TF Top 10……Football Match Day Experiences In 2025 (Part 3)

Posted on December 1, 2025 by tokyofox

 

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 got close to last year’s tally.

This is the third and final batch of matches featuring 8 different stadiums/grounds with all of them taking place in the Greater Tokyo area encompassing surrounding prefectures Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba. 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 occasion, weather, people I met, the stadium and maybe even the football itself! As ever, I enjoyed all of them in different ways.

1o. Continue reading →

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Tokyo Daytripper: Japan’s Most Prominent Black Castle, A Samurai Frog Statue, Dangerous Buildings, Unique Stations & A Man With His Instrument Out!

Posted on November 27, 2025 by tokyofox

When it comes to Japanese castles I’ve said many times that they’re all quite similar in terms of white colour, style and appearance but there are some which look a little different, and I was lucky enough to find time in my busy schedule to see one of them on a recent trip to the Chubu region of Honshu; the largest of Japan’s four main islands.

Visiting some train stations may have been my main reason for taking an impromptu day trip to Nagano prefecture, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity of visiting one of Japan’s premier Continue reading →

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Breaking News! No, This Really Is “Breaking” News!!

Posted on November 23, 2025 by tokyofox

Many people often turn their noses up a bit at the sight of new sports being added to the Olympic Games every four years. The likes of golf, rugby sevens, skateboarding, surfing and sport climbing (including bouldering) have all been added to the bill for the last three Olympics in Rio (2016), Tokyo (2021) and Paris (2024) but perhaps the most controversial new sport to be included at the last Olympics was breaking.

Admittedly, I didn’t actually see too much of the sport at Paris 2024 but a couple of months ago I saw there was a breaking (more commonly known in the media as breakdancing back in the 80s!) event coming up in Tokyo thanks to targeted advertising on social media. The algorithm must think I’m a very cool guy or maybe it’s just because I’ve Continue reading →

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TF Top 10……Rugby Match Experiences of 2025

Posted on November 19, 2025 by tokyofox

2025 has been another bumper year for watching rugby and yet again I managed to attend enough matches to warrant the continuation of this compilation post series.

None of them really merited their own post so I have collated them into this rankings list. As with my football compilation posts, it’s certainly not one to be taken too seriously as it’s based on a mixture of occasion, weather, people I met, and maybe even the rugby itself! Unlike the football compilations, the stadia won’t play too much of a part as they all took place at just four different stadiums!

10. Water Gush Continue reading →

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TF Flashback: The Time When I Cycled To All Tokyo’s Best 25 Sights In One Day!

Posted on November 15, 2025 by tokyofox

These days YouTube is absolutely awash with creators doing all kinds of random and pointless challenges, but they really weren’t so common 15 years ago when I embarked on what is still my longest ever themed cycling ride. For the record, I’m not suggesting that I am the pioneer of such challenges!

On the back of a couple of other themed bicycle tours of Tokyo (namely riding around the Yamanote Line and cycling the A-Z of stations), I came up with the idea of using my road bike to visit all the tourist attractions featured in Fodor’s Tokyo Best 25 guidebook. Not satisfied with 25 sights I added a few bonus ones too and all of this was done in one single day on November 5th. A date to be remembered!

As this was now 15 years ago it’s important to point out that I didn’t Continue reading →

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Obi-Wan CAN-obi! Collecting Star Wars Cola Cans In Japan!

Posted on November 11, 2025 by tokyofox

When a new film or TV series is on the horizon there is often all manner of goods emblazoned with the logo of the production being promoted. That certainly wasn’t the case this time with the global Coca Cola Star Wars campaign which ran through some of the Summer and Autumn months without any particular promo attached to it.

It may have even been August when I finally saw some cans on sale in my local supermarket. There were regular Coca Cola 350 ml cans with the Continue reading →

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TF Top 5……Public Toilet Designs In Tokyo #4 (Urine For A Treat!)

Posted on November 8, 2025 by tokyofox

To celebrate the unofficial toilet day on November 10th in Japan I have decided to deposit a fourth (and final!) compilation of interesting public lavatories in Tokyo. The Tokyo Fox site sure is plumbing to low depths but hopefully you will be bowel-ed over and end up thinking it’s an excrement idea!

Japan is such a backwards country at times when it comes to many things but if they put just half as much effort into those things as they do in coming up with toilet ideas then it really might help move the country more into the 21st century. Most of the toilets included here are of the modern variety which have become more common place in the Shibuya ward area in recent years.

To get to the bottom of the matter, Continue reading →

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Oh Crumbs! A Bad Day & A Good Hiding At The 2025 Biscuit Cup Final

Posted on November 4, 2025 by tokyofox

After their heroics in the semi-final second leg of the League Cup in Japan you’d probably be forgiven for thinking that Kashiwa Reysol’s name might well be on the trophy this year.

After losing the semi-final first leg 3-1 against Kawasaki Frontale, it seemed like it was a tough hurdle to overcome, especially when 4-1 down on aggregate early in the return leg at Hitachi-dai Stadium five days later. With 73 minutes on the clock, it was 4-2 on aggregate but Continue reading →

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The Highs & Lows of the 2025 Japan Open Tennis Tournament

Posted on November 1, 2025 by tokyofox

With a line-up featuring so many of my favourite female players, I was admittedly rather excited by this year’s Toray Pan Pacific Open (TPPO) tennis tournament at Ariake Coliseum in Tokyo. I was always going to attend the second qualifying day and the first two days of the real competition that followed. Impressed by the initial line up I decided to add the fifth day which would be the quarter finals and a chance to see the best eight in action.

With four days of tennis on the horizon I was guaranteed to see the likes of Qinwen Zheng (China), Naomi Osaka (Japan), Emma Raducanu (GB) and Jasmine Paolini (Italy) ….. unless one or two of them got injured! First of all, 2024 champion Continue reading →

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Oasis Fever Hits Japan As Rock ‘N’ Roll Stars Liam & Noel Return To Tokyo

Posted on October 29, 2025 by tokyofox

Ever since Oasis split in 2009 both Gallagher brothers have been pretty much constantly asked in all interviews about a reunion. Many people were pining for it, and you’d probably expect that someone like me who saw them multiple times (and bought every one of their CD singles and albums) would be of the same opinion.

That was never really the case though as I thought it was best to leave things in the past, and I was very happy with the songs of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds as well as some of Liam’s solo work. However, when Continue reading →

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