TF Film Review: The Da Vinci Code (2006)

Posted on May 24, 2006 by tokyofox

Found myself at the cinema yet again last Sunday for the opening weekend of the film adaptation of ‘The Da Vinci Code‘. This was a surprise in itself as I have never read the book and have to say that I have never even come close to doing so.

However, having heard so much talk of the book I was maybe slightly intrigued to see the film as it involves a lot less time being dedicated although at 160 minutes long that tested my patience! Does any film really need to be this long is what I ask? I thought the end was in sight a few times but the story continued to drag on and, as well as myself, I could feel the people around me starting to get restless and moving around in their seats a bit with more than a few no doubt needing the toilet too!

I knew nothing about the story other than it having some controversial religious theme. The film has taken a bit of a kicking from the UK critics from what I’ve read since. Not really sure what to make of it myself. Apart from the length I didn’t actually find it too bad. I quite enjoyed the action scenes which was maybe due to my low expectations but not surprisingly I had little idea what was actually happening during the puzzles, clues and explanation. A code of cr*p if you ask me!

Tokyo Fox Rating 5/10

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Doing It For The Kids

Posted on May 20, 2006 by tokyofox

Last Sunday I went to the Saitama Culture Centre in Minami- Urawa to play a part (albeit a very small minor one) in an English recital of ‘The Ugly Duckling‘, ‘Humpty Dumpty‘, ‘The Three Little Pigs‘ and ‘Do Re Mi“.

However, this was nothing to do with my day-job but voluntary (though slightly enforced!) assistance for Ai who doesn’t just work in a top Tokyo hotel but also has her own English school. She runs this from the basement of her parents house along with her sisters piano school which was also doing a performance in unison with her own one. This school is essentially a nice, small, friendly local school for the kids in their village and one or two others.

This was basically a bi-annual performance put on for the sake of the students’ parents getting the chance to see their young ones in action on stage.

The piano side of things took up most of the time and then seven of Ai’s students took over for the remainder before being joined by all the pianists for a rendition or two of ‘Do Re Mi‘. My contribution was short and just involved working the on-stage projector via clicking on the computer mouse after each line was read to display a new picture to compliment the students reading. The kind of job any muppet could do really but Ai insisted that it was a job for a native English speaker. That part ran smoothly thankfully apart from Ai’s laptop running out of battery power just prior to the performance. Luckily I discovered this during the intermission and she could drive the short distance home and back to collect the plug adapter lead.

Overall, I was very pleased to see and hear such young talents and very proud of Ai for organising such an event as well as running the school on top of an already heavy workload at her hotel.

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Ian Roper R.I.P. 7/9/76 – 15/5/04

Posted on May 15, 2006 by tokyofox

It was exactly two years ago that I lost my great mate Ian Roper to cancer. When I heard the news I was obviously taken aback but not completely surprised. His cancer of the glands first came to my attention in the Summer of 2003 while I was working in Germany. Being the man that he was, this news came via other sources as he didn’t want people to know. As far as I was aware this shock news came and went but just as I was preparing to come to Japan late 2003 I got the devestating news that the cancer had reappeared and was in fact terminal.

Ian didn’t want to talk about it which was fair enough in my opinion as no-one likes the extra attention and constantly being asked if they’re ok.

During my last few weeks our friendship group did what we could to give him a good send-off and when I said farewell to him prior to my departure I knew in the back of my mind that it would probably be for the last time but I still lived in hope. When you’ve known someone for more than two decades its very difficult to let go but I  stayed strong as the last thing he needed was me getting emotional on him and hammering it home to him that his days were numbered.

He was only 27 and had nearly always been the best at everything. The kind of person you should hate but I didn’t as it still surprised me at times how he managed to score straight ‘A’ grades throughout his GCSE’s and A-Levels when his head was in the clouds at other times. He was an all-rounder who also excelled at playing football and cricket which he participated in at various levels.

Ian was very much a modest man and certainly not big-headed and he didn’t lose any dignity in his fight against cancer never once seeming to complain or feel sorry for himself.

I guess I’ll remember him in terms of socialising at Leicester matches or in the pub. Ever keen to do something or go out he was a born leader who made my social life that much better and was naturally champion at necking his pints in an unbelievably quick time. If ever I was envious of him for anything then it is quite sad that it was for this skill rather than anything academic or sporting.

I did also admire his willingness for splashing the cash in contrast to my far more careful approach. He would often be the first to get in his rounds and the rest of his wage was frittered away without care on clothes, cd’s, video’s, dvd’s and large drinking sessions. A man who, in hindsight, thankfully enjoyed life to the full.

Humour played a major part in our friendship though others would maybe suggest that our reasons for laughing were not funny at all. Anyhow, we knew what made us chuckle and giggle and that was usually just cr*ppy anecdotes and catchphrases from yesteryear and lines from comedy programmes which he had an amazing knack of absorbing like a sponge. I often thought he was like Johnny 5 from the not-so-classic ‘Short Circuit‘ films as he instantly stored so much information into his very big brain!

In some ways he was already dead once I left England as we didn’t communicate again as he had stopped working and I was unable to send messages to his mobile. Obviously I got updates elsewhere but was just waiting for that dreaded call and when it came it was hard to take in but inevitable. By all accounts he had been suffering lots during those final stages of his life and maybe I should be thankful (as I think he was too) that I didn’t get to see him in such a state thereby not leaving my memories of what he became but of what he was.

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Tokyo Daytripper: Nokogiri-Yama Mountain In Chiba

Posted on May 9, 2006 by tokyofox

 

Venture about three hours south-east of Tokyo and you’ll come to a place called Nokogiri-Yama down in Chiba prefecture on the west of the Boso Peninsula. It’s taken me a while to get round to going to this place, which isn’t in any of your guidebooks, but last Friday I went there, and what a refreshing break from city life it proved to be starting with fish (below) being sold out on the streets around Hama-Kanaya Station.

 

I went with my mates Asif and Gideon and though there were many people there, it was nothing like the crowds that would be at the touristy places in Tokyo. It was a lovely hot day so we walked through the forest (below) on up to the mountain rather than taking the cable car which had a bit of a queue for it.

     

Coming from the concrete jungle it was very refreshing to see the mass of green rolling hills on the western side of Chiba’s Boso Peninsula as well as Kanaya Port and the coast of headlands, bays and islands.

      

It was a real feel-good view and rewarding for the steep 330 metre ascend.

 

The main attraction was Japan’s largest Buddha statue which is 31 metres tall and is perched on the side of the mountain. Fairly impressive stuff though I’m sure there are many buddha statues which claim to be the largest, tallest, widest, longest, biggest reclining or whatever. More impressive were the lack of crowds (compared to the buddha statues in Kamakura or Nara), and the lawn which we could relax on while enjoying the view in the sunshine.

     

Next up were the 1500 stone figures of Tokai Arhats (novices in the beginning stages of the path to enlightenment) lining the mountainside path. At times it looked like a fairground shooting range stall as many of them had been destroyed. Lots of them were headless which gave me the opportunity to use my ‘Austin Powers‘ lines such as:

“not a good time to lose ones head”

“not the best way to get a-head in life”

“pity he wasn’t more head-strong”

“guess he’ll never be the head of a major corporation” etc etc.

        

Click here to read ‘Tokyo Daytripper: Top 10 Chiba Sights’ 

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Our 5-Day Yaeyama Island Hopping Trip In Okinawa Prefecture

Posted on May 3, 2006 by tokyofox

One of the most over-used cliches when any event suffers from a downpour is that the rain didn’t dampen the spirits of the people. I thought this to be a load of b*llocks when Ai and I arrived in Ishigaki to see it p*ssing it down but maybe I was ultimately proved wrong on our five-day Yaeyama Island hopping trip in Okinawa.

DAY 1: We took a 30-minute boat journey to Kuroshima and checked into our accommodation. The weather cleared up a bit before we went snorkelling on the nearby Nakamoto-kaigan beach and a trip around the visitor centre followed. Having got up at 3:30 am that was basically it for day one and our short time on Kuroshima.

 

DAY 2: We transferred to Taketomi-jima which was a lovely, tranquil and traditional island small enough for us to navigate without fuel-powered transport. The roads were mostly just sand covered and along with bicycles the main other form of transportation was via buffalo-drawn cart.

We took a short tour of the island and our guide told us that he didn’t control the beasts but that they guided us. My sceptical self didn’t really believe this though. It may have been true to an extent as they know the routes but he still helped it decide which way to turn at times.

We were taken around the tiny relaxed village seeing the pretty flowers, coral-built walls and red-tiled roofs with their shisa statues (a kind of lion-dog guardian figure) while also being treated to a song from the guide while playing his sanshin (three-stringed guitar type thing).

 

Before that we went to a few beaches (namely Kondoi Beach, Aiyaru Beach and Kaiji Beach with the latter being famous for its tiny star sand which is actually the remains of sea creatures!) The water was very shallow and a lovely turquoise colour, and the beaches were beautiful but the coral was not so good for snorkelling.

DAY 3: Ishigaki again but this time we took a day trip to Kabira Bay as part of a tour. We took a boat out to sea for about ten minutes, and I went snorkelling with a guide while Ai and the rest of the group went diving beneath me. As I have asthma, it’s not such a good idea for me to go diving but I am more than happy to snorkel and here it was very deep and quite strange to snorkel many feet above the divers with their bubbles coming up my way.

There wasn’t such a great variety of fish and it was quite cold but I still enjoyed the experience and I also got to wear a proper full-length body-suit for the first time. Back on dry land later, I went with Ai who felt the need, like many Japanese do, to buy omiyagi (souvenirs) for about everyone she has ever known! These gifts inevitably included many star-sand related products like keyrings.

DAY 4: Our penultimate day involved hiring a car back on Ishigaki and then driving around the island. It was a beautiful hot day and the kind of temperature I had been expecting from the outset. We managed to go snorkelling on a quite shallow beach at Yonehara where we saw some poisonous sea-snakes and for the first time ever I actually got bumped by a couple of fish which frightened the life out of me.

The one thing I most hate about spending time in the sun is having to apply sunblock as I invariably forget a spot or two and this time was no exception as I went away with a few red blotches in the areas that I didn’t cover.

 

Next on the agenda was a drive up to Hirakubosaki Lighthouse in the most north part of the island followed by Yaeyama soba for dinner and a very nice sunset at the aptly named Ishigakijima Sunset beach.

 

We then checked into our hotel and went out to a Live House to see some live Okinawan music and more importantly get drunk while also tasting a couple of Okinawan foods.

DAY 5: The last day saw a lot of indecision and changeable weather as we went from place to place looking for a beach to enjoy our final few hours. We ended up on the east side of the island as the previous day’s beach was just too windy. Where we ended up was called Inoda auto camp which was an interesting experience. Myself and Ai were the only ones there ….. other than 100+ Junior High School kids there who were all curious by the presence of a foreigner.

 

This inevitably resulted in me having to endure an unbelievably high number of simple pleasantries (usually just “hello”) which was often followed by a fit of giggles.

Click here to read ‘Tropics of Interest: Prelude to Our Okinawa Island Hopping Trip’

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Tropics Of Interest: Prelude To Our Okinawa Island Hopping Trip

Posted on May 2, 2006 by tokyofox

It may not ever get voted into the greatest movies of all time but one of my favourites is ‘The Karate Kid‘ (1984). Daniel-san’s mentor was of course Mr Miyagi who came from Okinawa (the character and not the late-actor who was American) so I was very happy when my girlfriend recently booked us on a 5 days and 4 nights trip round some of the nearby islands where the snorkelling is great.

The ‘Karate Kid part II‘ (1986) was set in Okinawa and gave me my first glimpse of Japanese life and since then I have been interested in visiting the area. Very sad I know but I can definitely say that it didn’t play any part in me deciding to move to Japan. The fact that it was actually filmed in Hawaii doesn’t matter so much.

Okinawa is a bit of a subtropical area (usually) consisting of a few dozen small islands in the south west of Japan near Taiwan. We are not going to the main island other than for a transit. Instead we are going to sample Okinawan life on three little islands which I am looking forward to very much. The islands are Ishigaki-jima, Kuroshima and Taketomi-jima which are actually about 400km south of Okinawa’s main island.

Basically these islands are famed for warm climate, fine beaches, some amazing scuba diving opportunities and some traditional culture. Unlike some I don’t like the idea of deserted beaches as I like to be able to watch people. That shouldn’t be a problem though as we’re going during the Golden Week season which is the busiest, not to mention the most expensive, time for travelling in Japan as days off in bulk are very very rare here (a lot of employees don’t even use up their allocation of holidays each year which is just madness to us but thats how it is here and thats also another story in its own) and so millions of people will be congregating in the most popular destinations.

These islands were formerly belonging to the USA (a strong military presence still exists) and are supposed to be very different from the rest of Japan in terms of food, language and arts so it should hopefully be an interesting experience assuming I can actually recognise such differences which may not be so obvious to people like me.

Posted in Films, Japan Life, Japan Travel, Movie Locations | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Moving Into The Digital Age

Posted on May 1, 2006 by tokyofox

All the photos that appear on this blog were only taken by my mobile phone camera. While this is fine for close up photos its not so good for views and more long distant shots. I therefore felt the urge to go and splash yet more cash on a new digital camera a few days ago. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX9EB to be precise for all those otaku (geeks). Until now the thing hasn’t left its box as I have been busy working every day this week and too lazy to contemplate having to read the instructions or work it out for myself.

Anyway assuming I have got my ar*e into gear and worked out how to use it Tokyo Fox will now (hopefully) be displaying some more quality photographs. Obviously I can take photos with it anytime and publish them on here rapidly but my first time to really use it I guess will be when I go away on holiday next Friday as then is the start of my 10 days ‘Golden Week’ holiday.

This is four national holidays in just over a week plus two weekends and also a time when many companies shut up shop for the non-holiday days in-between this period. It is also a ridiculously expensive time to go away but most of us are left with no choice as to when we take vacation.

I will exclusively reveal where I am going later in the week just to build up the suspense for the one man and his dog that read this drivel. To give a hint my holiday will consist of 5 days, 4 nights, 3 islands, 2 people and 1 camera.

Posted in Japan Life, Japan Travel | Tagged , | 1 Comment

The Only ‘Gaijin’ In The Village

Posted on April 23, 2006 by tokyofox

Was watching the excellent BBC comedy ‘Little Britain‘ recently and in some way the Daffyd character reminded me of how many of us gaijin act in Japan. No I do not want to be the “only gay in the village” like he does, but there is a kind of anti-racism here when we see fellow gaijin trespassing on what we consider to be our patch. I don’t think I could  live here with just Japanese friends but theres a certain sense of awkwardness when we see one another around the city.

Japan is 97% Japanese people and the other 3% is mainly made up of other Asians so we definitely stand out and when we see each other we never know whether to say hi or not. I don’t see why we should acknowledge each other just because we have the same skin colour and are in a country away from home. Just because we’re in the minority here it doesn’t mean we are going to have an instant bond or whatever. It may be ok in the sticks but not in Tokyo.

Particularly among the men, there is often also a negative view of each other especially if they are with a J-girl as is often the case here. Some of these so-called ‘charisma men’ come to Japan and go from zero to hero. For the record, ‘Charisma Man‘ was a funny comic strip based on a Canadian guy who worked in a burger bar and was a bit of a loser with the local women but when he came to the ‘land of opportunity’ he became a playboy with the girls who were almost ‘fluent in braille’ and just loved the idea of having a foreign boyfriend.

When I was back in the UK I used to hear about bands who were fairly cr*p but made it big in Japan (i.e. ‘Shampoo‘) and I never could understand why. Something similar applies to these ‘Losers Back Home’ (also known as LBH’s) who come to Japan to reinvent themselves as cool N*va teachers or whatever. While this may be true of some I don’t think everyone should be tarnished with the same brush.

This is in no way intended to be disrespectful to Japanese women who are very kawaii (cute) and kirei (beautiful) but maybe there is a proportion of LBH’s coming to Japan purely to find themselves a woman and I guess there’s nothing too wrong with that. Without getting too philosophical I believe (or is that hope?!) there is someone for everyone in this world and if that means going to Asia in the name of love then why not!

Personally I came to Japan to see friends and continue my travelling  as I was tired of just travelling so working and living Asia’s most developed economy appeared to be the next best option and inevitably I ended up getting a Japanese girlfriend.

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New Manager’s For Both Leicester & England

Posted on April 16, 2006 by tokyofox

Given that this blog is called Tokyo Fox (the Foxes is the nickname of my team for those not in the know) and has a tagline of ‘The Leicester City fan….” it is maybe a little strange that there has never been any mention of football here. That is until now!

Glad to see that Leicester finally saw sense and appointed Rob Kelly as manager for next season. We were languishing in the bottom three of the second tier of English football (The Coca Cola Championship to give it its proper name) when he took over and has turned it around big time for us and stopped us from going down into the unknown waters of the third tier. Inevitably we lost yesterday following the news that he would be manager for 12 more months.

Of course it may all go wrong but theres no doubt in my mind that he earned the chance of being made permanent manager. Besides there was no-one else really available to us. It seemed people were queuing up to reject the job at one stage! Anyway, we don’t have the money to pay compensation to a club if we knick their manager.

Elsewhere the worlds biggest under-achieving national side and the appointnment of a coach is another thing. Why the FA feel the need to announce news of Sven Goran Erikssons replacement now is bewildering to me. The list of candidates for the job is filling me with dread. The likes of Allardyce, McClaren and Curbishley have done wonders at their clubs but don’t have experience at the top level. We tried this before with Graham Taylor who was the outstanding club manager of the time but then flopped when he made the step up into International management which is a different ball game.

Martin O’Neill is a god to us Leicester fans but given that he’s a quiet man does he really want the media scrutiny and intrusion that comes with the England job? Also, he’s fantastic at making fairly average players play to a very high ability but how would he get the best out of people who are already great players? As far as I was concerned there was only one man for the job and that was the dutchman Guus Hiddink but we let him slip through the net and he’s now gonna take over the Russian team.

As for the actual England team I see a great first XI that picks itself but if injuries happen then the replacements are not people I see setting the world on fire but I guess the world cup always throws up a few surprises and gives players an opportunity to make a name for themselves.

Posted in Leicester City, Sport | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Can’t Cook. Wont Cook!

Posted on April 14, 2006 by tokyofox

Due to space being very limited in Tokyo it may seem surprising to those of you haven’t ever been to Japan that people have a tendency to go out to eat. Nothing too different there but the fact that they actually cook for themselves in the restaurants is something I still struggle to adjust to. I am of the opinion that if I go to a restaurant then I dont want to have to cook. The reason I go to them is so that I dont have to cook and this scenario played a small part in the ‘Lost In Translation‘ (2003) movie a few years back.

I have only ever had one gas ring in my homes in Tokyo so I have eaten out every time for two years now. I’m certainly not a good cook but do occasionally miss the chance to cook up some pasta or whatever.

I can count on one hand the number of times I have been to self cooking restaurants but one of those times was tonight when Ai and I went to an okonomiyaki restaurant near where I live. This is basically savoury pancake and the name means ‘cook what you like’.

The waitress handed us the bowls of ingredients and then we mixed the batter and filling before pouring it on to the teppan (iron hot plate) and after a few flips it was ready to eat within about 6 minutes. Our dishes were a mixture of meat, seafood as well as yaki-soba (fried noodles) and yasai-itame (stir fried vegetables) and were very nice too.

However, given the choice again of cooking in a restaurant myself (and thus not talking much due to concentration being needed!) or being waited on I know which option I will take but it is occasionally nice to have a go myself.

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