Running north from Ikebukuro Station way up into the deepest parts of Saitama Prefecture and beyond, the Tobu Tojo line has long played a very important role during my time in Japan. Other than Kawagoe (a.k.a. Little Edo) though it is often overlooked by many domestic and international travellers so to try and rectify that Tokyo Fox has come up with 10 sights (in no particular order) that are worth checking out…
1. Yoshimi 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: Endō
Prefecture: Continue reading
The ever changing poses of Tokyo Fox!
In 2024 I went to 32 football matches in Japan which was the most I’ve ever done including my years as a season ticket holder at Leicester City back in the 1990s. It was planned to scale things back a bit this year, and indeed I did in the first half of the year, but a busy July and August has meant that I may get close to last year’s tally.
This is the second batch of matches featuring five different stadiums/grounds (only a single new one this time round I’m afraid!) with all of them taking place in Tokyo and Saitama. The vast 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 occasion, weather, people I met, the stadium and maybe even the football itself! For the record, I have enjoyed all of them in different ways.
10. Continue reading
There was a time not that long ago when the only Star Wars products unique to Japan seemed to be the range of various lightsaber chopsticks and tenugui decorative towels but in recent times that has changed a fair amount with the franchise cashing in on the distinctive appeal of Japanese products. They’ve certainly been on the increase these last few years and that all came to a crescendo at the Star Wars Celebration Japan event back in April.
Since then there have been three Star Wars pop-up stores (that I’m aware of!) in Tokyo. The ‘Star Wars Galaxy in Shibuya’ exhibition in May was really good with a nice layout, and the one at Tokyu Plaza Ginza has become something of a regular occurrence in recent years which is always worth visiting. This most recent shop at Continue reading
Throughout much of the 1990s I took note of pretty much every band or artist that appeared on the cover of the NME or Melody Maker music publications in the UK. If I wasn’t aware of them already then I’d usually be interested in hearing them but as we moved into a new century I gradually lost a bit of interest in such promotion of new acts, and one of the first bands I didn’t take too much notice of was a rock trio from Devon known as Muse!
Fast forward about five years and I realised I liked quite a few of their songs and kind of began to regret not taking more notice of them from the start. By the time Continue reading
Recent U.S. Open champion Carlos Alcaraz has been the star attraction at this year’s Kinoshita Open a.k.a. the Japan Open. Sadly the stars did not align for me to see the man who currently has half a dozen Grand Slams to his name including two in 2025. I’d booked tickets for the morning session on the third day of competition and Continue reading
My days of watching blanket coverage of sporting tournaments are long over due to work, family and living in what is often an inconvenient time-zone. However, with the 20th edition of the World Athletics Championships being hosted in Tokyo, and available on free-to-air TV, it meant I saw more of this event than the previous 19 versions!
Work and other things still got in the way at times but I managed to catch a fair amount of live action each night when back home. On top of that, the official 10 minute daily highlights package on YouTube kept me up to date in my native tongue. Oh and I was also in Continue reading
The first time I went to Cambodia was still one of my my most memorable trips as it was such a laugh travelling with mates but there were a few things I never really got to experience. Needing a greater appreciation and understanding of Cambodian history, culture and cuisine as well as taking in a few new places, I decided to return to the South-East Asian country about nine years later with my wife.
Day 1: Having arrived the night before, we spent our only full day of the trip in the capital city of Phnom Penh. It was also my birthday but it was a very sombre start as it began with Continue reading
Ever since Tokyo was selected in July 2022 to host the 20th World Athletics Championships this year, I have been excited about it and began my preparation for it two years ago by going to see my first ever track and field event in Yokohama. That was followed by a Japanese competition at the National Stadium just a couple of months ago. Both gave me a good idea of what it was actually like to see the sport in the flesh but they really were just warm-up competitions for the main event.
The World Athletics Championships have given the public a second chance to actually see some top-level athletes compete in the Japanese capital after the ill-fated Tokyo 2020 Olympics which were delayed by a year with spectators also not being allowed in due to the global pandemic of the time.
Tokyo being given the World Athletics Championships may have seemed like something of a consolation to try and make ammends for Continue reading
When it comes to playground structures in Japan, the designers don’t always just go for the most generic design but sometimes incorporate mysterious and charming features to make them stand out as truly unique creations which are sights in their own right. Some of these extremely inventive structures include the likes of robots, seafood, insects, reptiles, buildings, yokai (Japanese supernatural entities and spirits) and of course animals.
The latter is the feature of this post as Tokyo Fox brings together the best ten animal-related playground structures in Tokyo Metropolis; the area comprising bordering prefectures Saitama, Kanagawa, Chiba and of course Tokyo itself. As ever, the ranking isn’t to be taken too seriously and if you do go to any of these places be very considerate and respectful about who they’re intended for.
10. Continue reading
Tokyo Fox (東京狐) 