Nagatoro (長瀞町) is a small town in Chichibu (秩父郡), about two hours north-west of Tokyo by train. It’s known for the Arakawa River (荒川), with its white-water rapids and beautiful spring/autumn foliage on the trees which line its banks. Read more
The River Yare is one of the main navigable waterways of The Norfolk Broads, a series of historic man-made lakes, in England which runs all the way from Norwich to the North Sea. Read more
Back in 2013, shortly after I had moved to Japan, the language school I was attending at the time took us on a class outing to Yumenoshima Park (夢の島) for a sports day (as if we were 10 years old…). Literally meaning “Dream Island”, Yumenoshima Park was built on land reclaimed from Tokyo Bay using waste landfill. Read more
It’s not everyday you’d find me talking about a ferry terminal, but bear with me, this one’s pretty special. The Osanbashi International Passenger Terminal, or Ōsanbashi Pier (大さん橋) as it’s known, is located between Minato Mirai and Yamashita Park along the waterfront. Read more
Like the stream of identical salary men you see scurrying around at rush hour and the eclectic fashions on display at Harajuku, Tokyo’s skyline is a bit of a contradiction. One the one hand there are endless emotionless apartment blocks but on the other there are some of the most fantastical expressions of modern contemporary architecture in the world. Read more
Apologies for the lack of posts recently, it’s been a turbulent couple of weeks in Hong Kong and I find myself at another set of crossroad considering my future here. The city is undoubtedly the most convenient I’ve ever lived in – great transport links, good public services, delicious food, nice people and super fast internet but despite all this I miss some of the challenge of living somewhere like mainland China where both cultural and language differences made things a bit more interesting. Read more
During my trip to the UK last month I spent the best part of a week at my parents home in Surlingham – a rather picturesque village in South Norfolk on the Broads (not far from Norwich). As with most of rural Norfolk the surrounding area is low-lying, sparsely populated and predominantly farmland – the perfect getaway from the megalopolis where I usually reside. Read more
The company I work for has a generous ‘Summer Fridays’ policy which, as you may have guessed, allows us to leave work early on Fridays during the summer. Since the view out my window in Quarry Bay is so nice I took the opportunity today to shoot a short time-lapse film of it (using Frameographer on my iPad). It’s been the hottest day of the year so far in Hong Kong – a sweltering 34°C
Everyone who knows I live in China is always surprised to learn that I’d never visited Southeast Asia – up until now I had always been more preoccupied with exploring the mainland and Korea / Japan. I decided to put this straight and during the Chinese New Year holidays and managed to get some cheap tickets to Bangkok in Thailand. Read more