SL Hitoyoshi service to resume. -- copying and pasting by Kirk
2021-03-30 08:57 JST 2021 SL Hitoyoshi service to resume. -- copying and pasting by Kirk JR Kyushu to resume steam locomotive trips to support areas hit by deadly rain disaster - The MainichiKUMAMOTO -- Kyushu Railway Co. (JR Kyushu) will resume operations of a steam locomotive on an alternative route from May 1, in a bid to support areas https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210326/p2a/00m/0na/02 … ↗ View original post on Facebook For a link to the original post on Facebook, open this page on a computer. Reactions: 9 · Comments: 1 · Shares: 0 ← 2021-03-29 23:01 JST 2021-03-30 10:59 JST → Around this time … 2021-03-31 18:26 JSTKirk with another reintroduction of the "Second-Hand Kumamoto" group. I was prompted to post today because a friend asked about where he could get a small refrigerator. He knows about Kumamoto International but I thought he may not know about Second-Hand Kumamoto. As my friend is probably not the only person who doesn't know about the group, I thought I'd post about it.By the way, if anyone has any favorite second-hand shops (besides, Second-Hand Kumamoto, that is), please post a little note in a comment. Also, if you happen to have a small refrigerator that you don't need, I know someone who will probably take it off your hands.https://www.facebook.com/groups/secondhandkumamoto 2021-03-31 09:47 JSTKirk here with a link to an English article on the cyberwarfare unit that William wrote about.Japan Ground Self-Defense Force unveils new electronic warfare unit in Kumamoto - The Mainichi 2021-03-30 14:50 JSTTo continue with Kirk's Armageddon theme, Kumanichi reports that Kumamoto will be the first site of Japan's planned electronic warfare corps (電子戦部隊, denshisen butai), soon to host a device designed to detect and interefere with enemy radio waves. Kengun is the headquarters of the GFS Western Army, in charge of defense of Kyushu, Okinawa, and all that lies between, so they figured they'd put it there. It's mobile, which is nice as Kengun is now likely a primary target should missiles fly. - Williamhttps://kumanichi.com/news/id170796 2021-03-30 10:59 JSTJoe Tomei here, I've pinned Chuck's post to the top of the page. Also, with the other language versions, you will probably have to fill out the Japanese version, so you will want to use the translations give below as a guide. Also, here are the designated medical facilities for adminstering the vaccine in Kumamoto prefecturehttps://v-sys.mhlw.go.jp/search/city.html?id=430005=========Chuck Waterman here.Just found a few pages with some seemingly very helpful information and preparation for those of us hoping to get the COVID19 vaccine here:1. Downloadable English (and other language) versions of the Prevaccination Screening Questionnaire, Instructions for COVID-19 Vaccination, and an important Notice on CODID19 Vaccination:https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/vaccine_tagengo.html2. Corona Vaccine Navi (in Japanese: use Google Translate to read it):https://v-sys.mhlw.go.jp/There are no vaccination sites listed yet - check back after April 12th.... In addition, the phone number for the Corona Vaccine Call Center at City Hall is 096-300-5577. Please don't call them to ask "When will I get my Vaccination Ticket?" yet, unless you are 65 or older or have one of the health conditions listed on the Notice. I'm expecting that the tickets for 65 and older won't start arriving until after April 12th from the information we heard on a phone call today. Hope that is helpful! 2021-03-30 17:18 JST"In the aftermath of the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes, SoftBank sent communication relay equipment aloft on a balloon." -- Not known until today by KirkMajor telecoms preparing array of ‘flying base stations’https://the-japan-news.com/news/article/000726168ソフトバンク、熊本地震で被災地のSoftBank携帯電話における通信速度制限を4月30日まで撤廃！基地局復旧に加え、気球による無線中継システムを災害に初導入https://news.livedoor.com/article/image_detail/11426448/?img_id=10238008 2021-03-30 08:57 JSTSL Hitoyoshi service to resume.JR Kyushu to resume steam locomotive trips to support areas hit by deadly rain disaster - The Mainichi (this post) 2021-03-29 23:01 JSTDear friends,I hope I can be forgiven for posting something that has no direct relation to Kumamoto. I'd like to write a little about this article from the Guardian:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/10/cold-war-era-weapon-100bn-us-plan-to-build-new-nuclear-missile-sparks-concernToday I was listening to a "Democracy Now" podcast from about a week ago. They were talking about US plans to develop a new, very expensive nuclear weapon (the one mentioned in the Guardian article). They were also talking about the UK's movements in a similar direction. I'm pretty much of a news junkie, both in regard to the US and Japan, but this was the first I'd heard of it. I searched in Japanese and finally, after some effort, found a Japanese article about the UKs strengthening of its nuclear arsenal and one more on US plans:https://otakei.otakuma.net/archives/2020090908.htmlBut, it's the kind of news that you have to know about already in order to be able to find an article about it. For the Japanee article on U.S. plans, I needed to use GBSD, the abbreviation for "Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent," the name of the program, in order to find anything. If you do a Google search in English with Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent you can find articles about the program from fairly reputable sources. Major news services, however, seem to be mostly silent. Granted, there's a lot to report these day and this seems to have been developing over some time but I still can't help but scratch my head as to how this can be more-or-less public yet not be considered to be newsworthy. :) --KirkP.S. If "fake news" is fiction that gets lots of attention, what is real news that gets ignored for the most part? "Silent news"?'Cold war-era weapon': $100bn US plan to build new nuclear missile sparks concern 2021-03-29 13:21 JSTKirk again. We're coming up on the 5th anniversary of the 2016 earthquakes. This announcement is about a commemorative event that will be held on the 15th of April via Zoom. A few of the participants should be familiar to regular readers of this page. The event will be in Japanese so I won't try to translate all of the details but I thought I'd just post this little notice for those of you who may be interested. 2021-03-29 11:18 JSTKirk here. I used to maintain a page of Kumamoto-related links called, well, "Kumamoto Links":http://www2.kumagaku.ac.jp/teacher/%7Emasden/links.htmlNow, the page is extremely outdated (lots of "link rot," etc.) but I think that the "Language Tools" section toward the top is still useful. Recently, fellow Kumamoto International editor Tristan Vick introduced me to jisho.org. It combines some of the functionaly of Rikai (nearly instant lookup of words) and Hiragana Megane (automatic addition of furigana) in a way that works well on a smartphone. The video shows, as an example, how I used it to help read a few lines of the Wikipedia page on "熊本". I think this may be useful in language learning but also as a way of making sense of Japanese text that one needs to read (disaster notifications, emails, etc.) but finds difficult.Another tool I should mention is the Google translate extension in the Chrome browser on a computer. If those of you who are reading this could share what you know about other useful tools I'd really appreciate it.Finally, thanks again to Tristan for the tip!! 2021-03-29 09:48 JSTAs mentioned in the article, Kurokawa Onsen has been ranked no. 1 in past years but was no. 6 in 2020. Still, one of the country's best. -- Kirkhttps://japantoday.com/category/features/travel/2020’s-most-popular-hot-springs-in-japan-as-ranked-by-japanese-travelers2020’s most popular hot springs in Japan, as ranked by Japanese travelers 2021-03-28 21:26 JSTTsuetate Onsen, in northern Kumamoto, is famous for it's display of thousands of koinobori wind socks. The display was cancelled last year because of COVID-19 (I guess the koinobori don't fly well when masked ;) ) but is back this year and will continue until May.-- KirkP.S. You can find a Japanese TV (RKK) report here:https://rkk.jp/news/backno_page.php?id=NS003202103261605480111
