Dave Riley

Day2 Ueda Castle and Shrine

Ueda Castle isn't much of a castle anymore, only the entrance is preserved but the guy that defended it; Yukimura Sandada is a local legend. Computer! Mid-16th century Japanese clothing please. Make it so! The  plaque that says: "Senada Shrine This shrine is dedicated to all the past feudal lords of Ueda Castle - the Senada clan, the Sengoku clan and the Matsudaira clan. Masayuki Sanada and his sons built Ueda Castle and made this town in 1583 (Tensho11)...

We went to Japan, just Granda and me.

Granda is actually my Father (Joe Riley), but having 6 kids that call him Granda, the name gets kind of stuck. He was actually due to go out to Japan with Rie and the kids in September but a couple of days before they found a shadow on his lung and thought it could be a tumour. Some tests later it turned out to  be just a bad chest infection. Thank goodness! We left London Heathrow at 10am 25th Jan and arrived at Tokyo narata  airport 10am on the 26th. We were met by the welcoming...

Attack of the Giant Wasps

  It sounds like a 1960s Japanese si-fi 'B' movie plot but it's true. Rie (My better half) and the kids are in Japan staying with her parents. Well they have a Japanese Giant Hornet (or Wasp) problem. Sounds scary enough I hate normal wasps, then I did a bit of searching on the internet... WTH! Those things are horrible. You can read about these monsters here Wikipedia Article Here is a video of them attacking a honey bee hive:   Interestingly this hive is not a native...

It’s a clock, it’s advertising, it’s dancing!

uniqlock Here is what I think is one of the most innovative pieces of advertising I've seen for a while, it's a website for a Japanese clothes store but they have made it a bit more compelling than a normal clothes website. It starts off as a clock showing the local Tokyo time with some very addictive music in the background. After 5 seconds we see our first dance routine, the routines are flash video and are very high quality full screen. The trick is that the video buffers...