Eating, drinking and sleeping basically covers the rest of our time in Izu but for those who have got past that first sentence let me tell you about all the other stuff starting with Ito City Hall.
Now that may sound like something really dull but this trip was just to see the Continue reading
Without my own wheels in Izu, it’s fair to say that options are a little limited when I want to go off and do some kind of sightseeing by myself. As nice as it is, there’s only so many times one can go to Mount Komuro!! The next nearest sight is probably Continue reading
After all the excess eating over the festive season I really felt in need of a bit of exercise and some fresh air one day so the obvious choice was the nearby Mount Komuro which is very walkable from my in-laws’ house. As it turned out, I would venture on up this mountain about half a dozen times during our two week stay in Izu.
There is the option of a chair lift to take you to the mountaintop observatory but I feel it’s a little expensive at 470 yen (presumably a return trip) and, if you’re physically able, it’s also cheating!! Mount Omuro is nearly always visible and looking good but of course it pales into Continue reading
The last few years have been exciting times for Star Wars fans at Christmas with the release of three movies during the festive season. Of course I was there to see it on opening day at my local cinema and again at the same time seven days later but with my wife also in tow. Later that same day we went to Shimbashi to see Continue reading
New Years Eve is a night that promises much but often delivers very little and I long gave up on doing anything whatsoever on it but this time was different as I came back to Tokyo on a 24 hour round trip from Izu to attend an event that featured in a ‘TF Top 10……Quirky Japanese Festivals‘ post a couple of years ago.
The Oji Kitsune-no-gyoretsu Fox Parade is one that I’ve been aware of for many years now and it’s been growing in popularity recently but New Years Eve just Continue reading
So 2018 has only just begun and already Tokyo Fox is looking back!! For about eight years now there have been exactly ten new posts on here each and every month and these are the twenty from 2017 which got the most hits…excluding sponsored or TF Top 10 list posts! Of course those entries from earlier in the year had more time to accumulate hits but for the first time the number of posts is actually quite balanced with entries from most months of the year.
1. On The Fox Trail……At Motonosumi Inari Shrine (Yamaguchi) – Something of a phenomenon on the Tokyo Fox Facebook page as it reached over 11,000 people and was shared more than 80 times which, trust me, is amazing by usual standards. More details here
2017 was the 9th proper full year of filming locations on Tokyo Fox and it’s probably fair to say that as the years roll by, the number of movie location posts is dwindling. It’s certainly not for the want of effort though but there are of course other things going on in my life.
There are some completely all-new Japanese locations as well as a few from Sri Lanka, Macau and Hong Kong too with the latter including a couple of old posts that have been topped up with new and extra pictures this year. Even though I’ve not been to the UK in three years, I still have a few James Bond locales-related drafts awaiting publication. One of them finally saw the light of day back in March and is included in this post. Here then, in no particular order, is the TF Top 10……filming location trips for 2017…
1. Mr Baseball, 1992 (Click here)
Illuminations are a pretty big thing in Japan at Christmas time but something I’ve just not bothered with as I referenced in my ‘Things I’ve Never Done In Tokyo‘ post back in 2011. However, this year we were in Shimbashi and I thought it might be a nice idea to take the short walk to see the lights at Caretta Shiodome. I was wrong!! Unlike the majority of Japanese girls, my wife Continue reading
Tokyo is absolutely packed full of museums and just when you think you’re aware of most of them you hear of another that has somehow bypassed you. I came across this one about 13 months ago whilst touring around Tokyo using my Grutto Museum pass to maximum effect. This one wasn’t included in that pass as it’s free to enter for all.
With a curiosity about the vast geographical region of Siberia and ever interested by any war-related museum, I was keen to check this place out as I thought it was about the Japanese intervention in Siberia (1918-1922) but it was actually to do with the Japanese prisoners of war at the end of WWII. It’s called Heiwa Kinen Tenji Shiryokan which in English is the not-so-simply named Memorial Museum for Soldiers, Detainees in Siberia, and Postwar Repatriates!
This small museum consists of three main zones designed to present the hardships suffered in WWII by Japanese soldiers, prisoners of war, and repatriates in a permanent exhibition of relics, graphics, footage and dioramas that can help ensure that the memory of what they were subjected to is Continue reading
Many of the parks and children’s playgrounds in Japan, particularly in Tokyo, are quite poor compared to other countries in terms of space, surroundings and a lack of grass. However, a handful of them do tend to possess extremely creative structures and they will be explored in this series.
Nickname: Dinosaur Slide
Location: Continue reading
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