NOTEBOOK — Arts Culture Tourism from Tokyo

A small distillery in Chichibu, Saitama Prefecture, recently claimed its sixth whisky award at an international competition held in London. In Okinawa, a woman was arrested on Monday after approaching the U.S. consulate general brandishing what she claimed to be a pipe-bomb. Meanwhile, the American President Joe Biden is due to hold talks with Prime Minister Kishida tomorrow in Hiroshima, when Biden and other leaders including the newly appointed Brazilian President Lula da Silva descend on the city for this year's G7 summit taking place this weekend. Prior to that we head to the edge of Tokyo bay and wander through the outer market of Tsukiji, once the largest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world. We arrive as it begins to wind down and talk with the owner of Mejicafe buried deep within the market along Yokocho-dori.

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A strong earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 5.2 hit Chiba last week, with another measuring 5.1 hitting the southwestern prefecture of Kagoshima on Saturday. Tokyo reportedly has the second highest number of millionaires in the world. In Gifu prefecture, villagers in the UNESCO World Heritage site of Shirakawa village came together for the first time in five years to re-thatch one its well-known houses. And as the Daizafu-Tenmangu Shrine in Fukuoka undergoes renovation, a temporary hall at the shrine was unveiled, designed by the Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. The 1,300 year-ago Kanda Myoujin Shrine in Tokyo sits just above the Kanda River. We catch several gold mikoshi being carried on the shoulders of volunteers through the streets of Kanda and Akihabara as they make their way towards Kanda Myoujin for the bi-annual Kanda festival or matsuri.

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Four young men, were taken into custody earlier in this week following the robbery of a watch shop in Tokyo's Ginza district. Naoki Prize-winning novelist and pianist Ryo Hara passed away last Thursday, May 4th, aged 76. And as COVID-19 is downgraded to the same level as seasonal flu, residents in Hyuga city, on the main island of Kyushu, have been attending a ceremony to pray for an upturn in business. “Borrowed Landscapes” is a group exhibition at Blum & Poe in Harajuku, a gallery facing Harajuku station and the Meiji Jingu forest established in 1915. We wander through Meiji Jingu catching sight of a wedding at the temple moments before the heavens open.

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An 11-year-old mountaineer from Yamanashi prefecture is gearing up to conquer Africa’s highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro. In Adachi Ward, a small explosive device detonated near Nishi-arai Train Station late Monday injuring one passer-by. In Singapore, a Tokyo-based venture capital company, made up of Japanese bank SMBC and the Incubate Fund, has established a funding initiative, investing across Asia in promising finance-related technology or fintech. This coincides with NexTech Week Tokyo, a 2-day technology trade fair taking place at Tokyo Big Site from today until Friday, with a second session planned for later this autumn. And as the spring holiday season ends, a holiday invented in 1948 then christened 'Golden Week' in 1951 by the Japanese film industry, we walk to Tokyo Tower one warm and windy afternoon listening as people return to work.

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The Tokyo-based startup company iSpace failed to land the world’s first private-sector lunar landing on the Moon. Washington officials said there were no plans to park U.S. nuclear-powered submarines carrying nuclear warheads in Japan, but U.S. submarines will dock in South Korea for the first time since the end of the Cold War. The organizer of the 2025 World Expo in Osaka has warned of ballooning costs, citing the need to strengthen security in South East Asia. Meanwhile, Japan will downgrade the legal status of COVID-19 from May 8th, bringing the coronavirus in line with seasonal flu. And with Fridays focused on art and culture, we spoke with three, young Tokyo gallerists and asked them to recommend things worth seeing and places worth a visit during the Spring national holiday of Golden Week, which starts tomorrow and ends next Friday.

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As the weather in late Spring lurches from hot and humid to wet and cold, news comes in of plans by the Japanese government to expand its scheme allowing foreign workers with specific skills to live in the country for longer. The Yen temporarily hit an eight-year and four-month low, falling to ¥148 against the Euro on Tokyo’s foreign exchange market yesterday. At the same time as the Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno confirmed that Japan will deploy a PAC-3 'surface-to-air' missile defense system on two Okinawan islands in readiness for new missiles launched from North Korea. And as the political situation in Sudan worsens, Japanese nationals along with their spouses have been airlifted to neighbouring Djibouti aboard a Japanese Self-Defense Forces aircraft on Monday night.

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Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made a ritual 'masakaki' tree offering at Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine on Friday, much to the irritation of China and South Korea which see the shrine as a symbol of Japan's militaristic past. Tottori Prefectural Government is planning to prohibit the use of AI chatbot ChatGPT while Russian authorities have banned an former residents of the disputed Northern Territories campaigning for Japanese sovereignty. The animated film “The First Slam Dunk” has smashed box offices in mainland China, and as polling boxes close in nationwide local elections, we wander the streets of Tokyo and listen as politicians & neighbouring street singers compete for attention.

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A local government focus group in Osaka eyeing the chance to open a casino in the city has announced that promotional material likely included artwork without the permission of its artists Yoshitomo Nara and Takashi Murakami. This week also marked one year since a fire tore through Kitakyushu’s Tanga Market, known to as “Kitakyushu's kitchen”, but it is bouncing back. As are tourists with ministers fearful that Japan is headed towards a 9th wave of the novel coronavirus. City officials in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, is thinking of novel ways to streamline administration, becoming the first local level government to utilize the AI chatbot ChatGPT across every office. We finish the week by staying in Kyoto, visiting the city’s Nakagyō district and Kyoto’s infamous Teramachi Shopping Arcade.

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Yuko Kishida, wife of the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, met the U.S. First Lady Jill Biden on Monday in Washington. A young women died in the early hours of Sunday morning after a tree fell on her tent. Later that same day, 11 festival goers were injured after the four-wheeled, wooden ‘Danjiri’ festival float they were pulling overturned in Sakai, just south of Osaka. In mainland China, takings for the Japanese animation film "Suzume" have exceeded those in Japan less than a month after its release in March. And NOTEBOOK leaves Tokyo for the day to visit Kyōto, the Kyōto Gyoen National Garden and Kyōto's Imperial Palace. 

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A 24 year-old man hurled a homemade pipe bomb at the current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida over the weekend as he spoke in public at Wakayama's fishing port. In Tokyo, the 225-meter-tall Tokyu Kabukicho Tower opened in Shinjuku’s Kabukicho district the very same day. Meanwhile, the theme music to Nintendo’s classic video game Super Mario Bros. is being archived by the American Library of Congress as part of its permanent collection. And amid the noise of campaigning politicians ahead of the upcoming nationwide local elections, we walk through Ikebukuro and Shinjuku to the sound of heavy rain and shopping tourists.

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