Posts

Kirk here. This is still pretty speculative but it seems that a man who worked for an elevator inspection company with access to the building in which a young woman was found murdered last week is now dead, perhaps a suicide. "Elevator inspection" may be relevant because the body of the woman was found on the 7th floor of the building but the general public did not have access to that floor via the elevator or an internal staircase; the 7th floor was closed (karaoke business not operating) and elevator access was turned off, but an inspector may have been able to override that setting and take the elevator to the 7th floor.

Kirk here with a share from "Fired up Kumamoto, Japan." The little Facebook post contains a link to the following article, which is quite detailed and worth looking at if you're interested in the topic:

Sean here-

Kumamoto Professional Football Team Roasso Home Match

Kirk with news that travel between Kumamoto and Taiwan will get easier.

Kirk here with another share (this one from Explore Kumamoto) that I hope you'll enjoy as much as I did.

Kirk here with a beautiful unkai (雲海; sea of clouds) video from Aso (courtesy of the "Aso project" page). I'm not sure when this was taken but I think unkai is a very early-morning phenomenon. On days when the conditions seem to be right, photographers get up in the middle of the night (or don't go to bed) so that they can be there at dawn -- midday tourists aren't likely to see something like this.

Tamana Festival

Kirk here. A couple of days ago I posted a little Reuters.com piece about the castle:

Kirk here with rather disturbing news about an apparent murder in downtown Kumamoto.

Your Books for Children's Libraries! / 子どもの図書館への本の寄付

Kirk here with some information about a new consultation desk for foreign residents that has been established in Kikuyo, where the TSMC factory is being built. I think the TV segment I saw gave the name of the woman you see pictured, who speaks very good Japanese and has lived in the area for over 20 years. Unfortunately, however, I neglected to make a note of her name. As I recall, she said that it's good that more support will be available to help people complete various kinds of paperwork that one must fill out after a move, etc.

Kirk here with a Reuters article about Kumamoto. Here's one paragraph to give you an idea of what the article is about:

Kirk here. Kumamoto is included in "Northern Kyushu." Here's hoping the rainy season isn't too hard on us this year.

Kirk here. It seems that the per-person amount spent on hamburgers was higher in Kumamoto than anywhere else in Japan last year. This Japanese-language article contains a national TV segment about the topic that you can watch. If any of you might be willing to share a hamburger joint recommendation, please leave it in a comment.

Sean here -

This is Chat GPT here, permanently replacing Kirk as editor of this page. (Note from Kirk: DARN! This should have been my April Fools post this year! Much less controversial than what I wound up posting! ;) )

Kirk here. I posted a little news article about dolphins in Amakusa earlier today. Before I did so, I searched the Kumamoto International page for previous posts about Amakusa and dolphins and came across a link to this 13-page pdf document about the Amakusa area. Here's the address of the pdf:

Kirk here. A while back, Atsuko posted about the topic of the article: cute baby dolphins in Amakusa. (Thanks Atsuko!) Here's an article in English. The article also has a short little video of the baby swimming with adult dolphins that you might want to check out. :)

MIFUNE USED BOOK FAIR