TRAVEL

Put aside serious political issues like the disputed northern territories off Hokkaido for now. The Japanese Embassy in Russia has published the first issue of a Russian-language magazine featuring Japanese pop culture, hoping to broaden pro-Japanese sentiment in the country. The quarterly magazine, mainly targeting young Russians, is far from a serious ordinary "government publication," but rather pop and cool. The opening page of the first issue of Yaponiya (meaning Japan in Russian) includes an interview with Hayao Miyazaki, in which the movie director said he decided to become an anime creator after being moved by the expressiveness of the Soviet-era animated feature film, "The Snow Queen" (1957). (Yomiuri)

Police are poised to report an elementary school principal accused of using a mobile phone to film inside a woman's skirt to public prosecutors, it has been learned. Police plan to send public prosecutors documents on the 50-year-old principal of an elementary school in Setana, Hokkaido, on suspicion of violating a prefectural ordinance banning people from creating a public nuisance. (Mainichi)

An about six-meter-tall replica of the Statue of Liberty in Hakodate, Hokkaido, a popular tourist destination known for its historical sites, has recently been removed at the request of the city government, which found the statue damaged the cityscape. The statue, which was set up in front of a store run by a local seafood firm in Hakodate's Motomachi district in early June, was lifted by crane Thursday to the rooftop of the building and placed under a cover as spectators looked on. (AP)

Three college students were confirmed dead after being found Wednesday, three days after a flash flood washed away their tent while they were camping in a Hokkaido mountain range. A police helicopter found the three victims in a stream near Nakanodake, a 1,519-meter-high mountain of the Hidaka mountain range in Taikicho. The police said the three apparently drowned. According to the police, four members of a mountain climbing club at Tokyo University of Science entered the mountain range on Aug. 9. They were camping along the Rekifune-Nakanogawa river Sunday night when a flash flood hit their tent and swept them away. (Yomiuri)

Olympic curler Mari Motohashi announced Monday she has parted ways with Team Aomori and formed a team in her native Hokkaido. The new team is made up of five peers of Motohashi from Kitami, the curling capital of Japan formerly called Tokoro. "I made this move because I believe that building this team from scratch will help me grow as a curler and as a person," Motohashi said at a press conference in Tokyo. The 24-year-old nicknamed "Marilyn" played for Team Aomori at the past two Olympics. Team Aomori finished seventh in Turin and eighth in Vancouver out of 10 teams. (AP)

A typhoon made landfall in Japan on Thursday for the first time this year after moving eastward over the Sea of Japan, bringing heavy rain across a broad area including the Kinki region in western Japan and the northern island of Hokkaido. Typhoon Dianmu landed near the city of Akita at around 5 p.m. and crossed the Tohoku region into the Pacific Ocean, disrupting bullet train services on the Akita Shinkansen Line in Akita and Iwate prefectures on one of the busiest days of the summer holiday season. (AP)

Six people died, 11 others were injured and one went missing Saturday in accidents at mountains, rivers and sea across Japan, according to a Kyodo News tally. Three people died while fishing in rivers in Kumamoto and Akita prefectures and on the coast of Shimane Prefecture, while two others died after falling down hills in Tochigi and Saitama prefectures. In Hokkaido, a man died at a hospital after almost drowning while swimming in the sea. (AP)

Sapporo had its first "tropical night" in 25 years as weather data showed the lowest temperature in the Hokkaido capital early Saturday morning was 26.2. Tropical night is an expression used when the overnight low is 25 or higher. Logged at 5:23 a.m., the 26.2 degree level was 7.0 degrees higher than in a typical year. (Japan Times)

The oldest Ainu-Japanese dictionary created by a Buddhist monk over 300 years ago has been discovered at a temple here. The ancient document containing Ainu-Japanese glossary was found at Fumon-ji Temple in Fukui's Minamiyama-cho district. It was created by local Buddhist monk Kunen in 1704 when he visited Ezo -- the present Hokkaido Prefecture and home to Ainu people -- during his pilgrimage around the country. It is the oldest Ainu-Japanese glossary among those whose published year is understood. (Mainichi)

The Sapporo District Court ordered the state Thursday to pay ¥5.8 million in damages to a female former Air Self-Defense Force member who was sexually assaulted by a serviceman at a base in Hokkaido and later mustered out of the service against her will. The 24-year-old plaintiff was sexually assaulted by the 35-year-old male ASDF member in September 2006. When she asked to be examined by a gynecologist, her commander gave her permission on condition she be accompanied by a different male member, the court said, adding the commander also repeatedly urged her to leave the force. (Japan Times)

An endangered species of woodpecker has been spotted in Daisetsuzan National Park in Hokkaido, researchers have announced. Not since they were last spotted in 1988, have three-toed woodpeckers been seen in the area and they are considered a threatened species. However, a joint research team from a private bird research group -- headed by Tatsuya Mochizuki-- and a biology laboratory at Iwate University's Faculty of Agriculture recently found that the birds have several habitats in the largest national park in Japan. The research team will soon submit an article on the discovery to a U.S. journal. (Mainichi)

Twenty-two people died and 14 others were injured in Japan on Sunday as a result of water and mountain accidents as well as heat stroke as temperatures continued to soar across the country, according to reports compiled by Kyodo News. Fourteen people died in water-related accidents -- two each in Chiba, Aomori, Gifu and Shizuoka prefectures and one each in Yamaguchi, Hokkaido, Kanagawa, Nara, Wakayama and Kagawa prefectures -- while two people died in the mountains in Saitama Prefecture. (AP)

A tour bus carrying 45 tourists swerved to avoid an approaching motorbike and overturned in Ashoro, Hokkaido, on Saturday, causing injuries to the passengers, police said. Two of the tourists and the biker sustained serious injuries, while at least 38 people in the bus were slightly injured in the accident that occurred near Lake Onneto, a popular sightseeing spot in Hokkaido, according to the police. (AP)

Word of a Nevada County boy's find of a message in a bottle has reached the Japanese school where it originated -- thanks to an assist by a squid biologist from Carmichael. John Bower, who is on the faculty of Hokkaido University in Japan, read The Bee story online of Stuart Woodhall, 14, of Penn Valley, who while beachcoming found a bottle with a message a few months ago on an Oregon vacation with his family. Inside the bottle were two letters - one written in English, the other in Japanese - and one postcard. (modbee.com)

Russia's legislative lower house passed a bill Wednesday designating Sept. 2 as the anniversary of the end of World War II, effectively stipulating it a day commemorating the Soviet Union's victory over Japan. Japan formally surrendered to the Allied Powers on Sept. 2, 1945, with a signing ceremony aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. The Russian "Victory Day" designation could be seen as a response to Japan's calls for the return of four Russian-held islands off Hokkaido as disputes over the status of the islands, which were seized by the Soviets in the closing days of the war, remain unresolved. (Japan Times)

Legendary racehorse Oguri Cap died in Hokkaido on Saturday at age 25, horse racing sources said. Oguri Cap won 12 graded races, including four Grade One titles, while boosting the popularity of horse racing in Japan in the late 1980s. The dapple-grey horse made his racing debut in Gifu in 1987 and started competing on the top-level Japan Racing Association circuit in 1988. (AP)

The government's pilot program for toll-free expressways was to start at midnight Sunday, covering a total of 1,652 kilometers in 50 sections on 37 routes, where traffic volumes are relatively small. The heavily traveled Metropolitan and Hanshin expressways, which serve the Kanto and Kansai regions respectively, will not have any free sections. But about 20 percent of the remainder of the nation's expressway system will become free. Expressways in provincial areas will have long toll-free sections. In Hokkaido, a 139-kilometer section between the Shibetsukenbuchi and Iwamizawa interchanges of the Hokkaido Expressway (Doodo) will be toll-free, as will a 112-kilometer section between Obama-nishi Interchange and Yokawa Junction on the Maizuru-Wakasa Expressway, which passes through Fukui, Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures. (Yomiuri)

Ivan the polar bear has been having relationship problems recently. The strapping 300-kg, 10-year-old lives at Asahiyama Zoo, a municipal facility on a wooded hillside in the city of Asahikawa, central Hokkaido. The zoo is Japan's most northerly, and 15 years ago it was near bankruptcy. Today, crowds come from as far away as Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing to see the animals - and they often make a beeline for the polar bear house. Without doubt, Ivan - or "Eewan" as he is known to countless Japanese fans - is a national and international star. (Japan Times)

The temperature rose slightly above the 37 C line Saturday on Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido, marking the highest temperature so far this year in Japan, a local weather observatory said. The mercury peaked at 37.1 C in the eastern Hokkaido town of Ashoro, the highest this year in Japan, 37 C in the city of Kitami, and 36 C in Obihiro, the regional observatory said. The prefectural capital Sapporo in western Hokkaido marked 31 C, prompting people in its landmark Odori Park to eat ice cream and children to bathe in a fountain. (AP)

The number of nutrition teachers, who are seen as the core of the nation's dietary education, vary drastically between prefectures. Although five years have passed since the introduction of the nutrition teacher program, as of April, there were large differences in the number of teachers working in different prefectures. For example, while there were 385 nutrition teachers in Osaka Prefecture, 362 in Hokkaido and 322 in Hyogo Prefecture, Chiba and Kanagawa prefectures--which have more students--had only 38 and 40 nutrition teachers, respectively. Tokyo, with 1,940 public primary and middle schools, had only 27. (Yomiuri)

It is a comfort food to which millions turn when in need of a carbohydrate fix. It has inspired popular manga titles and films, and expert reviews of closely guarded recipes adorn countless magazines, books and blogs. Michelin may have declared Tokyo the greatest food city on earth last year, but you won't find a single etoile above the entrances to the thousands of restaurants serving Japan's de facto national dish: ramen. The noodle-broth combination, usually topped with vegetables, a hardboiled egg and chashu pork, originates from China but became a source of sustenance in postwar Japan. These days it is the food of the time-poor office worker, the student who demands satiation for their meagre yen, and, increasingly, for foreign visitors eager to forage deeper into Japan's culinary treasury - and all for about 700 yen a bowl. The Japanese archipelago has inspired myriad variations, from the spindly noodles in miso broth in Hokkaido in the north, to a thicker version immersed in a pork-based soup in Kyushu in the south-west. (guardian.co.uk)

Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker Chiyomi Kobayashi announced her resignation as a House of Representatives member on Monday, following the conviction of a union official the same day for illegal donations to her election campaign last summer. Kobayashi, a 41-year-old second-term lower house member representing the Hokkaido No. 5 single-seat constituency, told a news conference in Chitose, Hokkaido, she will resign with the end of the regular parliamentary session, paving the way for a by-election on Oct. 24 rather than at the same time as the upper house election expected July 11. (AP)

Japan's oldest and internationally acclaimed Butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno died of respiratory failure Tuesday at a hospital in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, his office said. He was 103. A native of Hakodate, Hokkaido, Ohno joined the dance studio led by Baku Ishii in 1933 and learned modern dance. After a break from dancing during World War II, he gave his first Tokyo performance in 1949. His encounter with Tatsumi Hijikata and his "Ankoku Butoh" (Dance of Utter Darkness), as well as influences from modern dance, led him to establish a style of dancing called Butoh, characterized by white facial and body paint and slow movements. (AP)

Japan Airline Corp. terminated all of its flights Monday at Kobe Airport as part of its restructuring. JAL ended flights between Kobe and Shin-Chitose Airport in Hokkaido and Naha and Ishigaki airports in Okinawa. JAL's withdrawal is a blow to the money-losing Kobe Airport, which is expected to suffer operating losses for both fiscal 2009 and 2010. The airport will lose much of the its landing fees, a pillar of its operations. In 2009, JAL flights accounted about 35 percent of its landing fees of ¥690 million. (Japan Times)

Tourists and residents in Nemuro, eastern Hokkaido, love watching the local sea otters float on their backs and use stones to crack open clams on their stomachs. But the marine mammals are a headache to fishermen and are even threatening their livelihood. The fishermen say the otters in the Sea of Okhotsk have ruined three of seven fishing grounds, eating about 18 tons of "uni" (sea urchins) and causing a loss of about ¥31 million. (Japan Times)