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Y'know when you're on the lamb due to burglaries in Kumamoto and choose to seek sanctuary in Thailand? Turns out that's not such a permanent solution. I say put the man in a room with Kumamon for a half hour. - William
Thai police arrest Japanese man wanted over burglaries in Japan
Thai police have arrested of a 40-year-old Japanese man wanted by police in Japan in connection with burglaries. Hiroyuki Goto was arrested on Aug 27 for alleged immigration violations while trying to extend his visa in the eastern Thai province of Chonburi, the police said. Goto has allegedly admit...

A composite photo illustrates the magnitude of the landslides caused by the Hokkaido quake. There may be questions in future regarding land use management, particularly planting large sugi plantations on steep slopes, but now, we can offer but sympathy. - William

100 bottles of beer on the wall... Joe Tomei with Friday Funky places, and today, a map I picked up of Craft Beer places in Kumamoto. Some of them have been on FFP, but others not.
Even though I've not been to all of them, I've added them to the FFP map at
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qUH94Bac7Hr939b7_8gtvebaJZffGRsX&usp=sharing

Bad news for Hokkaido. :( -- Kirk
Earthquake buries homes under landslides in Hokkaido, Japan
A magnitude-6.7 quake struck the northern island of Hokkaido early Thursday, causing landslides which buried a "large" number of homes at the foot of a ridge, according to public broadcaster NHK.

There was a M6.7 quake in Hokkaido this morning which has caused a large landslide, widespread destruction, and some death. Geologists are saying that it was caused by the Ishikari Fault - an area called the Ishikari Lowland (石狩低地; see image - the epicenter, Ishikari City, is shown by a star), which is where the eastern side of Hokkaido is sliding under the western side. The geology is apparently similar to that in Mashiki.
Our thoughts go out to our Hokkaido friends. We hope that this is not a foreshock. Off of the east coast of Hokkaido is the Chishima Trench, which has potential for an earthquake the size of that which struck Tohoku. This link provides an English-language article regarding that. - William
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201712190028.html

The governor is scheduled to speak at his alma mater, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, on the 7th.
Japanese governor, alumnus to speak at UNL’s Clayton Yeutter Institute of International Trade and Finance
LINCOLN, Neb. – Ikuo Kabashima, University of Nebraska–Lincoln alumnus and governor of Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture, will speak Sept. 7 at a forum of the university’s Clayton Yeutter Institute of

The name origin of Shiranui (不知火), a town located on the southern side of the Uto Peninsula facing Yatsushiro Sea (and prone to disastrous tidal surges), has long piqued my interest (image below with Yatsushiro in the background). Seriously: it literally means "Don't Know Fire." But I finally looked it up, and the story is more interesting than I'd thought - it would be better translated as "Mysterious Fire." The cause involves fishing methods and meteorology.
A sea fishing fire (or, in modern times, a really bright lightbulb), used to attract fish during night fishing, is called an "isaribi" (漁火, shown below). The temperature difference between Yatsushiro Sea's wide, warm tidelands and a cool night atmosphere creates a difference in density which acts like a lens, causing the light to diffract in a way that makes the number of lights appear more numerous than the actual, so those observing from shore are, like, "Hey?! What's that light!" - and, hence, 不知火.
I mention this because Kumanich reports that Family Mart's 1,565 Taiwan franchises will begin selling a Kumamon-branded soft ice cream dubbed "不知火." Next time you're in Taiwan, give it a try. - William
https://this.kiji.is/409594576460383329?c=92619697908483575

A lighter view of the castle's current appearance. -- Kirk
Who knew that Kumamoto Castle was a Transformer hiding in plain sight all this time?
Kumamoto Castle may be more than meets the eye.

My favorite site for tracking tropic storms (including typhoons) is http://www.tropicalstormrisk.com
This image shows that Jebi (curiously cute name for a monstrous storm system!) is expected to miss Kumamoto by quite a bit. Even so, folks on the eastern side of the prefecture (Aso, etc.) have almost at 50/50 chance of experiencing tropical storm winds (63-118 kilometers per hour or 39-73 miles per hour).
Until recently, Jebi was the strongest storm on earth -- a super typhoon (category 5) with winds as high as 170 mph (273 kmh):
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1011932/Typhoon-Jebi-path-update-Will-STRONGEST-STORM-of-2018-strike-Japan-with-DIRECT-HIT
Even if it doesn't cause us too much trouble here, it may do nasty things in prefectures to our east. As always, take care!
-- Kirk

Progress!
-- Kirk
Kumamoto Castle on course for full recovery, reopening 2021：The Asahi Shimbun
KUMAMOTO—The removal of scaffolding allowed Kumamoto Castle’s impressive appearance to re-emerge and

An Irish father and Greek mother would probably leave anyone with a bit of a lyrical legacy, but Lafacadio Hearn took it to 11. He was particularly well-known for translating Japanese traditional horror stories and also spent many years living in Kumamoto - sort of a Japan-residing Irish-Greek Edgar Allan Poe, if that is imanginable. I am reminded of this as my wife attended a seminar on his work this evening. Much of his writing is available for free on Gutenberg.org - William
http://gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=lafcadio+hearn
Books: lafcadio hearn (sorted by popularity)
Project Gutenberg offers 57,758 free ebooks for Kindle, iPad, Nook, Android, and iPhone.

There is a very cool organization in Tokyo called "Playground of Hope":
https://poh.ngo/en/
"Playground of Hope is a Tokyo-registered non-profit organization that works towards providing children in at-risk communities such as children’s homes and disaster zones with access to essential outdoor play equipment."
They recently came to Mashiki and made a lot of children very happy with a brand new set of playground equipment.
I don't think there's been any coverage of this in English but you can see the segment broadcast on NHK (which prompted me to post this) at the following address:
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/lnews/kumamoto/20180828/5000003342.html
Another cool thing about the ground is that key members are obviously expats, just like many readers of this page.
Here's a link to their Facebook page, where you'll find many posts in English:
https://www.facebook.com/playgroundofhope/
-- Kirk
益城町の保育園に大型遊具を寄贈｜NHK 熊本県のニュース
熊本地震の直後に開園し、これまで遊具がなかった益城町の保育園に２８日、ＮＰＯ法人などから、すべり台やブランコなどの遊具が贈られました。 …

A note from the Kumamoto International Dodge a Bullet Desk: Typhoon Jebi (which is a variation of the name Jeb in English and Hebrew, the latter of which is really good at describing cataclysms) is expected to pound the area between Kyoto and Tokyo from September 3. It's the strongest storm the Earth has generated yet in 2018. Its unusual trajectory will bring it north of the Japanese archipelago, and as Axios notes, "it could impart enough energy to the North Pacific jet stream to alter the weather pattern across thousands of miles, all the way to the United States." A good reminder of how close Japan and the US are. - William
Super Typhoon Jebi is the strongest storm so far this year
The storm packed 175-mile-per-hour sustained winds.

Joe Tomei here, strap in, cause we've got a quadruple threat Friday Funky Place for you. It's a coffee shop! It's an organic lunch place! It's a guest house! It's got a cute little spaniel to talk to!
The place is Minami Aso Coffee, located behind the Kumamoto Kotsu Bureau, get off at Kumamoto Kyotsu Mae tram stop and look for the very tall building and the shop is in an older apartment building (which also holds 3 guest houses, so if you have friends coming and want to stay in town for a little longer, speak to the owner) The name of the spaniel is Purin. The last photo is advertising a showing of photos of Ho Chi Minh city.
The FFP map can be found at
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qUH94Bac7Hr939b7_8gtvebaJZffGRsX&usp=sharing

Kirk here. I'm posting on behalf of another member of the Kumamoto International community who contacted me privately. For obvious reasons, she prefers not to broadcast her interest in finding a good marriage counselor to the world via Facebook, so I offered to post for her.
If you can post information here, as a comment to this post, that you think is relevant, then she will be sure to read it. If you too prefer not to post publicly, please send me any tips you can offer at [email protected]. If you can put something like "Regarding marriage counselor" etc. in the subject line, that will help me find your message right away. If you would like to communicate directly with the poster, please mention your willingness to do so in the message. I'll forward the e-mail to her so that she can respond directly. Thanks in advance for any tips you can provide.
--- Quote begins here ---
I am looking for some help in regards to a marriage counselor who speaks English in the Kumamoto/Fukuoka area for myself and my husband. My husband is a Japanese national who speaks excellent English. We have been married a long time and I was hoping for a marriage counselor of some sort to help us out in this difficult time. Please if anyone has some helpful advice to offer to us I would be most grateful at this time. Thank You.
--- Quote ends here ---

Sad news: Momoko Sakura, that wonderful author and illustrator best known for creating "Chibi Maruko-chan," has died of breast cancer at the age of 53. She was only 18 days younger than I. The first Japanese-language book I read, "Sakana no Okashira" [魚の尾頭], was her work. She was a delightful essayist, and I highly recommend her books for those learning Japanese. She will be missed. - William
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momoko_Sakura

Friday Funky Place is happy to introduce the Glocal Bar Vibes. It's a shochu bar and the owner, Noriyuki Yamashita, is from Kagoshima, and he not only keeps a huge array of shochu, he is a shochu evangelist who wants to introduce foreigners to shochu in all its myriad forms. Beyond the triumvirate of rice, barley and sweet potato (kome/mugi/imo), he also has a number of other shochu made from more exotic ingredients.
That devotion, bordering on mania, is one that we truly appreciate at FFP. Glocal opens at 8 and doesn't have much in the way of food, but if you want to know more about shochu, it is definitely the place to go. Fortunately or not, the pours are generous, so if you want to try lots of different shochu, I recommend going with a lot of friends, or you will get toasted.
The bar is located just off Shimotori in the Arita Building, walk down Shimotori, away from the densha and take the second right after Cocosa
The FFP map has it and it is at
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qUH94Bac7Hr939b7_8gtvebaJZffGRsX&usp=sharing

After the war, from the rubble was thrown up a slew of cheap multi-unit apartment housing which came known as "bunkajyutaku" (文化住宅).
A parcel of three exist across from my house, and I've watched as the inhabitants were slowly driven out by the passive-aggressive measures landlords use when direct eviction is illegal. I watched this mostly with disinterest, understanding that time moves on and the buildings have served their purpose.
My wife, though, mentioned something of importance this morning. A sign has gone up announcing construction of a 12-story mansion on the lot, and she mentioned that none of its former inhabitants have any hope of affording a unit - their previous rent was likely some 30,000 monthly. Their only choice is a desperate search for the dwindling number of remaining 文化住宅, which has been almost entirely extirpated from my neighborhood (and relocation for their mostly elderly inhabitants severs their vital neighborhood ties).
Affordable housing in my home state, California, is a perennial problem. I hope it does not become so in Kumamoto as well. Below is a photo of the soon-to-be-nonexistent 文化住宅．ー William

It looks like we'll get some wind and rain here in Kumamoto but, thankfully, we're not slated to get a direct hit. Still, it's a very strong storm system and rain can be unpredictable so you might want to think twice about staying in or traveling through places that a vulnerable to flooding and/or landslides when the storm is at its peak. Folks in the Amakusa area may want to exercise particular caution. The winds coming off of the water may be quite strong.
-- Kirk
P.S. One more on the way after this one. The second one probably won't be a direct hit either. More later.
http://www.tropicalstormrisk.com

This man is getting a lot of well-deserved praise in the media these days. He's from nearby Oita but was here in Kumamoto helping in Mashiki after the 2016 earthquake. Not only does he do heroic work, but he's humble too. After saving the life of the small boy, he refused to take even a meal from the grateful family. He makes it a rule to carry his own food and equipment and to sleep in his car so as not to be a burden on the people he is trying to help. What's more, at age 78, he's an inspiration to those of us who are getting on in years -- being near 80 doesn't have to mean that you are weak and frail.
Here's a related news article:
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0004664608
A lot of news (including, unfortunately, news that I share on this page) is negative but the news I've seen about this man, Haruo Obata, is truly inspirational.
-- Kirk
P.S. The Japan Times article has a Japanese language video about Mr. Obata.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/08/16/national/survival-japanese-toddler-found-lost-three-days-hailed-miracle/#.W3k2Mi2B364
Survival of Japanese toddler, found after being lost for three days, hailed as a miracle | The Japan Times
The 2-year-old boy was found barefoot sitting on a mossy stone in the middle of a mountain stream, after spending 68 hours alone in temperatures topping 30 degrees Celsius.