Tokyo Fox (東京狐)

Donald Ducks In N’ Out Of Tokyo

Posted on November 25, 2007 by tokyofox

I think its fair to say that most people are put off from coming to visit me in Tokyo due to the high prices. Of course the fact that I am living in this metropolis is maybe also reason why only family have visited and that’s probably only because they felt obliged! That all changed a couple of weeks back when my number one Belgian friend Donald popped over for a short visit while he was in China on business.

We met earlier in the year when we travelled around Palawan in the Philippines for the best part of a week. He was left to his own devices in the day but i met up with him for food and drinks on each of the three nights he was ‘in town’. The ‘free hugs’ photo shown is at the chaotic Shibuya crossing and these people are generally ignored by all it seems. Not by a certain Belgian though who certainly wasn’t shy in mixing with the locals and just walking into places such as the capsule hotels which we looked around but didn’t stay in. I hope to one day though!

I took him to a couple of quirky bars near where I live in Ikebukuro including ‘Mysterious’ (basic dark izakaya featuring sexily dressed waitresses) and The Lockup which is a themed izakaya (Japanese style pub) entered through a Haunted House-style dungeon doorway where a sexy girl clad in a short pvc skirt and knee-high boots handcuffs herself to you and takes you to your dungeon cell which is your table for the night. The waiters and waitresses are resplendent in prison outfits and one of our drinks was a strange concoction of test tubes and scientific beakers laced with alcohol of some sort. Very Japanese but good fun.

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Posted in Food & Drink | Tagged ikebukuro, jail cell restaurant, letspalawan.com, prison cell restaurant, the lock up, tokyo, weird tokyo restaurants | 1 Comment

Grampus Eight Up My Appetite For Any More J-League Football!

Posted on November 20, 2007 by tokyofox

This site has the tagline of ‘the Leicester fan in Japan’ but rarely mentions anything to do with the team I’m exiled from. That’s not really going to change in this article but there are two vague references!

The inaugural J-League kicked off in 1992 with a certain Leicester old boy among the ranks of Nagoya Grampus Eight. Gary Lineker was my hero when I started watching Leicester City back in the early 1980’s and I followed his career closely after that so his move to Japan was the first thing I knew about football in the land of the rising sun.

For some strange reason I really wanted to see this team when I came to Japan and I did see them in October 2004 but they were in opposition to my then-newly inherited Kashiwa Reysol team.

This time they were the opposition to Urawa Reds and yet again I couldn’t watch the game with their fans. J-League games tend to suck a bit and this one was no exception as it ended 0-0 with typical p*ss-poor finishing in front of goal from both teams.

However, it was nice to visit the stadium which was built especially for the 2002 World Cup and with its soaring triangular sails was much more aesthetically pleasing than your average identikit English stadium. I could even see Mount Fuji at sunset in the distance of the stadium corner and this state of the art stadium even included seats with armrests.

The 63,700 capacity stadium was host for four World cup games including the Semi Final between Brazil and Turkey (featuring then-Leicester player Muzzy Izzet whose name inspired my hotmail address), the 2-2 draw between Japan and Belgium and England’s 1-1 draw with Sweden.

Posted in Leicester City, Sport | Tagged 4 world cup games, gary lineker, grampus eight, j-league game, saitama stadium 2002, urawa reds | 6 Comments

Beijing 2007 Pt III – Back To Square One!

Posted on November 15, 2007 by tokyofox

My second full day was to be my most busy day, and it began by rising at 6:30 am once again. I walked across Tiananmen Square once more and through the Gate Of Heavenly Peace from which the famous portrait of Chairman Mao (of the Communist Party Of China) hangs.

I entered the Forbidden City when it opened at 8.30am and you can see why guidebooks suggest giving this huge place a whole day of your time. Not for me though! Two and a half hours was enough due in part to a couple of the main parts being covered in green netting ready for next years Olympic games.

After lunch I took a local bus to the Summer Palace which I was more impressed by. Like the Great Wall, this was also a place of climbing and hiking which is more interesting to me than looking around the temples themselves. This place is beautifully located on the a huge lake which I went on via boat to visit a tiny island and see up-close the 17 arch bridge which connects it to the main land.

My flight back to Japan was at 1:30 pm the next day but I still had a few things left to do so I got up at 5am and was at Temple of Heaven Park by 6 am for its opening up to the many locals doing tai-chi and other such activities which is how they start each and every day.

I had a quick wander through some Hutongs after that which are the traditional backstreet type houses which are dropping fast as the City develops in anticipation of next years showpiece occasion. It was nice to walk around freely and catch a glimpse of the ‘real China’ which I didn’t really see too much of at the tourist traps I’d visited on the two days prior.

I proceeded to walk past the Drum Tower, round Qianhai Lake and through Beihai Park. That place was full of many groups of mostly old people dancing with fans, ribbons and swords (not all together obviously!), and it was all of that which brought the curtain down on a short but very packed three night trip to China.

Posted in Asia Travel | Tagged beijing, beijing one day, forbidden city, peking, summer palace, tiananmen square | 1 Comment

Beijing 2007 Pt II – I Must Have Been Quackers To Eat Some Of This Food!

Posted on November 13, 2007 by tokyofox

After about an hour wait I finally got my first taste of Peking Duck (Well it had to be done didn’t it?!) at Beijing DaDong Roast Duck Restaurant near my hostel. It was really delicious and I ordered a feast of food (totalling just over 12 pounds) using up 20% of my whole Beijing budget in all.

As well as half a roast duck and a Yan Jing beer I also ordered mustard duck webs, sayed duck wings and sauteed duck breast in a crispy yam basket and it was probably enough for two or three people!

The following day I took early lunch at the snack street in Wangfujing and on the menu this time for me was smelly tofu, lamb kebabs and a grasshopper!! Despite all the talk, it was actually alright and just like crunchy small shrimp to be honest! Yes, really!

I returned to Wangfujing in the evening but this time to visit Donghuamen Night Market for pretty much more of the same but on a bigger scale. A few more lamb kebabs were sampled as were banana fritters, crickets and snake!

You can see my Beijing photos here

Posted in Asia Travel | Tagged beijing, beijing one day, peking, peking duck | 1 Comment

Beijing 2007 Pt I – The Great Wall: In Spitting Distance Of The City!

Posted on November 11, 2007 by tokyofox

Less than 60 minutes sleep and defeat in the Rugby World Cup Final for England wasn’t the ideal way to start my China trip but at the final whistle I went to the Airport for my morning flight to Beijing via a transit in Shanghai.

Fortunately, I met a French guy on the plane who lived in Beijing and shared a taxi with me which I continued on in to my hostel after his stop thereby saving me from the hassle of navigating my way there by bus, subway and on foot.

I was up at 6:30 am on the first morning to take a local bus and taxi 90 km away to see the Great Wall in Mutianyu which is the second nearest place to see the famous landmark. After taking a chairlift I was on the wall itself with the sun shining brightly too. The first part I walked along was quite taxing really and a kick up the backside in terms of underestimating it.

Overall I spent about four hours walking back and forth along the complete length of the wall available to the public in Mutianyu. It really did feel good to experience such an iconic spectacle and was such a sight to behold resulting in me taking many photos.

I was glad I chose this section of the wall rather than the far more touristy part at Badaling, and I was even rewarded by having it all to myself at times in the early afternoon. The descend was great fun and done via toboggan which was a nice relaxing and thrilling way to round off the first part of my Beijing experience.

Back in the capital slightly earlier than expected, I went to Tiananmen Square where many Olympic cultivations were on display as well as a countdown clock across the road.

I saw the soldiers parade through the mass crowds and generally just soaked up the atmosphere of the place in terms of people watching.

As for the Chinese people, I can tolerate the no-queueing on trains (although this is slightly improving in the run up to the Olympics) and even the spitting but what is really disgusting is the sound which accompanies it. It’s not just men but women too, and even the guard who I was posing in front of on the square let loose with phlegm though thankfully not in my direction!!

You can see my Beijing photos here

Posted in Asia Travel | Tagged beijing, beijing one day, great wall of china, Mutianyu, mutinyu, olympics 2008, tiananmen square | 6 Comments

Back To Civilisation

Posted on November 11, 2007 by tokyofox

After five and a half weeks i am so happy to be back on-line properly. Sure, I have been using my house computer a fair bit but that’s really cr*p and slow and just not so convenient to use. I was relieved to get the phone call last night to say the repair was finished and in my basic Japanese I managed to throw enough words together to say what I wanted to say.

It has since turned out that those words actually made perfect sense which really surprised me. I was in Akihabara’s electric town with all the other geeks this morning waiting for the stores to open at 10am so that I could pick up my computer. Basically the fan broke and for some reason it took them over a month to fix this most common of computer breakdown problems. I am mightly relieved though that my computer wasn’t completely wiped clean and that I still have my photos and music just how I left it.

A little lighter in the pocket now but I am back in cyber-world and what did I do in the absence of a computer for the last 38 days I hear one or two of you ask. Well here’s the answer:

* Read ‘Life of Pi‘ by Yann Martel

* Watched more TV, particularly football

* Slept a lot more

* Went jogging a little more often

* Cleaning and house DIY

* More drinking

* Made all sorts of pointless lists

* Wrote a few articles for the school newspaper

* Learned a bit more Japanese

Posted in Japan Life | Tagged Life of Pi, tokyo fox, Yann Martel | Leave a comment

A ‘Grate’ Barbeque Party!

Posted on November 8, 2007 by tokyofox

My school had its rescheduled BBQ Party in Futako-Shinchi on the 7th of October after rain had stopped play the previous week. There were many groups of people out enjoying the Autumn sunshine in our location next to the river. Our little group comprised of mostly teachers with a few students thrown in too. Nothing appeals to us teachers more than a free party and, with the following day a school/national holiday, the opportunity to get completely sozzled without paying too many consequences was not one to be missed!

Having surprisingly defeated the Wallabies in the Rugby World Cup the night before the English among our group were in a good mood for a typical Aussie BBQ and everyone brought enough meat to the table for no-one to go hungry.

The game of football which came next showed that there was no footballing ability among us to put too much pressure on the current school teams squad members! The climax to the days preceedings were the hundreds and hundreds of sparklers which were given out willy nilly and the fireworks display brought the event to a close.

Of course the action didn’t finish there as a fair few of us continued on to a bar in Shibuya and the inevitable all-night karaoke. I thought i did very well to stay awake all night this time but those initial thoughts were proved wrong a few days later when my school manager showed a photo of me having a quick nap on the streets of Shibuya prior to the singing session.

Posted in English Teaching, Food & Drink | Leave a comment

The Simpsons In Japan: A Lesson On Stereotypes

Posted on October 13, 2007 by tokyofox

At the start of the year I was googling to find out the name of a Simpsons episode when I came across a lesson plan involving the dysfunctional family. Eight months later and I finally got round to doing a special lesson based around ‘The Simpsons‘ 30 minutes over Tokyo episode (season 10 episode 23).

Despite being hugely successful around the world ‘The Simpsons‘ have never made it big in Japan and are known as nothing more than CC family at best after they advertised the CC Lemon soda drink many years ago. Very few of my students had heard of them so they had to be introduced on the board via a fairly bad picture which I had.

Before that I had done a very quick warmer on why people want to come to Japan, what places they want to visit and what tourists most want to do here. After that was an introduction to the word stereotype before they chatted in small groups about their impressions of various countries and their native inhabitants.

As someone who finds stereotyping and generalising funny this part was very amusing to listen to as was the next part which was about how non-Japanese viewed Japan and Japanese in terms of customs, sport, technology, food, personality, character, homes, cities, countryside, education and work. Lots of typical short answers there about shy people, crowded cities, small homes, advanced technology and hard work.

It was then time to play about 13 minutes of the episode (via my laptop) in three parts with a series of questions to go with each part designed to stimulate discussion such as why Homer always walks through the sliding paper doors, the seizures eminating from a cartoon, why an American family would go to ‘America Town’, Japanese quiz shows, things that Bart and Homer learned and how true the stereotypes were.

Additional resources being used in the classroom is always a welcome idea and can break up the monotony of the book a bit and I was very happy to try something different. I tried the lesson with two upper-intermediate level groups and I think they found it difficult to follow what was said especially the voice of Marge Simpson.

After all, as much as they may be able to listen to English, they almost certainly had never listened to cartoon voices. Overall though it was a nice break from the book for both the students and myself and interesting to use additional resources to try and stimulate their learning.

Click here to read ‘Japan-Related References In The Simpsons’

Posted in English Teaching, TV Shows | Tagged english teaching resources, how to use the simpsons in english lessons, lesson on stereotypes, the simpsons english lesson | 13 Comments

Wakeboarding In The City

Posted on October 1, 2007 by tokyofox

Move over Jack Osbourne because there’s a new adrenalin junkie in town and its me!! A couple of weeks ago it was bungy jumping and on September 23rd it was wake-boarding on the Edo River near Ichikawa on the Tokyo-Chiba border. For the uninitiated wake-boarding is like a cross between water-skiing and surfing.

First to go was Ethan and he took to it like a duck to water showing no fear as he got up out of the water and started to glide through the glossy smooth waters before the inevitable fall. Overall it was a great introduction to the sport in his allotted 15 minutes and a lot for me to live up to when it was my turn.

I fastened my feet on to the board and lowered myself into the surprisingly warm water and frustration followed as I just couldn’t get myself into the right position to get out of the water. Eventually at the fourth attempt I was up and cutting through the waves like a hot knife through butter…or maybe i was just relieved to have got up on my feet that I didn’t do anything too fancy as i wanted to make sure I got some value from it!

Over the afternoon we had a couple of go’s each (15 minutes each time) with Ethan having no problems whereas I had a few spouts of being unable to get on my feet. Once we did get going though it was great fun riding along on the crest of the waves though it was vey taxing on the upper half of the body particularly the arms which were aching quite a bit.

To do wakeboarding correctly you’re supposed to hold the rope down by your hip but this proved difficult and led to my unorthodox style of looking like I was being dragged along by a dog rather than walking it casually which is how the professionals look when they’re doing it.

Posted in Action & Adventure | Tagged edogawa, tokyo, wakeboarding, wakeboarding in tokyo, where can I go wakeboarding in tokyo? | 2 Comments

Tokyo Daytripper: Big Weekender Pt III – Yomiuriland & Bungy Jump #4

Posted on September 24, 2007 by tokyofox

I hooked up again with Ethan on Sunday 16th September to complete my big weekend of activities. This time it was Yomiuriland and getting from the train station to the amusement park was interesting in itself as we had to take a cable car which gave us a nice birds-eye view of the area.

We started off on the ‘Bandit’ which was a rusty coloured ride that lasted long by rollercoaster standards and whizzed around about half of the park but had a very disappointing drop at the start. After that we did a Formula Battle race where the guy asked if we had driver licenses which we said we did back home. Not sure why he asked really as there were kids going on these karts later on!

Next up was a standing rollercoaster with a loop which was ok but more interesting for novelty value than anything else. The white canyon followed which was great and a spaghetti-type wooden rollercoaster which really jolted us about inside of the car and had so many drops and close shaves.

Once I’d done a standard vertical drop ride I couldn’t resist the chance of doing another bungy jump to add to the three I did in New Zealand over five years ago. It was 900 yen (£4) and only 22m high with a big crash mat below which you could probably just jump on to and survive.

That didn’t stop me getting a little nervous though as it was windy at top and I was jumping rather than diving off which a lot of people may think is easier but I disagree. In fact I was probably more at ease diving off from 134 metres and six times the height of that at Yomiuriland! After the ‘3-2-1-bungy’ countdown I was jumping for joy for about a second of freefall before the bungy cord did its job and left me bouncing around for a bit. Overall it wasn’t a patch on the Kiwi ones but it was never really likely to be was it?!

We rounded off the afternoon in the swimming area which was pleasant but not so interesting though we did ride on a huge floating rapid water-ride and did a few lame jumps and dives off the diving board including the inevitable running bomb which entertained those who were watching.

Posted in Action & Adventure, Tokyo Daytripper: | Tagged bungy jumping in japan, bungy jumping tokyo, theme parks in japan, theme parks near tokyo, Tokyo Daytripper:, yomiuriland bungy jump, yomiuriland tokyo | 7 Comments

Tokyo Fox (東京狐)

Donald Ducks In N’ Out Of Tokyo

Grampus Eight Up My Appetite For Any More J-League Football!

Beijing 2007 Pt III – Back To Square One!

Beijing 2007 Pt II – I Must Have Been Quackers To Eat Some Of This Food!

Beijing 2007 Pt I – The Great Wall: In Spitting Distance Of The City!

Back To Civilisation

A ‘Grate’ Barbeque Party!

The Simpsons In Japan: A Lesson On Stereotypes

Wakeboarding In The City

Tokyo Daytripper: Big Weekender Pt III – Yomiuriland & Bungy Jump #4

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