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This photo was published in the Kumanichi last year. The occasion was the first lighting up of the castle and environs since the 2016 earthquakes. It's a very large, high resolution, stunning photo. Enjoy! -- Kirk
http://kumamotto.kumanichi.com/index.php/kumacole/earthquake/1680550
and
http://kumamotto.kumanichi.com/sites/default/files/images/imported/2020-11/1118doron-kumamotojyou.jpg

The author Natsume Soseki is a lot like Washington: he seems to have always slept somewhere, likely near you, which is kind of creepy. His residences in Kumamoto are particularly numerous. His most famous work, 吾輩猫である (wagahainekodearu - the joke here is that 吾輩 is an extremely presumptive way of referring to oneself, which is how a cat would naturally do), is about a cat's vision of the world. The book is so noted that a road running by one of his numerous houses is called "吾輩道り.” If you're into cats, go there. Also, Atlas International will host an event on "supernatural cats" at a cost of $12, but ailurophiles (had to look that up) would be better off just visiting the street for free. - William

Ajisen Ramen is an international company founded in Kumamoto. To commemorate the restoration of the Aso Bridge, which is 2.5 meters longer than its predecessor, it is offering ramen 2.5 times longer than its average ramen. That's a whole lotta slurping. - William
https://kumanichi.com/news/id192151

Our neighbor to the southwest, Miyazaki, got a writeup on Gaijinpot Travel. Both that prefecture and Kagoshima are breathtakingly wonderful places to visit if you have a car and a tent - and remember, you can camp anywhere for free.
Get to know Japan's 47 Prefectures: Miyazaki
Miyazaki is a mountainous, mango-growing and palm tree-lined prefecture to rival nearby Okinawa in the tropical paradise stakes.

The Kumamoto red cow (褐毛和種) is pretty famous as far as cows go. I'm not sure if that's something they appreciate. However, they will appreciate that Kyushu Tokai University has agreed to provide grazing land on their Aso campus to bovines bereft of grazing ground following quake damage. Remember that next time you eat a really expensive, tasty steak. - William
https://kumanichi.com/news/id191157

Good morning!
Here is a post from Untapped Kumamoto about Seta Shrine in Ozu Town and Kumamoto Earthquake Museum, which aims at passing on lessons and stories of the disaster to the next generations.
It’s been almost 5 years since Kumamoto Earthquake. Seeing the progress of reconstruction is a great hope for all of us and makes us feel that we are moving forward.
Check the article below and I hope it will be your opportunity to visit some of the sites. I’ll be a great support for locals.
- Chieko

Shiromiyagura (城見櫓 - literally, "Castle View Turret") is a restaurant just across from the castle's nagabeya that I've long planned to visit but never have - but now I definitely will. It had been closed due to building damage since the quakes but has recently reopened with the help of crowd funding (that's apparently グループ補助金 in Japanese), spiffed up with an entrance designed to resemble the castle walls and the owner, Hayashi Shōzō-san, promising that every seat will have an excellent castle view. So now I've really got to go. - William
https://www.shiromiyagura.com/

As a native Californian, I'd been raised to be a touchy type. Once in Japan, I realized that YOU JUST DON'T TOUCH. And you draw a very strict line between professional and personal communications, as a female teacher from Kumamoto related in this Kumanichi story, The "# Teacher's Baton," an initiative from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, aimed at both publicizing the attractiveness of the profession and drawing lines on appropriate behavior. As she succinctly put it, "If you can't follow these guidelines, choose another profession." - William
教師の魅力伝えるはずが…過酷な実態訴え続々　「＃教師のバトン」文科省ＳＮＳプロジェクト ｜ 熊本日日新聞
現職教員が会員制交流サイト（ＳＮＳ）で学生らに向けて自由にメッセージを寄せる文部科学省の「＃教師のバ...

Kirk here sharing another valuable post from Charles Waterman.

Kirk here. Today I'm feeling quite happy to be a resident of Kumamoto City -- a community with a municipal government that really listens!
The screenshot of Kumamoto City's web site you see shows how machine translated pages currently appear. Machine translation is nothing new on the website but the ability to move quickly and easily between a machine translation and the Japanese original is (note the "Japanese" link under the other languages).
Here's the address of the City's page:
https://www.city.kumamoto.jp/
Try it for yourself. The machine translations are still rather funky but now, if something seems to be important to you, you can easily find the original Japanese and, if you can't read it yourself, show that to someone who can help you figure out the details.
This is something I requested about a year and a half ago. Here's a link to the copy of a letter (in Japanese) that I submitted to the mayor:
https://www2.kumagaku.ac.jp/teacher/~masden/2021/Kumamoto/提案書.pdf
I got the idea to write this letter from discussion we had on this page:
https://www.facebook.com/Kumamotoi/posts/2840263016047112
That discussion was prompted by a post from Atsuko. Thanks Atsuko!! I'm SO glad I invited you to edit / post to the page.
My next target is Kumamoto Prefecture. They use the same machine translation service but, as was the case with Kumamoto City's page in the past, there's no obvious way to move between translations and the original pages -- just a warning that the translations may be wrong.
So, to sum up, although I do a fair amount of griping and carping on this page, here's at least one example of my complaining leading to something positive. :)

The Mainichi Shimbun published a series of photos of the restored castle (including views of exhibits inside the castle, an views from the observation platform). -- Kirk
In Photos: Restored Kumamoto Castle unveiled to media - The Mainichi
Kumamoto Castle's keeps are seen in Kumamoto's Chuo Ward on April 6, 2021, after interior restoration work was completed, during a media preview ahead

Kumamoto got a good writeup on GaijinPot which might be useful for clueless relatives wondering where the hell you live - except the caption "Smoke on the water" seems to encourage a bad habit. - William
Get to know Japan's 47 Prefectures: Kumamoto
Between the smoking crater of Mount Aso and the isolated islands of Amakusa, there’s plenty of attractions to keep you entertained in Kumamoto prefecture.

"Kodokushi" - 孤独死 - means "to die alone." My dog recently died in my arms, and of all the wonderful experiences he'd had in his life, that was likely what he was most grateful for. The "temporary housing" erected for victims of the Mashiki quakes has seen it become "temporary" only as their residents die alone and unattended. Another poor soul, a man described only as "in his 70s," departed this world yesterday, bringing this sad number of those dying alone to 33. I wish something more could be done for these people, but Mashiki is just so far away, both in location and in mind. - William
熊本地震の復興住宅で７０代男性「孤独死」　県内２人目 | 熊本日日新聞社
　熊本県は９日、熊本地震の被災者向け災害公営住宅（復興住宅）で、２０２０年度に１人暮らしの７０代男性が誰にもみとられずに亡くなったと発表した。復興住宅で「孤独死」が確認されたのは２人目。

A wonderful thing about living abroad is that one can learn new things frequently as an adult, something only infants do when stranded in their birthplace. Today, I learned 玉串 - "tamagushi" - which is that olive-like branch considered sacred in Japan (the best definition I've read about it is "a sprig of the sakaki tree that is decorated with shide - zigzag paper streamers.") Today, the mayor of Uto City presented a tamagushi to a shinto priest in hope that their city hall will not be destroyed by an earthquake again. I don't want to delve into the separation of church and state or efficacy here - but if it works, I'll shower my local shrine with tamagushi. - William

Joe Tomei here with an attempt to revive Funky Friday places. Today, I wanted to introduce a seikotsuin (整骨院 or osteopathic clinic) called Cure. It is located next to the Kumamoto Suizenji Athletic Ground and has some parking spaces behind it. They specialize in sports medicine and as I had a pulled muscle, they gave me a course of electric stimulation to the problem muscles, heat lamp and then a pressure massage. The first time is 1,980 and later visits are cheaper and if it is related to an injury, you can file for reimbursment with your taxes (70% of the cost I believe)
The owner and staff are young and very cheerful, I did it all in Japanese, so I don't know how accessible it would be if you spoke no Japanese, but pointing and Papago go a long way!
Hope some other folks can talk about their recommendations for these sorts of places in the comments!
整骨院が乱立する日本で多い傾向の１つに「院内で統一した治療方法」の選択があります。 私も若い頃に経験がありますが、「このマッサージを統一してしなさい」といった患者全員に共通した治療方法を選択してしまう.....

Here's a share of a share from Kumamon. It's nice to see those fish swimming in formation again. ;) Kirk

A note from the Kumamoto International Desk of Signs of the Apocalypse (just in case your relatives ask how the world will end): (William)
Kraft Mochi Mochi Matcha red bean dessert cheese slices
Last year, Kraft and Japanese sweets and dairy maker Morinaga Milk Industry added to Japan's assortment of flavored dessert cheese slices (berry and chocolate are common flavors) with a new "Mochi Mochi" cheese slice that uses black honey (kuromitsu) and roasted soy bean flour (kinako). Th...

This One Piece illustration will be displayed in the new Amu Plaza that will open later this month near Kumamoto Station. I'll link to another One Piece news item in a comment to this post. -- Kirk
'One Piece' meets Kumamon in illustration to adorn new commercial facility in Kumamoto - The Mainichi
KUMAMOTO -- An illustration featuring characters of the popular anime and manga series

I'm into funky, and if it's "nothing but funky" - well, count me in. A Kumamoto boy band called A.B.C-Z (guess they got lazy with the intermediary) has hit the mainstream with their funkiness (though I vastly prefer bands which actually play instruments). - William
A.B.C-Z「Nothin' but funky」ミュージックビデオ
GLAYのギタリスト、リーダーであり、メインコンポーザーであるTAKUROがジャニーズ初となる楽曲提供をA.B.C-Zに行い、ついにそのシングルが発売決定！TAKURO曰く、A.B.C-Zのことを考え、書き下ろした一曲となっており70年代を彷....

The origins of the town name "Mifune" is so shrouded in history that even those crazy experts are uncertain. It appears that the Emperor Keiko (景行天皇) cruised Midorikawa to that spot where the rivers spout forth from the mountains when he was establishing his rule over Kyushu sometime in the 6th C. BCE. It's also known for its complex geology and earthquakes galore.
A young woman (19), Fujikawa Yuma, drawing on her quake experience back when she was in JHS, has been hired by a civil engineering company to track the slow slog her hometown makes as tectonic forces do their work, despite being barely tall enough to peer through her electronic distance measurement device (EDM - I had to look that up). Best of luck to her, a young female in a male-dominated field! - William
https://kumanichi.com/news/id185439