Category Archives: Others

【News】 Come and feel change in season and colors of nature (Nov. 15, 2015)

Kotaro Yamada – “Flower is home of color” exhibition (Gifu-shi, Gifu Prefecture)  – The Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu, in Gifu Prefecture is now becoming a popular venue for enjoying close contact with plants and flowers as well as their various shades. The museum currently holds a special exhibition called “Art-maru-ket – Flower is home of color.” It allows visitors to have close contact with nature and enjoy seasonal change of flowers and plants arranged in a gigantic three-dimensional artwork directed by Katsuhiko Hibino, a 57-year-old well-known artist and curator of the museum. The artwork actually sits in the garden where people can come and enjoy walking free of charge. … Continue reading

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【News】 One hundred and fifty rare chickens at a glance (Oct. 25, 2015)

Kotaro Yamada Bunkyo-ku Educational Center in Tokyo is currently giving an awesome exhibition of chickens from all over the world. What you’ll see there are 150 very realistic taxidermy chickens of approximately 60 variants from the collection of the University Museum, the University of Tokyo. There are many rare ones, too. A red junglefowl, for example, is a bird of Southeastern Asia which is thought to be ancestral to the domestic chicken. Shokoku is a variety seen already in the Heian period, Shinkuro is an uncommon breed which is all black head to toe, and Dong Tao is a breed native to Vietnam and known for its abnormally thick legs. … Continue reading

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【News】 Students polishing oaring skills in middle of beautiful rice fields (Sept. 27, 2015)

Kotaro Yamada Here in the agricultural water channel in the Kurume-shi, Fukuoka Prefecture, you’ll see young paddlers on canoes practicing almost every day. They are students of Fukuoka Prefectural Mizuma High School and members of the Canoe Club of the school. The channel of 20 meters wide and 1 kilometer long is calm and very quiet. It’s almost waveless and windless thanks to the bank. “The channel provides perfect conditions for practicing canoe and our students have an advantage in being able to practice almost every day even in the rough weather,” Kazuhiko Tomimatsu, a 43-year-old teacher of the high school and an advisor to the club, explained. Through repeated … Continue reading

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【News】 Never ever push me from the back! (Sept. 6, 2015)

Kotaro Yamada Narita Dream Dairy Farm, a guest ranch in Narita-shi, Chiba Prefecture, has a bridge exclusively designed for goats. It’s a popular attraction for visitors to see goats walking in the air. Wooden panels are fixed on logs to make the goatwalk of about 50 meters long, 18 centimeters wide and 2.5 meters high. It was built in July 2011 to allow goats, which love heights, can play on it. Goats climb up and walk on the narrow bridge quite lightly and easily. Sometimes they fall but never get hurt as they are also good at landing on their feet. The farm has approximately 30 goats and visitors can … Continue reading

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【Editorial】 Japan’s tourism boom an opportunity to expand agricultural income (Sept. 4, 2015)

  Waves of visitors from foreign countries are flocking to Japan, with their number approaching the 2 million mark on a monthly basis. Tourists, especially from Asian countries, are on the rise fueled by the weaker yen, relaxation in visa requirements and an increase in air routes and flights. In order to make this tourism boom a driving force to expand farmers’ income and revitalize rural villages, it is necessary to direct big-spending tourists to regional areas as repeaters. The government and the private sector should work together to take timely and sustainable measures to let it happen. According to the Japan Tourism Agency, the number of overseas tourists totaled … Continue reading

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