Roppongi

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    Oh, Maggie I Should Have Known! Bubble Era Tokyo’s Aussie Haven

    When I first got to Japan in the late 1980s, Australia was hot property–mainly in a literal sense for real estate investment, but also for honeymooners and koala fans. But finding anything “Australian” in Tokyo was bloody hard and homesickness particularly strong in those days, so I was deeply grateful for Maggie’s Revenge and the kangaroo awning that advertised the establishment. Maggie’s Revenge was an Aussie-themed bar in the Roppongi nightclub district of Tokyo, which was a bit of a drag for me to get to as I was living in the northern part of the capital at the time. Sometimes, you could buy a meat pie there, and always…

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    Up And Away Over The Clouds On A Brompton

    My Brompton folding bike has proved to be more of a handful than I’d hoped with its unique parts costing a lot to maintain, but it is also lifting me to new heights in cycling, literally this month as I rode the Norikura skyline. The Norikura Kogen skyline is one of the highest elevation roads in Japan and I got a shock riding down a mountain for the first time, especially as I was carrying a heavy load. I rode my brakes nearly the entire descent of roughly 15 km, which started in pleasant sunshine, but ended in a mist. I had no idea how to descend properly, and when…