What does one do on a trip to Hong Kong having already visited twice before and done most of the important sights? Of course there’s plenty of places in the New Territories and Outlying Islands areas which I’ve never been to but I chose to leave Hong Kong and head 65 kilometres west to Macau.
To be honest, I’d never really had any interest in visiting Macau as I’m not Continue reading
To my knowledge, Leicester had only played two games in Asia (both in Bangkok) ahead of the Premier League Asia Trophy in Hong Kong. No doubt a few others had been to both of them but the only person I know to have seen the matches against the Thailand national team (2010) and Everton (2014) is the BBC Radio Leicester commentator Ian Stringer. I was keen to know if he’d be heading to Asia again to work on this pre-season tournament so I asked him as soon as my boss had granted time off work to attend it.
He wasn’t too sure at that time but messaged me a few weeks later saying that he would Continue reading
As soon as it was rumoured that Leicester would be taking part in the Premier League Asia Trophy in Hong Kong in July I set about making plans to take time off work and get tickets for the first set of matches in this tournament which runs every two years. Funnily enough I’d told a friend just a few days earlier that I wasn’t interested in watching a friendly match ever again as I’d seen enough of them to last a lifetime. Those words were undone in a matter of moments but this was different as it was the chance to see my boys in Asia. Continue reading
When it comes to Japan’s most famous dish, I have to admit that I’m a man of simple pleasure and taste. I’m just as happy with the cheap family-style places (and all their bastardised sushi plates!) as I am with the more sophisticated places serving up the more traditional style. Sure, I can tell the difference between them but not enough to justify paying the vast difference in price.
The cheapest of the chain restaurants offer plates of sushi for ¥90 (2 pieces) on weekdays and there are standing sushi bars selling plates (1 piece) for ¥70, possibly even ¥50. However, a few months ago a friend sent me this video from YouTuber Charlyjapan who makes short two minute movies about daily life in Japan. He vlogged about a place where one can purchase sushi for as little as ¥10!
Keen to check this place out, Scottish Neil, Jack (a.k.a. Rambling Northerner) and I decided to pay it a visit after we had finished Continue reading
This Oscar-winning epic is part of movie folklore and widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever so I really wanted to see the area where director David Lean shot it way back in 1957. It was filmed in Kitulgala which is 60 kilometres south-west from Kandy and Colombo is nearly 100 kilometres west of there. It would be a long detour and a much more expensive one too when compared to simply taking a train between the two aforementioned cities. It was a now or never situation though so we went for it.
The Plantation Hotel in Kitulgala has a couple of framed pictures relating to the movie in the hotel (below). That was our starting point for this adventure and from there we had to walk about a kilometre up the road (in the direction of Adam’s Peak) to find Continue reading
The capital city of Colombo is one that many travellers to Sri Lanka often ignore or visit for nothing more than a night before moving on to far more interesting places. We did likewise when we arrived in the country and headed straight off for Kandy but my wife (for some reason!) was keen to visit Colombo and so we actually spent our last 48 hours in the country there following our detour via Kitulgala where I went to the main location in the filming of ‘The Bridge On The River Kwai‘ (1957).
Having been dropped off by our driver Rath in the evening we set out the next morning to the markets of Pettah by local bus. After walking around a bit we finally stumbled upon a place called Nawagiri Hotel which is definitely not an accommodation provider of any sort but Continue reading
Twelve hours on the road. That’s how long we’d been out on this epic day trip visiting the Ancient Cities and that was before we even got to the Royal Rock Temple in Dambulla for our final stop! My wife was a bit buddha’d out so decided to sit this one out and remained in the van whilst I rushed off to explore it relatively quickly.
There were some lovely views of the surrounding countryside (below) as I hiked the 150 metres or so up to the temple. The rain was drizzling a bit as it tended to do for short periods every day whilst we were in Sri Lanka. We got quite lucky really as the forecast had predicted thundery showers for the whole of our trip!
The rock temple consists of five separate caves featuring Continue reading
Tell someone that there’s a huge rock in the middle of a country and chances are they will assume you’re talking about Ayers Rock (Uluru) in Australia. However, that is also the case with Sigiriya which plays host to a mysterious Continue reading
The Ancient Cities of Sri Lanka was what I was most excited about seeing before our visit but I had to be patient. Day one was always likely to be just getting settled and looking around Kandy and so on the second day we decided to do a long day tour taking in some of the sights of Continue reading
The idea of visiting this island country was never really on my radar until early last year when my wife stated her intention to go there. That set me off and I bought the guidebook, started planning and soon became very interested in the place. However, for one reason or another we didn’t go as planned to Sri Lanka last June instead opting for the far closer and easier Taiwan. 12 months on though and we finally got there though albeit Continue reading
Tokyo Fox (東京狐) 