pollen levels have been so bad this year that they actually went off the scale this weekend and were as high as all of last year which really is incredible. Although I suffered with hayfever as a child I had been fine for many years before suffering a little last year but this year has been horrible with constant sneezing and the frustration that comes with it as it seems like its never going to end.

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Star Wars: The Clone Wars – The Fate of Ahsoka

Posted on March 5, 2013 by tokyofox

The fifth (and final?) season of ‘Star Wars The Clone Wars‘ came to a dramatic and deeply moving conclusion last weekend when, after years and years of speculation, the fate of heroine Ahsoka Tano (voiced by Ashley Eckstein) was finally known.

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Episode 20’s ‘The Wrong Jedi‘ brought about the end of a quadrilogy arc of episodes which saw Ahsoka framed for a list of murders and crimes she didn’t commit. To cut a long story short, she was Continue reading →

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Moving Out 2013

Posted on March 2, 2013 by tokyofox

After nearly 4.5 years living in north Tokyo the opportunity has come up to move onwards and indeed outwards. When I was pretty much forced to move out of my shared place in Ikebukuro in late 2008 I decided to re-locate to a spacious place in Kami Itabashi on the Tobu Tojo line and as much as I have loved living here I have decided to move a little closer to my workplaces which ironically is exactly why I moved here in the first place. Back then I was working at three schools very close to home and also had a girlfriend living close to hand but all of those things came to an end in the first half of my Kami Itabashi era.

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Above are a couple of shots taken when I first moved in, and with the place having an unbelievable amount of storage space its fair to say I have accumulated quite a lot of stuff over the years which is in stark contrast to when I came back to Japan many years ago with just a little rucksack and my faithful old backpack!

What I am looking forward to is having a bigger kitchen, a separate toilet and bathroom and some sort of balcony. A sofa to sit on and a bigger TV wouldn’t go amiss either! I’m also excited about having a new area to explore and being a little bit more in the heart of the city should bring me closer to modern architecture and international restaurants which are ongoing Facebook albums of mine and the latter in particular occasionally appears on this site too when I’m able to come up with some tenuous link to the country in question. Cycling to and from work and more frequent day trips (to be featured in the ‘Tokyo Daytripper’ series on here) are other benefits of moving out but of course it all depends on exactly where my new home will be located.

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Dining Out: IKEA (Sweden)

Posted on February 27, 2013 by tokyofox

No sooner had I dined out at this Swedish retail giant and it was in the news headlines for the very thing that I ate in its restaurant. It was reported in the British media that traces of horse meat had been found in Ikea meatballs adding further fuel to the horse-meat scandal which has been dominating the news over the last few weeks. The concerned production batch has since been withdrawn from the UK stores and as far as I know I don’t think that Japan has been affected not that they would kick up such a fuss anyway. Given that horse-meat is often eaten in Japan the locals view would probably be positive as its a more expensive meat than the usual classics like beef or pork. For the record, Ikea say that the meatballs contain no additives, and are made using a mixture of ground beef and pork from Australia.

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Sweden is a country I have an affection for having visited the country three times (see the four pictures below) between 2000 and 2005. Those trips have predominantly been to just Gothenburg which is where my mate Hugo is based but it was only on my last trip in the Winter of early 2005 that I went to IKEA for the first and only time. That was until last Sunday when my girlfriend and I went to Minami Funabashi in Chiba to buy some new furniture and whilst that was the main reason for the visit it’s not what I’m gonna focus on here in a blog series called ‘Dining Out!’

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I was actually looking most forward to sampling a few cheap Swedish dishes once I’d purchased some shelving. The restaurant on the stores 2nd floor may come across as a bit like a school canteen but the service is rapid and I was content enough as I requested the classic Swedish meatball dish (¥499) served with potatoes and lingonberry jam. We also shared some marinated salmon (¥399) which is advertised as Swedish food despite it being Norwegian salmon! With lemon, dill and mustard sauce added it really was an awesome taste.

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I added a cinnamon bun (¥80) which is the most popular pastry in Sweden with the dough being made from whole wheat flour. That wasn’t that though as I also had an elderflower cupcake (¥99) which was absolutely lovely with the cream cheese icing being particularly agreeable to my tastes.

It’s not every day you go to Ikea so with that in mind I thought, especially given the low prices, that I had better sample another Swedish dish. This time it was cheese baked saithe which is some kind of grilled white fish with cheddar cheese herb breadcrumbs served with what their website describes as “a sophisticated sauce made from Swedish artichoke”. Mashed potato topped it all off and this dish from the northeastern part of Sweden was delicious. It didn’t end there though as I also added a slice of almond cake chocolate & butterscotch (¥299) to my tray whilst I was lining up to get the white fish. This smooth, creamy milk chocolate and crispy butterscotch was smothered with butter cream and decorated with chocolate-coated marshmallow pieces which appealed to my sweet tooth very much.

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Two and a half dinners plus three cakes and a can of beer meant I left in good spirits and totally forgot about the actual shopping part which did make me a little tired.

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Tokyo Daytripper: Top 10 Saitama Sights

Posted on February 24, 2013 by tokyofox

Some Tokyo-ites like to refer to this prefecture as dasaitama (“uncool-tama”) and they’re probably right….to an extent, but thats certainly not to say that it doesn’t have its share of sights which can make for a pleasant day trip from Tokyo. As transport links to Tokyo are good the eastern side of Saitama in particular is basically just an extension of the capital cities grey looking residential area whilst the western side is a bit more countryside. Here then, in no particular order, are my top ten things to do in Saitama featuring a mix of famous sights and some hidden gems too.

1. Yoshimi Hyaku-ana caves – These little known caves (below) are about 25 minutes walk from Higashi Matsuyama station on Tobu Tojo line. The tunnels were used as storage for weapons in WWII and made bigger to protect the Japanese from the Allied bombing raids and were allegedly enlarged in 1945 through the efforts of 3,500 Korean forced labourers. More details here.

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2. Shinrin Koen Park – This vast park (below) is about an hour from Ikebukuro on the Tobu Tojo line (plus a short bus ride) and includes the likes of a wading pool, an adventure course, streams, lakes, bridges, restaurants, a dog run, cycle tracks, lookout points, flowering trees, swamp land, gardens as well as sculpture and memorial squares. More details here.

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3. Tobu Dobutsukoen – Not just a zoo but also a theme park (below) and a huge swimming pool area. Great fun for people of all ages. More details here.

4. Saitama Stadium 2002 – Four World Cup games were played here in 2002; the tournament for which it was purposely built. With its soaring triangular sails its much more aesthetically pleasing than your average identikit English stadium. You can even see Mount Fuji at sunset in the distance of the stadium corner and this state of the art stadium (above) even includes seats with armrests. The 63,700 capacity stadium is the home stadium of J-League team Urawa Reds. More details here.

5. Tokorozawa – Along the Seibu Ikebukuro line this place doesn’t have tourist attractions as such but it is home to a couple of filming locations from ‘The Ju-on – The Grudge‘. The house (below) can be found here as can the steps which featured in the sequels closing scene. More details here.

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6. Omiya Bonsai Village – The museum (below) opened in 2010 and has displays of bonsai pots, suiseki (beautifully shaped) stones, pictures, historical bonsai materials and of course the bonsai trees themselves. There are actually quite a few bonsai nurseries in Omiya making up what is known as Omiya Bonsai Village. It’s a five minute walk from the east exit of Toro Station on the JR Utsunomiya line. More details here.

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7. Kawagoe – The main attraction here is the old Kurazukuri street (a street lined with traditional warehouses keeping in with the Edo period look of the place) as well as the bell tower. This traditional Edo-style town (below) is only 40 minutes from Ikebukuro and also has a few other attractions as well as some local food specialities. Arguably, Saitama’s top daytripper destination. More details here.

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8. Chichibu – A really great place to go, particularly during Spring and Autumn. “Koyo” (Autumn foliage) season sees the coloured leaves (below) at their brightest best. The shibasakura (pink moss) fields of Hitsujiyama Park are also a spectacularly beautiful sight in Spring. More details here.

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9. Railway Museum – This huge place (below) is a historical and education museum with many knobs and buttons to play with in the learning hall. There’s a railway model diaroma (showing how everything works and how so many trains operate at the same time inter-connecting with each other), an operation simulator, a mini-shuttle train (connecting the museum with the park-zone), a collection of railway memorabilia including station signs, uniforms and photographs, and a number of historic carriages and steam engines. More details here.

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10. Nagatoro – White-water rafting up in Nagatoro on the Arakawa River (below) in Chichibu-tama National Park is a good activity for anyone seeking a bit of an adrenaline rush. More details here.

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Bonus: Nack5 Stadium – Another football one. This is a proper traditional rectangular stadium and it is home to Omiya Ardija. More details here.

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Click here to see the Top 10 Kanagawa Sights

Click here to see the Top 10 Chiba Sights 

Click here to see the Top 10 day trips beyond Kanagawa, Saitama & Chiba

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Review: Films Set In Japan – The Hunted (1995)

Posted on February 21, 2013 by tokyofox

Christopher Lambert’s character Paul Racine is a New Yorker who gets lucky with a mysterious oriental lady whilst on a business trip to Nagoya. After their night of passion he basically finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time having returned to her apartment just in time to see her decapitated for a transgression by the ninja assassin Kinjo whose face must never be seen by anyone.

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Incredibly Racine somehow survives the Continue reading →

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Cycling to Tsukuda & Back (Almost!)

Posted on February 18, 2013 by tokyofox

On a bitterly cold and extremely windy February morning it would have been so easy for me to just take the Yurakucho line directly all the way to Tsukishima station but having the bicycle gives me the freedom to roam a city which is frustratingly difficult to navigate on foot at times. As it was, I would ultimately end up having far more freedom than I wanted but more on that later! My fingers and toes were very cold as I cycled the 75 minute trail from my apartment down through Tokyo and across the Sumidagawa river to the Tsukishima area which I was only in a few months ago when I did my gourmet snack trail tour with Asif.

After crossing the Sumida River via the Tsukuda Ohashi Bridge it’s the striking red Tsukuda Bashi Bridge which is the first point of note as you arrive in the quiet old town of Tsukuda. A student told me the following day that this artificial island is reclaimed land and used to be a small fisherman’s village more than 300 years ago when 33 fishermen of Osaka moved to Edo (the former name of Tokyo) to introduce the latest fishing methods at a time when Osaka was more developed than Edo. Tsukuda got its name from the village where those fishermen were from.

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Sumiyoshi jinja was a nice little shrine just round the corner from the red bridge made that little bit better by the fact that it has a couple of foxes guarding it.

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The lighthouse on the riverfront sure was a windy place when I was there. It is not the original one but a replica of which its prime use these days is as a toilet!

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Back by the canal is the Tsukuda Namiyoke Shrine (above) which was built to pray for the safety of the fisherman. The stones around the tree supposedly have some significant meaning though I’m not sure what exactly!

About the only hive of activity in this sleepy area was a steady stream of customers visiting one of the traditional tsukudani (sea food boiled in soy sauce) shops. Tenyasu (below) has been open since 170 years ago and you can buy the stuff by measure but as it was expensive and I didn’t think it could be used so easily I declined the invitation.

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Like Shibamata (where I went a few weeks prior to this) there’s not really that much to do in Tsukuda, far less in fact, but if you’re in the vicinity then its a place with a nice, quite atmosphere to have a quick walk (or cycle) around.

I then cycled on to Higashi Ginza for lunch at a Dominican restaurant by the name of ‘The Santo Domingo’ where I had a lunch set for 1000 yen. Almost as soon as I left I got a puncture which to be fair I’m amazed has never happened on any of my other bike rides into deepest Tokyo. However, it wasn’t the first time this year as it happened on a nightmare day in Nicaragua back in early January.

There wasn’t much choice but for me to push the bike home and stop at a bicycle repair shop along the way somewhere. Google Maps told me it was a 3.5 hour walk home which I actually thought not too bad given how far I was from my place. Incredibly I didn’t come across a single one for over two hours and naturally it was when I took a slight mis-turn that I found one in Waseda where a very nice Japanese guy fixed it. He pulled a drawing pin out straight away which I hadn’t noticed! Not sure if I ran over it or whether some d*ckhead maybe put it in there as my bicycle was parked somewhere it shouldn’t have been whilst I was having lunch.

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TF Film Review: Zero Dark Thirty (2013)

Posted on February 15, 2013 by tokyofox

This is the story of the decade-long hunt for Osama Bin Laden and is director Kathryn Bigelow’s first movie since ‘The Hurt Locker‘ (2008) which was critically acclaimed. I can’t say that I ever really went along with the hype of that film but I guess its success made it much easier for the ‘Zero Dark Thirty‘ story to be told.

It is not your typical Hollywood movie and doesn’t really have a plot as such but is more about tracking and killing Osama Bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda. The protagonist is CIA agent Maya (Jessica Chastain) who is initially quite shocked at the tactics used by CIA interrogator Dan (Jason Clarke). He humiliates, beats and water boards one suspect in a fairly heavy first third of the movie yet despite this I still feel his character comes across as being more charismatic than Maya. Not such a bad thing though in my opinion and it is testament to Chastain’s acting that she is able to deliver a subdued and restrained performance. There is no attempt to draw the viewer in with any human sentiment by way of character development scenes or the often-used flashbacks which are paramount to the success of most films. I didn’t really care for that though as the story was gripping enough without needing such stuff to help move the story along.

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I went into this film with almost no knowledge of the subject matter other than that it was more about finding the worlds most dangerous man than the events of 9/11. As someone who has been fairly ignorant of such news I was armed with less information and facts than most viewers and therefore had no expectations going in to the cinema. I’m sure the real events were a bit different but as an entertaining piece of documentary-style film (without harder hitting questions of whether it was all worth it) I was more than happy with how it all came together on screen.

Even though 157 minutes is too long for a movie where we all know the outcome it’s still a very tense and breathtaking finale as you don’t really know how its gonna be portrayed. The raid on Bin Laden’s hideout (filmed on a specially constructed set in the deserts of Jordan) had me literally on the edge of my seat. The scenes of the Navy SEALs flying in to siege the place are compelling and with it shot to replicate the zero dark thirty (military code for the time 00:30) raid it brings another sense of meaning to the word dark in a film with very dark themes. Worth seeing in the total darkness of a cinema for that reason.

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Tokyo Fox Rating 8/10

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Dining Out: Meguro Tavern (British)

Posted on February 13, 2013 by tokyofox

“Where are you gonna go for British food then?” is probably the most common question I’ve been asked since I started regularly dining out at international restaurants in Tokyo. Whilst most of the many British bars in and around Tokyo serve fish and chips they don’t do too many other actual British dishes.

One such place that does though is the Meguro Tavern (below) which is just a few minutes walk from JR Meguro station. This pub has been in Tokyo since 1998 and as far as I know is the only place to offer a traditional Sunday roast including roast beef (Aus), roast lamb (NZ) and roast pork (Canada/Hokkaido), with all the trimmings (roast potatoes, carrots, peas, sprouts, sweetcorn, gravy, mint sauce etc) including Yorkshire Puddings (below).

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In the food obsessed culture of Japan it can be quite frustrating to hear constant negative comments about British food which is fair enough if they’ve been to Britain and sampled a  few dishes. However, most haven’t and are basing their assumptions on one meal (fish & chips) which is of course a greasy one and that, along with other British dishes, is a very different kind of dish to the rice and noodle staples served up here in the East.

The Meguro Tavern serve all manner of proper British dishes across the week but we were there for the roast (starting from 12:30pm) which is a meal I haven’t had since I was back in my motherland in January 2012. In fact it was actually a bit weird to have a roast dinner cooked by someone other than my mum.

As it is a help yourself buffet style service, I piled my plate up with all the delicious looking food without much thought for the ensuing pictures I would be taking of it which is why they ones below don’t look too arty. The food was absolutely fantastic and I went back for seconds and even a third round as it is not everyday that I get to sample a taste of home. My girlfriends parents Riuko and Mikio have been overly kind to me and very welcoming so I decided to treat them and both were very impressed, way more than they thought they would be beforehand.

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It costs 1950 yen for what is called ‘The Carvery’ and you can have as much as you like as long as you are still drinking. The drinks may be slightly on the expensive side at around 1000 yen per pint (£7) but all-in-all just under 4000 yen for a couple of lunchtime pints and the only roast dinner in Tokyo isn’t too bad. It certainly whetted my appetite for sampling a few more of their other meals and I sure do intend to make my return soon.

* The Meguro Tavern is at 2F, Sunwood Meguro Bldg., 1-3-28, Shimomeguro, Meguro Ku, Tokyo

UPDATE: All-you-can-eat is no more! Since resuming on 4th October 2015, ‘The Carvery’ now costs 3000 yen and includes a drink. The meat is served up by the chef but you help yourself to the veggies so best to pile them up. If you do want more meat though then you have to pay another 1000 yen for a second round. 

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Tora-san Meets Me in Shibamata!

Posted on February 10, 2013 by tokyofox

I’d never heard of this place until I saw it mentioned in one of my film travel books a couple of years back. Little did I know that it was just down the road from Kanamachi on the Tokyo/Chiba border where I worked on Saturdays when I first came to Japan many many years ago. After a trip down memory lane to our old neighbourhood, fellow blogger Gideon (of Gideon Davidson Photography fame) and I decided to finish the day in Shibamata which is less than 20 minutes walk from Kanamachi station. Of course it has its own station but I didn’t want to transfer to the Keisei-kanamachi line just to go one stop whilst paying another 130 yen to do so!

If you think the 007 series of films is impressive by number then thats nothing compared to the ‘Otoko Wa Tsurai Yo‘ (It’s tough being a man) series which consists of 48 films  made between 1969 and 1995. Shibamata is the home to the main protagonist Tora-san and his family and friends which it is why its included in my book. Now I’m no expert on these movies but Tora-san is seemingly an optimistic guy who is unlucky in love as he travels back and forth between his beloved hometown and some remote place where he plans to peddle his wares to the locals. He generally meets a woman there who then by miraculous chance goes to Shibamata and bumps into the clumsily charming Tora-san. Of course its never a straight-forward romance though and chaos and hilarity often ensue with the main man invariably ending up heartbroken and walking off to his next destination.

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There’s a statue of Tora-san outside the station and just round the corner and across a road is the main shopping street lined with traditional Japanese souvenir, sweet and snack shops which all seem to have some kind of Tora-san merchandise or displays. There aren’t too many places left in and around Tokyo where you can escape the hustle and bustle of modern city life but this place, along with Kawagoe, is one such place to sample the more traditional side of Edo period Japan.

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It’s quite a short street and at the end you can see the Taishakuten temple quarters which looked quite nice covered in snow (but would have been even better a few days before) but because of that and the fact that it was late afternoon it was absolutely freezing walking around the buddhist temple gardens boardwalk which has to be done without shoes. Slippers are so often provided in Japan for so many different inside places and boy could we have done with them here!

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Behind the temple is the Tora-san museum which sadly we didn’t have time for but hopefully, like Tora-san himself, I will return to Shibamata to pay the place a visit.

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