Coastal Adventures In Izu: Seaside Parks, Footbaths, Marine Towns, Lakes, Mountains & Big Ramen!

Posted on December 10, 2022 by tokyofox

Given the number of visits we make to to Izu each and every year, there will surely be a time when there is nothing blog-worthy to report. Unbelievably, that time is not now though! As soon as we got the dog’s travel bag out of the cupboard, he was excitedly wagging his tail and couldn’t wait to get inside and get on the road.

We disembarked at Atami station as my father-in-law said he’d pick us up from there but before his arrival we had a quick walk around the area in front of the station which is a Continue reading →

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Retrospective Alphabet Dating In Greater Tokyo S00E05: S-V

Posted on December 7, 2022 by tokyofox

 

Whilst season two of alphabet dating is taking place I thought I could fill that void with a restrospecive series which is certainly an easier operation as they were not done in alphabetical order which can be a little stressful and frustrating at times.

Season 0 will throw back to places and things we’ve done in Greater Tokyo since 2011. I generally hate the term Continue reading →

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Unstaffed Stations of Japan #11 – Kubiki

Posted on December 4, 2022 by tokyofox

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: Kubiki

Prefecture: Continue reading →

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Nō Way Did This Happen! A Chance Encounter Amidst Some Station Hopping In A Forgotten Corner Of Niigata

Posted on December 1, 2022 by tokyofox

Once I’d experienced a couple of sights at Echigo-Yuzawa (including the 110 sake vending machines), I travelled north-west for about two and a half hours to my  accomodation in Niigata Prefecture. The tatami room at Yado Bar Cafe Tatsuji was basic but did the job of giving me a place to rest at the end of a long day of travel. The owner seemed like a very nice guy but we didn’t chat too much as I arrived late and checked out early.

 

The unstaffed Minami Takada station was my first stop very early the following morning but I didn’t Continue reading →

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Mount Fuji Views & Quirky West Coast Travels In Izu

Posted on November 28, 2022 by tokyofox

There was a time when one could always rely on the August O-bon holiday season being a hot and sunny time but this year again consisted of lots of rain albeit not as much as last year! The weather at the start of our trip though was actually pretty good and the usual trip to Komuroyama Park on day one even offered a sight of Mount Fuji in the distance which always adds to the appeal of this lovely, vast, spacious place.

  

Away from Tokyo and with barely anyone else around, our Continue reading →

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TF Flashback: First Trip To China -The Great Wall, Forbidden City, Peking Duck, Grasshoppers, Crickets & Snake! (2007)

Posted on November 25, 2022 by tokyofox

Although I’d been to both Hong Kong and Taiwan in 2006 I was still itching to visit mainland China so one year later I decided to head to capital city Beijing (via a transit in Shanghai) for a short break. These were very different times when I used to frequently take holidays overseas and indeed this trip to China was on the back of travels in the Philippines, India and Australia in the same year!

Due to the language barrier I was a bit more apprehensive than usual about having to navigate my way to my hotel by bus, subway and on foot during a time before smartphones! Fortunately, I Continue reading →

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London Filming Locations: Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

Posted on November 22, 2022 by tokyofox

It’s very rare that sequels are released over five decades after the original but that is what happened with Mary Poppins back in 2018. Incedibly, it’s not actually the longest gap between films in a franchise as that record goes to the ‘Bambi‘ movies which were  64 years apart.

The original ‘Mary Poppins‘ (1964) is a much-loved classic film that many, many generations have grown up with. So much of the movie, particularly the songs, are iconic so making a sequel 54 years years later was a pretty daunting challenge for director Rob Marshall. It was never going to be as impactful as the original but Continue reading →

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TF Top 10……Football Match Day Experiences In 2022

Posted on November 19, 2022 by tokyofox

 

Having only watched a single game in each of the last two seasons I really was not expecting to do too many more matches this year, especially with the strict Covid_19 measures still in place for much of the season. However, I ended up going to 11 live games at 10 different stadiums. A few of them have had their own blog posts during 2022 but the majority of them weren’t really considered to be worthy of a solitary post so I have collated them into this rankings list. It’s certainly not one to be taken too seriously as it’s based on a mixture of Continue reading →

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Pain & Glory! The Story Of Cycling To All Inari Shrines In Tokyo’s 23 Wards

Posted on November 17, 2022 by tokyofox

As I stood with my bicycle at the Itoku Inari Daimyojin in Shinjuku mid-November last year I felt no other emotion than a bit of relief. I had completed my fairly pointless mission of cycling to every single Inari Shrine (as listed on Google Maps!) for each of Tokyo’s 23 wards.

That celebration was purely for the camera and I really wasn’t feeling that emotional!

It had taken me 19 months to get to that point and on 23 separate days I had visited Continue reading →

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Cheap Alcohol Vending Machines Aplenty Inside A Train Station!

Posted on November 14, 2022 by tokyofox

Even though I almost never buy anything from them, the sight of a vending machine dispensing alcohol (usually beer) always catches my attention. Such machines are certainly not so common in city centres anymore so imagine how surprised I was to see that you could buy 110 different types of sake from an auto dispenser. Not only that but it was in a train station too!

The first major stop on my recent trip to Niigata Prefecture was Continue reading →

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