A Night In Nagato And A Trip To Hagi

Posted on August 30, 2017 by tokyofox

In the early days of visiting Hiroshima it was like a holiday but after going there so many times it’s fair to say that the number of things to do close to the city centre dries up. As a result, I’ve been looking slightly further afield to the neighbouring prefectures for day trips and so it was really nice to go on a two day trip to a few places in Yamaguchi prefecture with my wife and her parents.

Akiyoshido Cave in Mine city provided the first mornings entertainment and that was followed by Motonosumi Inari Shrine. After that we drove over to an Okijima island (no pictures!) and then on to our ryokan (Japanese style inn often found in hot spring resorts) in Nagato which was difficult to find and involved some very narrow streets. Having checked in, I popped out for a brief wander and pretty much covered the whole area in about 10-15 minutes! It was a very pleasant-looking town and things were ready for the annual matsuri festival the following night.

 

Dinner (below) was a very elaborate kaiseki-ryōri (traditional multi-course Japanese dinner) affair and was rather Continue reading →

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Mara-kannon Temple (a.k.a. Penis Temple!)

Posted on August 27, 2017 by tokyofox

What better way to start the day than with a temple featuring a load of phallic-shaped structures! As ever with such places there was a slightly more serious meaning behind the facade and one that is of great importance to my wife and I at the moment.

 

When we left my parents-in-law’s apartment to embark on a short two day-one night trip around some places in Yamaguchi prefecture I wasn’t even Continue reading →

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On The Fox Trail……At Motonosumi Inari Shrine (Yamaguchi)

Posted on August 23, 2017 by tokyofox

Think of loads of beautiful red torii gates winding their way through a beautiful natural environment and Fushimi Inari in Kyoto is no doubt what comes to mind for almost everyone. However, this particular shrine is a rival contender when it comes to truly beautiful and awe-inspiring landscape. The combination of lush greenery, bright red torii gates and turquoise-blue ocean colours make this a mesmerising place for tourists. It may not be one of the major Inari shrines in Japan but this was the one that I wanted to visit more than any other. The problem though is it’s location!

 

Lying on the Sea of Japan coast up in Nagato (Yamaguchi-ken) it is very much off the average tourist’s radar. Accessibility is not easy without a car as the nearest station (Nagato-Furuichi) is over Continue reading →

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Akiyoshido Limestone Cave In Mine City

Posted on August 20, 2017 by tokyofox

It’s been a pretty frantic last seven weeks with trips to Sri Lanka, Hong Kong and in the recent Obon holiday we went to Hiroshima to see my wife’s parents as we often tend to do in such holiday periods. Whilst the former did involve some cave temples in Dambulla, they were quite different to Akiyoshido Cave.

These limestone caves are actually located over the border from Hiroshima in neighbouring prefecture Yamaguchi. I suggested a few places of interest in surrounding prefectures at the dinner table the previous night and my father-in-law decided we’d go to the caves in Mine City which are roughly 150 kilometres away. It wasn’t to be a straightforward day return trip though as it soon Continue reading →

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Jogasaki Kaigan Coast

Posted on August 17, 2017 by tokyofox

 

Only a matter of days after I had published all eleven of my Shizuoka-related posts from the Japanese Golden Week holiday, I was back in Izu visiting my in-laws. My wife had already been resting up there the week prior to my arrival and the plan this time was to go to Jogasaki Kaigan Coast. The weather forecast for the day was pretty Continue reading →

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Interesting Japanese Playground Structures #5 – Giraffe Slide

Posted on August 14, 2017 by tokyofox

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: Giraffe Slide

Location:  Continue reading →

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Hong Kong 2017 Pt VI: The Search For “Club Obi Wan”

Posted on August 11, 2017 by tokyofox

Things have rarely gone smoothly when it comes to hunting down filming locations from the Indiana Jones franchise. I ran out of time to go to Kairouan in Tunisia which was used to represent Cairo in ‘Raiders Of The Lost Ark‘ (1981). As much as I tried to locate the “Sankara Stone Shrine” of “Mayapur Village” in Sri Lanka I just couldn’t find the exact spots. When I went to Royal Cultural Hall in Westminster (London) it was closed so I never got to see the interiors which doubled up as Berlin Airport in ‘Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade‘ (1989). The Treasury in Petra (Jordan) may have been easy to locate (it is a world heritage site after all!) but I failed to ascend the rocks in the right place and missed out on the view looking down on the Treasury which featured in the film. The Venice church where Indy finds an important clue was eventually found but it took a while as I lost my way many times among the maze of canals and alleyways in the city of water.

It will therefore come as no surprise that my time in Macau didn’t go as well as hoped  either. In ‘Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom‘ (1984) this Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China is the location for the “Shanghai” car chase following Indy (Harrison Ford) and Co’s escape from Club Obi Wan as their vehicle (driven by Short Round) is pursued by villain Lao Che (Roy Chiao) and his henchmen.

After leaving the Ruins Of The Church Of St. Paul, I headed towards the coast passing the Hong Kung Temple and thought I was easily on track to locate a couple of other Indy locales first. However Continue reading →

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Hong Kong Filming Locations: Johnny English Reborn (2011)

Posted on August 8, 2017 by tokyofox

There have been a fair few spy spoof’s over the years and whilst the likes of Austin Powers usually gets a lot of recognition, this comedy vehicle for Rowan Atkinson is not as fondly remembered. Not by me though as I have affectionate memories of watching the original one in a German cinema whilst I was living and working in Hamburg in 2003. Even though I enjoyed it, I was still very surprised to see it return for a sequel eight years later.

Like its predecessor, much of ‘Johnny English Reborn‘ is set in England but there’s a slightly Asian flavour to this one starting off in Tibet at a monastery (most likely a mock-up back in the studio) where he’s been honing his skills following a botched mission in Mozambique. However, he is summoned by MI7 when his agency superiors learn of an attempt against the Chinese premier’s life. Scenes in Macau and Hong Kong soon follow.

 

The Grand Lisboa Casino is seen in all its elaborative tackiness as Continue reading →

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Hong Kong 2017 Pt V: The Best Of The Rest

Posted on August 5, 2017 by tokyofox

The main reason for this latest trip of ours was to see Leicester play in the Premier League Asia Trophy but that made up only a fraction of our time in the Hong Kong. There was plenty of other time for other things and here are the details of what we ate and did that wasn’t in the previous four posts in the Hong Kong 2017 series. In order to get the tickets for that match we had arranged to meet up with Cat who was someone I had never actually met before but had communicated with a fair bit on Twitter. We didn’t just exchange tickets and money though as we’d agreed to have some dinner and drinks too at a couple of places in the Wan Chai area including an English bar called Trafalgar.

 

That was on our first evening in Hong Kong following our Continue reading →

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Hong Kong 2017 Pt IV: Getting Arty In Hong Kong

Posted on August 2, 2017 by tokyofox

On the face of it these stacked apartments are just part of yet another high-rise building in a densely populated region. However, there’s something fascinating, and indeed beautiful about their style and imperfection. Such sights are probably oblivious to many of the seven million people who live in Hong Kong but they have become very popular stops for tourists hoping to capture an arty picture for social media. I have no real photographic talent but tried my best to capture some interesting shots of this place which is known as Continue reading →

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