NEWSWORTHY
Tuesday marked the 500-day mark before the opening of the 2019 Rugby World Cup, as scandals continue to plague the preparations for the tournament. Twenty teams will compete across 12 venues in Japan when the competition kicks off on Sept. 20, 2019. However, the identity ...
Tohoku hotels tally 1 million overnight stays by foreign tourists for first time
The total number of nights spent by foreign guests in the disaster-hit northeast surpassed the 1 million mark in 2017 for the first time on the back of a continued increase in inbound tourism, according to a recent government survey. The survey by the Japan ...
In Tohoku, samurai cuisine is racking up Michelin stars
In the town of Shiogama in Miyagi Prefecture, there's a residential neighborhood overlooking Matsushima Bay, the epicenter of Japan's catastrophic March 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami. On a quiet street there, chef Hideyuki Irakawa and his wife, Michiko, have been serving samurai food from ...
Tohoku struggling to get piece of Japan's tourism boom
Japan may be experiencing a swell of foreign tourists, but not all areas of the country are reaping the rewards. The Tohoku region is still struggling to carve out a slice of the growing tourism pie, leading tour operators and local businesses to take new ...
Sanriku Railway approaches major turning point on railroad to recovery
A railway line in Iwate Prefecture will reach a crucial turning point next year, returning to service after sustaining heavy damage from the Great East Japan Earthquake. In March 2019 a 55.4-kilometer section between Miyako and Kamaishi stations on the of East Japan Railway Co.-operated ...
From Tohoku to Tokyo, Acchi Cocchi NPO offers healing through art
Acchi Cocchi brings music, dance and the visual arts into everyday life in Tohoku and the greater Tokyo area.
In the wake of the March 2011 disasters, encouraging phrases in various dialects gave residents of tsunami-devastated Tohoku a much-needed psychological lift, but those same dialects are battling to survive amid the exodus of young people from the region. "Magenedo, Miyagi!" ("Miyagi won't give up!") ...
Violin made from 3/11 tsunami debris leads Australian concert
A violin made almost entirely from debris from the earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeast Japan in 2011 was the centerpiece of a commemorative concert Friday in Melbourne. The performance, "Resonance: A Tsunami Violin Concert," marked the seventh anniversary of the magnitude 9 earthquake that ...
Yuichi Yonezawa believes he owes his life to the three-story building that used to house his company in the tsunami-damaged city of Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture. On March 11, 2011, Yonezawa ran up to the roof of the building and climbed the chimney, narrowly escaping the ...
Seeking solace in Tohoku's poets of old
On Oct. 11, 2011, seven months to the day after the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami struck the Tohoku region, I stood beside the sole surviving pine tree from a 350-year-old forest of approximately 70,000 similar trees on the coastline of Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture. In ...
Florian Busch, the architect who floated the Tokyo 2020 Olympic stadium
Japan-based German architect warns that Tokyo risks squandering a historic chance to offer an ambitious, sustainable vision in 2020.
International disaster prevention forum begins in tsunami-hit Sendai
Disaster prevention experts from Japan and abroad gathered in Sendai on Saturday to discuss lessons learned from the earthquake and tsunami that devastated coastal communities throughout Tohoku in 2011. The first World Bosai Forum, incorporating the Japanese word meaning disaster mitigation, was organized by the ...
