15 years ago was the first time for me to be back on Australian soil since my 12 month working holiday visa ended in February 2002. My eldest sister had only just given birth to her first child and it really wasn’t long before I was holding the baby! And changing his nappy too!
He looked pretty worried at first but probably not Continue reading
When Sky gained the rights to show Premier League games live from the 1992-93 season onwards it meant the end of live top flight English football on terrestrial TV. In the absence of ‘The Match‘ on ITV on Sunday afternoons a couple of alternatives emerged. Channel 4 began to air live Serie A games from Italy and some of the ITV regions showed the football league. Central and LWT made a commitment to have regular live matches whilst the other regions tended to be far more occasional.
Tony Francis was the presenter of Central Match Live with Jimmy Greaves usually alongside him whilst Alan Parry was the main commentator and the likes of Continue reading
Nowadays there are a wealth of YouTube videos, blogs and articles for finding out about Japan but back in my day the resources were far more limited. The sad fact is that a lot of my Japanese imagery was shaped by the “Okinawa” scenes (filmed in Hawaii!) in ‘The Karate Kid Part II‘ (1986), and there was one scene which stuck in my mind for a long time.
The den-den daiko hand-held pellet drums and the Japanese tea ceremony may be more famous but I was really impressed by the beauty of such floating lanterns which Mr Miyagi and Daniel-San put in the local river as a traditional way of Continue reading
After 37 years and nearly 9000 episodes the iconic Australian soap ‘Neighbours‘ came off air this week ending on a real high as some legendary characters reappeared for a final farewell to a show that many people have great affection for. However, pure nostalgia doesn’t mean too much when far fewer people are Continue reading
It’s pretty much par for the course these days that every time we get a holiday we go to Izu. My wifes parents and dog aren’t always there but they were on this particular visit. The dogs are probably Continue reading
Filming for this epic took place in eight different countries; the USA, England, France, Spain, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand and Japan. Whilst multiple locations is fairly common place these days, it wasn’t at all back in the mid-1950s so it really is quite incredible that so many exterior locations and sets were used including a couple in Japan.
It really is a long wait for some Japanese scenery though. Mount Fuji is finally seen on Continue reading
The vast majority of the hundreds of shrines in Tokyo’s 23 wards are well-maintained and looking as good as is possible. However, there are some lacking in love and care where the weather has taken its toll on the torii gates or they have just been left unattended for a long time and have subsequently been Continue reading
Enter any one of the thousands and thousands of temples and shrines in Japan and it is likely that you’ll see at least one or two stone statues of animals in front of it. Lions, foxes and lion-dogs are the more traditional statues, and there are also ones with the likes of cats, frogs, horses, monkeys, elephants, tigers, rabbits and wolves on show but this one in eastern Tokyo has a guardian which has been extinct for millions of years!
This fairly nondescript wooden Buddhist temple is located on a quiet backstreet of Katsushika ward and was something I came across recently whilst on the trail of bronze Captain Tsubasa footballer statues. Maybe I shoud have sensed the presence of such a prehistoric creature after seeing Continue reading
Season one of this dating challenge wrapped earlier this year in March after about 13 months of working my way through the alphabet. It was mostly fun and hopefully resulted in me being a better husband by suggesting we go to some places that I’d never usually want to go to.
It would probably have been more enjoyable if my wife wasn’t in the dark as it’d have been good fun to discuss possibilities for each letter. I did think of suggesting it to her and then taking it in turns to come up with things to do for each letter but Continue reading
Tokyo Fox (東京狐) 