This region of Japan helped contribute a couple of awesome buddha statues to my ‘top 10 alternative big Buddha statues in Japan‘ compilation post in 2020 but little did I know there was another huge one not too far away.
All three of these unique and impressive Buddha statues are located within 40 kilometres and are well connected by trains in Continue reading
As a football fan living in Tokyo the idea of going to some of the more far-flung Japanese stadiums is very difficult to justify in terms of time and cost. However, knowing that I’d be based in Hiroshima for the August Obon holiday opened up options to venture over to a neighbouring prefecture for a J2 league match combined with a local sight or two. The choice was either Fagiano Okayama FC to the east or Renofa Yamaguchi to the west.
Neither were particularly close and would each take around Continue reading
Many of the parks and children’s playgrounds in Japan, particularly in Tokyo, are quite poor compared to other countries in terms of space, surroundings and a lack of grass. However, a handful of them do tend to possess extremely creative structures and they will be explored in this series.
Nickname: Dinosaur Park (Kyoryu Hiroba)
Location: Continue reading
In 2023 I went to 20 football matches in Japan and I’ve already matched that with less than two thirds of 2024 gone. I guess 30 is now the aim for this year so there will be a part 3 in a few months time. This second compilation features a total of eight different grounds in six prefectures including five I’d Continue reading
On the face of it these buildings might not be essential stops on any tour of Japan but if you happen to be in the vicinity then they are well worth a quick detour. The majority of this post will be about the first one as that was new to me whereas the other two have featured on Tokyo Fox before and are basically bonus extras deserving of (more) recognition again. The three unique buildings that I’ve come face to face with are as follows…
1. Sharekobe Museum, Hyogo Prefecture – Getting to see the inside of this Continue reading
This year has seen three Premier League clubs make their way over from the UK for one or two games each. Brighton have a big-name Japanese player in their side so that made sense. Spurs are considered one of the big six teams in England and have a Korean superstar player who seems very popular in Japan. As for Newcastle, well I’m really not sure about their appeal over here so there was only one way to find out.
Their main connection to Japan is their 2018 signing Yoshinori Muto but his departure in 2021 brought about a Continue reading
Think of train stations in Japan and the mighty Shinjuku station is sure to come to mind for many people. That is the world’s busiest train station, and Japan monopolises the top 50 list with only five of them not in this country. However, at the other end of the scale are some tiny stations which are usually unstaffed and used by very few commuters.
Station: Hozukyō
Prefecture: Continue reading
The summer break in the Japanese football season is a time when some fly-by-nighter European teams like to come into Japan to play some games and try and steal some money off punters in the country. Not my words but those of J-Talk Podcast host Ben Maxwell. I do actually agree with him on the whole, and do make light of such money spinning friendly matches…..but after slagging them off I then inevitably end up going to one or two!
Three English teams are in Japan this summer for a total of Continue reading
Despite living in England for the first 23 years of my life, my travels to other European countries were actually quite limited and indeed I had only been to France, Portugal and Sweden before moving to Japan. Italy was always a country I was interested in for the usual reasons like the food and the famous Roman architecture. However, it has to be said that going to Italy was very much the warm-up act for a trip to North Africa. As I needed a transit in Rome, I decided to take advantage of this and so spent a few nights in the Italian capital.
Having arrived the previous night on a long 14 hour flight, I was up early the following morning (Wednesday 5th August) but just missed my Continue reading
If you’re lucky enough to live in or close to a host Olympic city then there’s a strong chance you’ll get swept up by the hysteria surrounding the sale of tickets. For the last Olympics in Tokyo, local residents were allowed to apply for a maximum of 30 tickets across as many sports as they wanted. Whilst I applied for some pairs of tickets I thought (in a very selfish way!) that I would increase my chances of winning in the ballot by just trying to get single tickets.
I can’t remember exactly but I tried to get tickets for about Continue reading
