
What’s around the next corner? / たまたま通りかかった街周り
by joostay
Daily life in Tokyo, Japan | IKIMASHO!
Categories: Daily Life in Tokyo • Tags: asia, family, ikimasho, japan, photography, story, tokyo, travel, travel writer, travel writing
by joostay
Daily life in Tokyo, Japan | IKIMASHO!
Categories: Daily Life in Tokyo • Tags: asia, family, ikimasho, japan, photography, story, tokyo, travel, travel writer, travel writing
by joostay
A water purification festival on a truly epic scale
Categories: Traditional Festivals • Tags: asia, blogging, colour, design, festival, japan, japanese, matsuri, photography, story, summer, travel, Travel blogger, travel writing, writing
by joostay
One year on. My thoughts are with Nepal today.
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: 2015, earthquake, kathmandu, nepal, story, thankful
by joostay
It’s been three months now since I moved back to Tokyo after travelling for the guts of a year. I arrived in January after my company needed someone to replace a teacher who had quit after the second term. So for the last three months I’ve basically been finishing off someone else’s contract – which has had its good and bad points. The positives: I had actually taught at this school before, four years ago. It was the first kindergarten I ever […]
Categories: Daily Life in Tokyo • Tags: asia, blog, design, food, japan, japanese, photography, sakura, shimokitazawa, spring, story, tokyo, travel
by joostay
DAITABASHI / 代田橋 Stumbling across a cute Okinawan Town in Central Tokyo Did you know there’s a small Okinawan Town in Tokyo? Well, I say town, but it’s more like a collection of cute shops and alleyways in a residential neighbourhood. I found it by accident the other day while wandering aimlessly around Daitabashi, a station just a fifteen-minute walk from my house in Shimokitazawa. Despite living so close, I hadn’t been to Daitabashi in a long time so I decided to […]
Categories: Daily Life in Tokyo • Tags: blog, design, food, ikimasho, japan, photography, setagaya, shinjuku, story, street, tokyo, train, travel, urban, video
by joostay
SAY HELLO TO COCONUT! Followers of this blog will by now be well aware of my fondness for tracking down crappy local gyms in new countries I visit. It all started when I visited Nusa Lembongan in 2013 – an island off the coast of Bali. During my stint there I found a hilariously bad (yet amazing) gym which was basically just a wooden shack. Fast forward a few years and I was back on Lembongan last week, so of […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: asia, bali, bodybuilding, coconut, fitness, funny, gym, ikimasho, indonesia, japan, mens fitness, photography, running, story, tokyo, travel, weightlifting, weights, working out, workout
by joostay
One thing that surprised me on my recent trip to Sri Lanka was the vast amount of Death Notices I saw while walking around small villages. These notes are a Sri Lankan tradition, originally introduced as a way for local people to learn about recent deaths in the area, much like obituary notices in today’s western newspapers. In some rural areas, telephone and digital communications have only recently been introduced, so these physical notices proved to be a useful asset. It was the first time I […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: asia, backpacking, culture, death, funeral, ghosts, japan, photography, sri lanka, story, tokyo, travel, urban
by joostay
Back to Bali – and escaping the End of Days. I’ve written a bit before about Hellrides – those horribly twisted and depraved long-distance drives my old band used to do every night in order to play a farcical gig in front of no one. My touring days may be behind me, but travelling in Asia often means cramped conditions, squalid surroundings and not quite knowing if you’ll end up at your intended final destination. Not much change from playing on the DIY punk circuit then, […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: airplane, bali, belfast, boat, CREATIVE, dangerfields, hellride, indonesia, ireland, journey, northern ireland, photography, punk, punk rock, story, train, travel
by joostay
Where’s the cue ball going?! Becoming one of the lads with the Young Men’s Buddhist Association. As far as tourist destinations go, Galle is a major player in Sri Lanka: a town filled with Dutch-colonial buildings and classic architecture. The oh-so-quaint UNESCO Fort area is home to about 400 historic houses, churches and mosques – many of which date back hundreds of years. Inside the Fort you’ll see many nationalities of tourist, all on tours checking out the buildings etc. […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: asia, backpacking, buddha, buddhism, colombo, CREATIVE, funny, galle, japan, photography, religion, snooker, sport, sri lanka, story, toyko, travel, video, YMBA
by joostay
If you’re a chef, the last thing you want to do is get a sledgehammer and smash up your oven. If you’re a taxi driver, the last thing you want to do is get a load of petrol, throw it all over your car and set it on fire. If you’re a travel writer, the last thing you want to do is pour a nice big cup of sugary coffee all over your netbook. Which is what I did the other day. […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: asia, photography, sri lanka, story, travel, travel writer, writing
by joostay
Auste-what? Learning about this tiny country from its new Consul General for Northern Ireland. Stories really don’t get any more obscure and fascinating than the one I am about to share with you regarding the tiny micronation of Austenasia – a landlocked country whose border with the UK is merely a line separating a driveway from a footpath in the south London suburb of Carshalton. The country has a flag, a border and a government. It even has an Emperor […]
Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: allan wilson, austenasia, bizarre, blogging, country, fitness, ikimasho, independence, japan, jonny blair, micronation, story, tokyo, travel, uk, weird, wrythe
by joostay
Up until pretty recently I spent most of my life soldering speaker wire and crossover components. These days I solder cities. This is Tokyo, my latest creation. A living, breathing circuit board. Colour coded metro stations doubling as resistors. Cubic transformers as skyscrapers. Look down and what do you see? Semi conductors, diodes and transistors? Or convenience stores, ramen shops and pachinko parlours. I set the temperature of the iron to 675 degrees Fahrenheit and wait for the tip to heat up. […]
Categories: Daily Life in Tokyo • Tags: electronics, futuristic, japan, short story, story, tokyo
by joostay
I am a cloud. I grew up in the ocean, surrounded by the gentle creatures of the Pacific – yet while I enjoyed my time swimming with the starfish in Tokyo Bay, I always knew I was destined for something more. Sure enough, that time came and one day I was chosen to leave: to rise above the water and join the skyline. Not many have such an opportunity: to experience life in the depths of the ocean and high […]
Categories: Daily Life in Tokyo • Tags: asia, blog, buddha, buddhism, cloud, ikimasho, japan, story, tokyo, Zen