Whilst all city stations in Japan are generally in very good condition, the countryside ones can be a different story. One such place that I’d seen online which looked like it was stuck in a bygone era was located in one of Tokyo’s neighbouring prefectures and I finally ventured out the way to see it at the start of this year.
Just a couple of days after returning from my Hiroshima adventures, I embarked on a near-four hour local train journey to the Continue reading
Seeing the words “pig cafe” may make some people think that this is a place specialising in pork-based dishes but thankfully this is just the latest in a never-ending line of animal-based cafes in Japan.
First there were cat and dog cafes, and then the likes of rabbits, reptiles, owls, hedgehogs, capybara and so on followed suit. A few years ago, I heard about this pig cafe via YouTube and added it to my list of places to go. Admittedly, it took Continue reading
Vietnam is a deceptively big country – over one and a half thousand kilometres from north to south, although only around 50 km wide at its narrowest point. With these long distances in mind, I could only ever get round the southern part on my first trip there in 2006.
However, a decade ago my girlfriend (now wife!) and I spent some time in the north starting off in the capital city Hanoi which was buzzing with atmosphere, particularly in the Old Quarter where motorcycles zip around the streets day and night in a place where traffic lights are few to non-existent. These thousands of motorcycles provide a constant soundtrack of angry insect swarms and beeping horns!
The city throngs with Continue reading
Season one (as well as the prequel season zero) of alphabet dating certainly pushed the boundaries of what a “date” is, and that continues in season two with some very tenuous examples for each letter of the alphabet. For the record, doing something together (no matter what it is!) counts as a date in this series which is not always about visiting glamorous places and doing exciting things but just getting out there and exploring locations we wouldn’t normally go to. Without further ado lets continue with season two and what we did for the third set of letters…
K is for Continue reading
When I started to plan this trip to Niigata I was expecting to stay in the city centre but the high prices of hotels there meant that I had to look further afield. It was a blessing in disguise really as that meant I got to experience some Continue reading
For the last few years now, Star Wars has been all about the medium of TV with Disney Plus churning out shows at quite a rapid rate. In just the last 15 months or so there has been ‘The Book of Boba Fett‘, ‘Obi Wan Kenobi‘, ‘Andor‘, season two of ‘The Bad Batch‘ and the third season of ‘The Mandalorian‘. Presumably, the latter is Continue reading
The iconic Captain Tsubasa has appeared in various comic book magazines, cartoons and video games since its creation in 1981. It became one of the most memorable manga and anime worldwide, and really helped popularise football in Japan. Some of the footballers inspired by Tsubasa include Lionel Messi, Alessandro Del Piero, Fernando Torres, Zinedine Zidane, Hidetoshi Nakata, and Andrés Iniesta.
At the start of one of the stories, Tsubasa and his mum move to a fictional town in Shizuoka Prefecture called Nankatsu. Tsubasa ended up playing for a selection team called Nankatsu SC, consisting of the best players among the schools in the city. However, fiction turned into reality a Continue reading
The mid to late 1990s was my favourite era for music and I was lucky enough to have seen pretty much every band I wanted to (Oasis, Blur, The Verve, Shed Seven, Suede, Stereophonics, Manic Street Preachers, Cast, Ocean Colour Scene, Supergrass, Prodigy and many, many more) but there were a few notable ones that eluded me such as Pulp, Radiohead, Black Grape and Ash. Somehow, they just never seemed to be Continue reading
When it comes to ramen, there are many tastes and regional variations whether it be shio (salt), shoyu (soy sauce), tonkotsu (pork bone broth) in Kyushu or miso ramen which is served up in Hokkaido. On top of that come the crazy novelty ones which include things like cheese, coffee, ice-cream, tequila, kiwi, ham, lemon, pineapple, sake and so on. The kind of things that the true ramen masters would most definitely turn their nose up at!
Other than the soup itself the chashu meat and egg are two of my favourite parts of any ramen dish but how would I fare at eating vegetarian ramen without either of those ingredients? Continue reading
Each and every time the Olympics take place I often find myself watching a fair amount of table tennis. It’s not because I’m particularly interested in it but it’s just that the Japanese TV broadcasters seem to show it a lot. That’s probably not too surprising as there are a lot of very good players with Mima Ito and Jun Mizutani being the ones I remember the most from both the singles and the mixed doubles.
In my attempt to see a few sports I’ve never seen before I noticed the T.League Play Off Finals were taking place in Tokyo so booked a couple of tickets last month when it was only known that Continue reading
Tokyo Fox (東京狐) 