A long time ago (well about 10 months ago!) in a galaxy far, far away (approximately 10 kilometres from the Tokyo Fox Global Operations Centre in Itabashi-ku) I managed to get my hands on a pair of very rare and limited Adidas Star Wars Stormtrooper trainers, and at a Continue reading
March 3rd is Hina Matsuri (Doll Festival) in Japan which is a day celebrating girls’ health and happiness. Some Japanese people have dressed up their dolls (not your ‘barbie’ type of doll by the way!) this last week and put them on display in the best room of the house. And some students even ask me if there’s a similar thing in the UK! As if!
On Sunday Gideon and I met up for a more traditional Hina Matsuri event involving 800 yen paper boxes (with a kind-of pop up male and female dolls on it dressed in colourful kimonos) being dropped down a slide onto the river where they float down the river carrying evil spirits away with them.
Some cynics may say that’s bad news for the place where they all end up but in reality they only made it a few metres from the slide before they sank! This disappointed me as I’d envisaged a river full of floating dolls not too dis-similar from Chinese lanterns being lit and sent down a river.
Taking place on the banks of the Sumida-gawa river in Asakusa near Azumibashi bridge there were three pink slides as well as a boat across the water full of people (who had no doubt paid a lot to be on it) sending the paper doll things down its own slide. This is the kind of event which one can only watch for so long before you get bored!
Click here to read ‘Tokyo Daytripper Special: TF Top 10……Quirky Japanese Festivals’
‘The Tourist’ comes out in Japan on March 5th but as is the way (most of the time), it came out elsewhere last year. It is set in the beautiful location of Venice and its two stars; Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp aren’t exactly eye-sores. Having finally been to the Italian city last August I was keen to see which locations would appear. It’s difficult to really pinpoint the exact places most of the time apart from one. That was the Hotel Danielli which I did go to as it was also used in ‘Moonraker‘ (1979) and can be seen here.
The plot of this romantic thriller revolves around Elise (Jolie) using American tourist Frank (Depp) as a decoy on a train going to Venice. She chose him to Continue reading
This mud festival took place yesterday (Feb 25th) at Mimusubi Shrine in Yotsukaido over in Chiba prefecture which was about a 90 minute train ride away. Alongside the penis festival (a.k.a. kana matsuri) and nakizumo festival (sumo wrestlers making babies cry) this is another one of those quirky Japanese festivals which involved men in loincloths carrying newborn babies into a roped-off muddy swamp area where they then made a mark on their head in mud.
This was seemingly not too dis-similar to being Continue reading
Whilst looking up the name of the little pissing boy statue for my Brussels blog entry I was quite surprised to discover that there is actually one here in Tokyo. It’s on the platform of Hamamatsucho station on the JR Yamanote line and is probably unknown to many of the thousands and thousands of people who pass through the station each day.
I went there last Friday whilst travelling by that station on my way to the Radiohead event-that-never-happened. It can be found right down the end of the platform for the trains running in a clockwise direction. Unlike the Belgian one this one is regularly dressed up in all manner of outfits with the latest one displaying a scarf and hat.
Last Thursday night I read on the NME website that Radiohead had tweeted a message in Japanese with the words “18.59 on 19 Hachiko Square” which got many people speculating that the band would be appearing the following day (the 19th) at that time (09.59 UK time) outside Shibuya station in Tokyo.
I am no “fan” of Radiohead but I do like most of their music and as I had the day off I thought I might as well check it out as I would be in the vicinity of that area. I advertised it on my facebook page and friends Neil and John agreed to come along to see what it was all about before drinking in Shibuya after.
The following morning I woke up to the news that Radiohead had denied they would be appearing in Tokyo as was rumoured. Anyway, we and thousands of others congregated outside Hachiko exit in anticipation of there maybe being some kind of appearance even if it was to just be on one of the big screens usually running adverts at the worlds busiest crossing. The three of us were very pessimistic about it all but didn’t want to risk the minor chance that something might occur. As it was, nothing happened other than the area being packed out more so than usual to the bemused look of most passers-by. To be honest, I would have been content with a short comment from the band (on screen) or a commercial for their new album ‘The King of Limbs’. It wasn’t until the next day that I found out that it was cancelled because of security fears.
Who would have thought it but this site has made it to its 5th birthday! There will be no big feature here though about the ups and downs or the best moments over the last half decade. Instead I will just list (in no particular order) the top 5 most popular blog entries based on my memory of what appears in my stats when I can be bothered to look at them.
* Pantsu Getta – The Latest Pervy Japanese Game – July 2006
* Euro Trip 2010 Pt VII: Star Wars Traveller – Naboo (a.k.a. Villa Del Balbianello) – September 2010
* African Festival Yokohama – April 2008
* London Pt I: Star Wars Traveller – Naboo (a.k.a. Watford) – January 2011
* Berlin Pt III: The Bourne Supremacy Filming Locations – January 2011
The Bond franchise is famed for its glamorous locations from around the world but the true home of 007 is in London, mainly due to the MI6 headquarters being located there. As well as the various places used for that role, the nations capital has also appeared in many other guises and Tokyo Fox made it its mission to find as many of the shooting locations as possible.
First up is one of the most iconic moments in the whole 007 series as its where Sean Connery delivers the line “The name’s Bond….James Bond” in the 1962 debut ‘Dr No‘. That place is supposedly the chemin-de-fer table in Le Cercle Club at Les Ambassadeurs (below) in Hamilton Place but don’t get too excited as the interior was actually filmed at Pinewood Studio’s.
Next is Brent Cross Shopping Centre and it’s car park (below); the 4th floor of which played the part of Hamburg in ‘Tomorrow Never Dies‘ (1997) starring Pierce Brosnan.
In the same movie the courtyard of Somerset House (below) at The Strand was used as MI6 HQ whereas in the previous Brosnan outing ‘GoldenEye’ (1995) it doubled up as St Petersburg.
Other “Russian” locations in London to feature in ‘GoldenEye’ include the Langham Hilton at Portland Place (below).
Brompton Cemetry (below) is the exterior of the St Petersburg church where Natalya meets Boris by chance.
The interior is St Sofia’s Cathedral (below) which funnily enough is on Moscow Road near Bayswater Station.
One final “Russian” location is Drapers’ Hall (below) on Throgmorton Street near Bank station. It is the St Petersburg council chamber in ‘GoldenEye’ where a General discovers that Natalya has survived the detonation. There was lots of scaffolding work while I was here so I had to zoom in close to cut it out. Update: the photo next to that one was taken in 2014.
We may as well stay with Brosnan-era Bond locations, so lets move on to Vauxhall Cross where 85 Albert Embankment (below), next to Vauxhall Bridge, is the MI6 HQ building in ‘GoldenEye‘ (1995), ‘The World Is Not Enough’ (1999) and ‘Die Another Day’ (2002).
A 20 minute walk along the river takes you to Westminster Bridge beneath which Bond finds the entrance to the fictitious Vauxhall Cross underground (below). This was used in ‘Die Another Day’ (2002) and is actually nothing more than a caretakers hut.
The Thames boat chase during the pre-oping credits of ‘The World Is Not Enough’ starts off near Tower Bridge (below).
It continues on to (and indeed under as only Bond can do) Glengall Bridge in the East End’s docks before moving along Ornamental Canal at Wapping Lane where he soaks a couple of traffic wardens at the right-angle bend pictured below.
He then crashes through a boatshed at the end of the canal alongside the Tobacco Dock pirate ships (below) and proceeds through a few streets before hitting the water again.
He ends up at the Millennium Dome (below), now the O2 Arena, which is a rather poorly scanned photo I took six years ago.
At 104 Pall Mall (below) is the Reform Club where Bond duels with Gustav Graves in ‘Blades’ in the rather poor ‘Die Another Day’ (2002) and it was also used in ‘Quantum Of Solace’ (2008) as the government office where M is summoned to explain Bonds behaviour.
The interior of 92 Stoke Newington Road in the Hackney area (above) is the ‘Cuban’ cigar factory where Bond searches for Zao in the 20th 007 film ‘Die Another Day‘.
In ‘Octopussy’ (1983) the world-famous Sotherby’s auction house (below) on the aptly named Bond Street at number 53 is where Bond cleverly switches the Faberge egg that was put up for sale
For Roger Moore’s over-due finale in ‘A View To A Kill’ (1985) the Old War Office Building on Whitehall (above) is the MI6 HQ. Two years later it was Malaysia House (below) at 57 Trafalgar Square which plays the same place for Timothy Dalton’s first outing as the secret agent in ‘The Living Daylights’ (1987).
George Lazenby only performed the 007 role for one film; ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ (1969) and the College of Arms (below) on Queen Victoria Street is where he learns all about heraldry.
London made a brief appearance in ‘Quantum Of Solace‘ (2008) when Daniel Craig’s Bond is driven into the entrance of a high rise apartment (below) belonging to a deceased double agent where he and M realise the extent of the mysterious organisation. The flats are called The Water Gardens and they’re on Burwood Place close to Edgware Road tube station.
Update: The nations capital featured extensively throughout the awesome follow up ‘Skyfall‘ (2012) which you can see in detail here.
For other London filming locations click on the links below:
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Trainspotting Mission: Impossible Lara Croft Tomb Raider The Bourne Ultimatum Harry Potter & The Philosophers Stone About A Boy Quadrophenia Bridget Jones’s Diary Goodnight Sweetheart Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels Basic Instinct 2 Batman Begins/The Dark Knight The Italian Job Snatch Rom-Com Special Skyfall Notting Hill The World Is Not Enough
Due to a bout of heavy snowfall and subsequent Eurostar problems I had to cancel my planned trip to Bruges back in December 2009. I wasn’t gonna let the money I’d spent on a guidebook go to waste though so I took a day trip there back in January when I was over in mainland Europe.
It really was a lovely, picturesque place with its many bridges, canals and medieval buildings. As much as I appreciated that I was there to hunt down the filming locations for the 2008 dark, comedy thriller ‘In Bruges’ featuring Colin Farrell (Ray), Brendan Gleeson (Ken) and Ralph Fiennes (Harry). The former two are Irish hit-men lying low in the Belgian city and they stay at Relais Bourgondisch Cruyce Hotel (Wollestraat 41-47) which took me a while to find and in the end I could only snap it from the other side of the water. You can recognise it behind Ken in the screenshot below.
The centre-piece of the place is the Belfry and its 366 steps to the top. Like Ken I chose to pay to go up the tower but wish I hadn’t bothered as the view at the top was very restricted with half under repair and the sun shining very brightly through another part. Ray doesn’t go up in the film because he says he can see “the view of down here” from down here. The negative side of me kind of thinks he may have had a point!
‘t Zwart Huis (the Black House) is the bar where Ray hands a pint of beer to Ken with the not-so politically correct words “One gay beer for my gay friend, one normal beer for me”.
Gruthuse was a really beautiful area and appears in the film a couple of times. Its where Ray discovers a movie with ‘midgets’ (his words not mine!) is being made and its also used at the end of ‘In Bruges’ itself.
Above is Jerusalem Church on Jerusalemstraat that doubled up as the ‘Basilica of the Holy Blood’ where Ken and the intellectually-challenged Ray go sightseeing with Ray using it as an excuse to get out of the hotel which they’re supposed to be hiding away in.
Beneath the Jan Van Eyck statue is where Ken and Ray have a heart-to-heart chat about people they’ve killed with particular regard to the young boy accidentally killed by Ray.
Cafedraal at Zilverstraat 38 is a bar with an awful pun and is where Ray takes Chloe on a date and proceeds to punch a Canadian couple whilst she’s in the toilet.
Its not all bad for the pair though as they have a reconciliation outside on the Meetstraat Bridge between Vismarkt and Groenerel.
Ken is sent by Harry to get a gun from Yuri who lives at 17 Raamstraat which is in reality Koningstraat. Armed with the gun he then goes to kill Ray (who is feeling suicidal) in Koningin Astridpark where the children’s playground and ornamental pavilion both feature.
The photo above is the real bell at the top of the Belfry but as space is very, very limited at the top of the tower Ken’s confrontation with Harry was filmed in the studio. Apart from that, the rest is real with the Marketplace being where Ken plummets and manages to utter a few last gasp words of importance to Ray.
The following photos are just some random ones of Bruges which didn’t pop up in the film but are worthy of footnote inclusion in this article.
Click here to read ‘Belgium Pt I: Sprout & About In Brussels’
I arrived on Belgian soil for the first time in my life after a ridiculously early flight which left Berlin at 7:10 am. With an evening seat booked on the Eurostar back to London I didn’t have too much time to waste and was happy that I could get a return ticket to Bruges at the airport. To be honest, there wasn’t too much I wanted to see or do in Brussels.
I thought it best to do what I had to do in the capital before Bruges rather than after it when it would probably be dark. First stop had to be the Mannekin Pis; a tiny 61cm high bronze fountain sculpture which was fairly desolate when I arrived but within a couple of minutes a sizeable crowd had gathered round.
I then walked on to the UNESCO World Heritage site Grand Place where the view was spoiled in my opinion due to the Christmas tree in the middle of the square. Not only that but it had (I assume) been stripped of all its decorations so it was a bit of a blot on the landscape. The architecture was very impressive, especially the Maison du Roi (or Breadhouse) which can be seen in the second picture below. However, given the time of day it wasn’t exactly a thriving and bustling setting.
Tokyo Fox (東京狐) 