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Our friend ‎Carlton McCycle‎ had requested elaboration on the stabbing and subsequent police shooting which occurred in Shimonabe yesterday. Following is a summary of the most recent Kumanichi update.
The perpetrator, 38, and the victim, 65, lived in the same apartment but were not acquaintances, and the attack happened suddenly with no provocation. On the 28th at about 4:30 PM, as the victim was about to enter his car, the perpetrator suddenly furiously yelled, 「おい、コラ」, pulled out a knife, and slashed the victim in the face.
When a passerby, 30, called out "What are you doing?!" the perpetrator chased him some 400 meters to the Takuma Fire Station in Shimonabe 1 Chome, where an officer (40) on patrol encountered them. "I'll shoot!" the officer warned, and when the perpetrator stormed at the officer, the latter fired five shots, four of which struck the perpetrator, resulting in his immediate death.
An autopsy showed the perpetrator was struck once on the left side of his chest, twice on his left lower abdomen, and once on his upper right arm, and it seems that heart damage due to penetration of the left thorax caused his death. In an interview, the policeman explained, "The man approached so rapidly that there was no time to fight warning shots." The police meanwhile have altered their investigation from violation of the firearms and sword law to attempted murder, searching the perpetrator's house, cell phone, and other areas. Two of the bullets fired have been located, and police continue to search for the remaining three.
If any of our readers have further information, please add it to the comments section. The link is to the Kumanichi article excerpted above. https://this.kiji.is/374340342935241825?c=92619697908483575 - William
被害男性「突然襲われた」　熊本市切りつけ事件 - 熊本日日新聞
刃物を持った男に熊本東署員が発砲した現場で、見つかっていない銃弾を探す県警の捜査員ら＝２９日午前９時５５分ごろ、熊本市東区下南部　熊本市東区で２８日夕、包丁を持った男（３６）が、同じアパートに住む男性...

Japan has finally allowed prefectures to display their pride through customized license plates. That for Kumamoto is shown below, the background of which shows the Hosokawa crest (which, you might notice, has also been adapted to the Kumamoto symbol also shown - sort of a Hosokawa crest with a bite taken out of it, which would work better if Kumamoto were spelled "Cumamoto") with Kumamon peeking out from the side. The plates are available with a donation suggested beginning at 1,000 yen. More info and examples of those of other prefectures are available at the link: https://japantoday.com/category/national/new-stylish-japanese-license-plates-lets-people-show-off-prefecture-pride-on-the-move
Your opinions would be interesting to hear. Is Kumamon being overused? Would some landmark less ephemeral than Kumamon such as the castle or Mt. Aso be more appropriate? Comments and suggestions are welcome below. - William

Hey Funky Place Friday-ites! Today's Funky Place is the coffee shop/bakery Nevl. There are a ton of things that make Nevl funky, but I'll focus on location. I'm embarrassed a bit because I have driven by the place multiple times and it was only when a former student raved about the bread there and I met the owner, Akira Kasho, that I finally went there. She was right.
Of course, I feel like I can be forgiven for missing the shop, as Nevl is in the bottom left corner of Harbee's General Store and Navy, (https://harbees.exblog.jp/) which are two clothing stores, one for men and one for women. It is across the street from last week's funky place, Sunny Place. The teikyubi is Tues and the 2nd and 4th Wed of each month.
The Funky Place Friday map is at https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qUH94Bac7Hr939b7_8gtvebaJZffGRsX&usp=sharing.

A note from the Tangentially Related to Kumamoto Desk: Vox recently published a mildly informative article on volcanoes in general. What caught my eye was the discussion of pyroclastic flow - “If you witness a pyroclastic flow, run in the opposite direction as quickly as possible,” the US Geological Survey helpfully advises - and used a video of the '95 Mt. Unzen (just across the bay in Nagasaki) eruption to emphasize the speed one might be expected to run in the opposite direction if one wants to remain alive. I'd just arrived in Kumamoto when Unzen erupted and remember having to top off my windshield wiper fluid almost daily to keep up with the ashfall. A direct link to the video is below, as is a link to the mildly informative article in which the link is embedded. - William
https://www.vox.com/2018/5/11/17327564/volcano-eruption-kilauea-hawaii-lava-science-7-things
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=51&v=Cvjwt9nnwXY
Dome collapse and pyroclastic flow at Unzen Volcano

Perhaps a bit too well known for Funky Place Friday, but the Funky Place for today is a Sunny Place! Actually 2 Sunny places! The main (I think) store is just below Kengun jinja, a short walk from the Kengunko mae densha stop (https://kenguntokku.jp/townlog/sunny-place/), and there is a second Sunny Place in Kamitori (http://sunnyplace.me/). Check them both out, a town can never have enough good burger places!
You can find it on the FFP map at
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?usp=sharing&mid=1qUH94Bac7Hr939b7_8gtvebaJZffGRsX
SUNNY PLACE | 健軍特区
健軍校前電停（熊本市電）を降り、すぐそばのコインランドリーの角を曲がり、健軍神社方面へ400メートル直進。健軍神社のお隣。

And another similar event, English Conversation class for those who are interested.
The date is May 26th.
Please refer to the writings below.
-Olivia-
———————
Free for international guests!
月に一度の90分間英語漬け開催のご案内です✨
熊本で英会話を学んでいる方、どんなレベルの方も大歓迎です！
やっぱりアウトプットが楽しい！
英語は使うとどんどん上達しますね！
沢山間違いながら、楽しい９０分間にしましょう☆
即興型学習で学んだゲームなども取り入れますので、初心者の方も大歓迎です。
熊本で英語を学んでいる人たちと新しい出会いにもなります、
お気軽にお問い合わせ下さい☆
日時：①5月26日（土）12:50-14:20
）②6月30（土）同時刻
場所：白山憩いの家（熊本市白山3-3-2　代継公園内)
お天気がいい場合は外での開催です。
対象：どなたでも（子どもさんをお連れの場合はご連絡ください）
参加費：1000円
申し込み方法
・FBにて参加ボタン もしくは
・[email protected]にてお申し込み下さい。

Storytelling in English and Japanese at YWCA Kurokami this Saturday, May 12.
From 10-12pm
(We received a Facebook link previously but the link was not there anymore. Hope the poster helps.)
-Olivia-

Our friend Julie Waterman asks two questions. Advice from our readers will be appreciated. The questions:
1. If earthquake relief donations are still being received somewhere in Kumamoto? If so, where?
2. How we can help people still impacted by the earthquake in terms of housing, food, or ......?

"Among people affected by the Kumamoto quakes, 38,112 people were still living in facilities such as temporary housing complexes and private housing rented out by local governments as of the end of March, according to the Kumamoto prefectural government."
http://www.the-japan-news.com/news/article/0004387071
-- Kirk
Zoom UP / Couple still living in cowshed 2 years after Kumamoto quakes
KUMAMOTO — In a shed in Mashiki, Kumamoto Prefecture, Izumi Imayoshi recalled how his life was suddenly changed by two powerful earthquakes — measuring the maximum of 7 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale — that hit the town in succession in April 2016.

A note from the Tangentially Related to Kumamoto Desk: Hawaii's Kilauea volcano, one of the world's most active, has erupted again to no one's surprise. It differs greatly from Aso in that it is caused by a hot spot in the mantle so extrudes iron-rich magma, whereas Aso is due to subductive activity so emits igneous rock and ash (a lot of ash). We talked recently about the black color of Aso's emittances; those in Hawaii, due to the iron content, tend to be red (and thus so is most Hawaiian dirt). Below is a photo of a smoke plume from Kilauea: It's pink! Aso would be so much cooler if it emitted pink ash! But you live within the ash color spectrum of the volcanoes you're given, not that of those you might prefer. - William

For a couple of weeks now, tourists have been able to peer down into the mouth of the Aso volcano to see the emerald green caldera pool shown in this photo (posted May 1).
At the moment, however, the level of noxious gasses being emitted from the volcano is high and tourists are not being allowed to go up to the lip of the volcano:
http://www.aso.ne.jp/~volcano/
My understanding is that levels can change fairly quickly so you can never be 100% sure that you'll be able to look into the volcano.
By the way, I'm sharing the address (above) of the Japanese web page, which has a link to the English information. The reason is that that once you get to the English page, there's no link to the Japanese information (in case you want to compare expressions in the two languages or double check the meaning of an English expression that strikes you as odd, etc.). This is a pet peeve of mine. People in Japan who make English-language web pages often seem to assume that English speakers couldn't possible have any use for the original Japanese information. :(
-- Kirk
http://tomonao201505.seesaa.net
トヨタ８６に乗っています。 ８６の良いところや悪いところ、メンテナンス方法などをお伝えします。 ８６を所有しているからこそ、お伝えできることもあると思います。 トヨタ８６の魅力を発信していきます。

いよいよゴルデンウィーク
Long weekend starts from tomorrow.
The poppies are blooming now. You might want to check out these two Parks.
http://www.hanakoen.com
https://kobayashi-machi.com/1953
Have a wonderful long weekend
-Olivia-

Our friend Yoshiko Toyama is back with a photo of the black sand produced by Mt. Aso. Wikipedia's introductory sentence to the subject is (seriously), "Black sand is sand that is black in color," a type of sentence that causes my students to scribble furiously in their notebooks and my dog to give me a blank stare. Fortuitously, the entry grows more specific: "(A) type of black sand, found on beaches near a volcano, consists of tiny fragments of basalt." Basalt is a common igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of basaltic lava (generally, a 50/50 mixture of silica and feldspar) exposed at or very near the surface. When formed in the presence of water, the crystalline basalt lava fractures into tiny pieces - sand; and the sand, being highly mobile in geologic terms, quickly relocates itself to a beach (Google "leisure class, Martha's Vineyard " for another example). You'll see the lil' granular guys on their journey creating the black sandbanks along Shirakawa.
The banks of the Ariake Sea are formed from black sand mixed with a large percentage of mud (which makes bathing icky), as seen below. My favorite black sand beach in Kyushu is around Mt. Kaimon (開聞岳、かいもんだけ) at the southern tip of Kagoshima's Satsuma peninsula (also shown below). The area makes for a wonderful summer vacation. If you'd like more details, please let us know. - William

This NHK article is good but leaves out much of the information shared in a segment on NHK's morning news show on the same topic (4/17).
https://www.nhk.or.jp/ohayou/digest/2018/04/0417.html
Here are some key points of the segment:
*** There were more than four times as many deaths that were deemed to be caused indirectly by the quake (211) than those directly caused by it (50).
*** The high "indirect" death rate in Kumamoto was caused, in part at least, by overcrowding in evacuation centers.
*** The overcrowding in Kumamoto's evacuation facilities made them worse than refugee camps in many troubled parts of the world.
*** Administrators of refugee camps follow guidelines laid out in the "Sphere Handbook," which outlines "minimum standards in humanitarian response." These guidelines stipulate minimum standards for per person space and toilet facilities, among other things. When toilets are bad or insufficient people avoid going to relieve themselves, or reduce their liquid and food intake in order to avoid doing so, and that can lead to series health complications. Conditions in many of Kumamoto's evacuation centers where far below the minimum's outlined in the handbook.
http://www.sphereproject.org
*** Though Japan is an economically advanced country, a culture of "gaman" (the idea that it's a virtue to grit your teeth and suffer through without complaining) may have been part of the problem.
-- Kirk
https://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&ct2=us&usg=AFQjCNGoda5EumI1fwA0NucEzcBmauDPOg&clid=c3a7d30bb8a4878e06b80cf16b898331&ei=vxHkWojEIIOi4QKU1YaIAg&url=https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20180417_11/
Poor conditions led to more Kumamoto quake deaths- News - NHK WORLD - English
An NHK survey suggests that poor living conditions may have caused the deaths of nearly 100 people who survived devastating earthquakes in southwestern Japan 2 years ago.

This article is about the family of Hikaru Yamato, whose car seems to have been on the Aso Ohashi Bridge at the moment of its collapse, April 16, 2016. His parents continued to search for his body for more than three months. Their efforts, which continued after the official search had ended, ultimately led to the discovery of Hikaru's remains, inside the mangled car. Search efforts had been hampered but rugged terrain, the location of the car (significantly downstream from the collapse site), and the boulders and other debris that concealed it.
-- Kirk
Kin of last confirmed victim of Kumamoto quakes mark second anniversary of disaster | The Japan Times
The family of the last confirmed victim of the powerful earthquakes that rocked Kumamoto Prefecture in 2016 marked the second anniversary of the main quake

Joe Tomei with the slightly late Friday Funky place.
Today's place, Araki, might not meet all the definitions of funky, but it is certainly worth a trip out to Jonan machi as it is a very well stocked liquor shop with a cafe in the back. I stopped there on the way to Yatsushiro and was astonished to see some single barrel Scotch Whiskeys. I believe they were from the Scotch Whiskey society, which purchases individual barrels of single malt scotch (most whiskeys are blended to produce a relatively uniform taste). Their website is here
http://www.araki-vino.co.jp/
A friend told me that the owner organizes events and organized several events after the earthquake featuring chefs with food and alcohol pairings.
You can find it on the FFP map at
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qUH94Bac7Hr939b7_8gtvebaJZffGRsX&usp=sharing

Heads up!
-- Kirk
SDF chopper part likely to have fallen in Kumamoto
KUMAMOTO (Jiji Press) — A part is believed to have fallen from a Ground Self-Defense Force helicopter in Kumamoto Prefecture, a local JGSDF division has said.

Regular readers of this page may remember other posts we've made about Kumamoto's own Kimiko Nishimoto, the elderly, but very young-at-heart photographer:
https://www.facebook.com/Kumamotoi/posts/1703987643007994
Well, today I saw a very entertaining TV commercial that promotes a magazine issue. After a little searching, I found the video on the web. Enjoy!
-- Kirk
自撮りのキミちゃん【通販生活公式】 30秒 CM | CM Fun
カタログハウス(通販生活)が広告主のCM動画です。 出演者:西本喜美子 概要原文: 自撮りのキミちゃんご存知ですか。 キミちゃん傑作展、『通販生活・夏号』で開催中。

Here's a news item from nearly a month ago that I seem to have forgotten to share.
-- Kirk
Kumamoto Castle restoration plan decided- News - NHK WORLD - English
Kumamoto Prefecture and the central government have officially decided on a 20-year plan to restore an iconic castle in southwestern Japan. It was severely damaged by a series of strong earthquakes in 2016.

For those who love flowers.
These flowers are blooming now.
Tulips and Nemophila (ネモフィラ)
(Two parks near Kumamoto grow them. One is Kuju Hana Koen in Aso, and another one is Uminonakamichi in Fukuoka)
http://www.hanakoen.com
https://uminaka-park.jp
Azaleas (つつじ)
(One Park is in Mifune, and another one is in Ozu)
http://www.mifuneyamarakuen.jp/spring/
http://www.town.ozu.kumamoto.jp/kankou/kiji0036604/index.html
-Olivia-
大津町 おすすめスポット