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2016.09.20
Due to the typhoon, it has been raining all day today. The girl depicted in this statue looks cold under the rain. Fukui City placed this statue in the center of the city as one of the statues for a development project of "community with statues" in the 1990s. When I walk around this area, there are figurative statues like this, and I can also see abstract ones. There are about 20 of them altogether. （T.S）
2016.09.15
The other day, we visited “Tree Picnic Adventure Ikeda” in Ikeda-cho in Fukui Prefecture.
Today, I’d like to introduce “Mega Zip-line” which is the longest and highest in Japan (according to research by Ikeda-cho in April, 2016).
The participants start from the mountain ridge (elevation 60 meters which as high as 20 stories high) and glide across two valleys. It is 480 meters for the outward trip and 510 meters for the return trip. It must be thrilling for sure to go between and over mountains and valleys.
At “Tree Picnic Adventure Ikeda”, there are several other activities beside the “Mega Zip-line”. This is the first place in Japan that has several outdoor activities combined together.
Other activities are exciting and enjoyable as well.
There are “Discovery Course” which has 38 elements and participants walk high above the tree tops, “Tree Climb Course” which has 3 elements and participants climb trees,
"Picnic Course” which has 4 staying areas high above the ground and participants get to relax on a hundred years old tree, “Kids Course” which has 6 elements and children can enjoy walking on trees safely with assistance, “Adventure Boat” which is a river rafting course for beginners and there are also places where guests can sleep and/or enjoy having barbeque.
How about enjoying outdoor activities at “Tree Picnic Adventure Ikeda”?
“Tree Picnic Adventure Ikeda”
Address: Shizuhara 28-16, Ikeda-cho Imadate-gun, Fukui Prefecture 910-2523 Japan
Phone: 0778-44-7474
For more information: http://www.e-ikeda.jp/play/p004052.html
*If you would like to participate any of the activities, you need reservations.
Official website (Japanese available only)
http://www.picnic.ikeda-kibou.com/reserve/
T.F
2016.09.14
I wanted to eat out for long lunch last weekend, so I went to a restaurant “Koharu Biyori “ which has recently become popular. When I got there, it was a big restaurant than I thought, and I am happy to find their parking lot was not narrow.
When you walk the entrance approach of a restaurant which you go for the first time,
you feel excited, don’t you? I feel excitement while walking.
Inside, there are white walls and antique-looking tables and chairs.
The windowsills and curtains are also nice. I am sure that women like such an atmosphere.
Wakasa beef (Fukui’s local beef) fillet steak set lunch. The beef was tender and good.
Fillet pork cutlet curry rice set lunch. You can fill up.
Petite dessert which you can add to your order.
They have several regular dessert menus but it was good enough as the lunch was hearty.
As you can see in the photo above, actually the restaurant is just next to a graveyard.
Although I didn’t know, there was a rumor that shops located close to graveyards
would prosper. So possibly, also this restaurant is popular because of the graveyard :) （H.S)
Remarks : “Koharu Biyori” means like Indian summer
2016.09.13
The piture is Egg Foo Young of “Fukui Gen”, a Chinese restaurant located near the entrance of Katamachi area in downtown Fukui. It’s within 10 minutes walking distance of GEN's office.
I’m not sure if their Egg Foo Young is the real thing that people in China make but I often go there for my lunch. I like how they make it very simple and large at Fukui Gen.
This is 530yen. Plus a few hundred yen, I get a lunch combo which comes with a regular size of rice dish (or noodles), a small bowl of ramen noodle soup (or a small rice dish) for about 800 yen. I’ve had their lunch combo a few times before. It was very hard for me to eat all of it because their “small size” is as same as regular size at many other restaurants in Japan. Therefore, every time I go there now, I order anything a la carte but I still become full though.
（T.S）
2016.09.12
On September 11th, 2001, there were terrorist attacks in the United States which shocked
the US and the world.
The terrorists attacked New York, Washington, D.C. and Shanksville, Pennsylvania and killed nearly 3,000 people, injured thousands more. The attacks left the entire country in mourning.
I used to live in New York and my apartment was a little distant from the World Trade Center which were attacked and collapsed by terrorists. I still remember that morning clearly.
Even from a distance, I could see so much smoke coming out from the World Trade Center which made me stunned and speechless. I kept hearing sirens of ambulances and police cars all day long. The connections for home phones, public phones and cellphones became poor and all the transportation system was dead. The whole city was in chaos. The road was filled with no means of returning home and those people were walking sadly.
A week had passed by since the World Trade Center collapsed, I visited the World Trade Center area. There were many police officers, emergency workers and volunteers looking for missing people from under the destroyed buildings. The smoke was still coming out.
Because there were still hopes that people might be still alive under the buildings and possibilities of explosions or fires, the atmosphere of the area was tense.
There were American flags and many photographs of people who were still missing everywhere.
There were also tanks and soldiers from New York National Guard standing
on the corner of busy areas in the city.
Smiles were gone completely in the city for a while.
15 years has been passes by since that terrorist attacks, and there is new building built called “One World Trade Center (also known as the Freedom Tower)” on the same area where the World Trade Center buildings used to be. The construction was started on April 27th, 2006, completed on July 2013, and opened on November 3rd, 2014. The name of the building was changed from “Freedom Tower” to “One World Trade Center” because to remember the original name and what happened to the old buildings.
In May, 2014, “911 Memorial Museum” was opened.
And since March 11th, 2002, “Tribute in Light” was started by Municipal Art Society and it has been lighting up the sky of New York from where the World Trade Center used to be.
As I will not forget what happened on September 11th, 2001 in New York and what I saw there, I strongly hope terrorism will be stopped.
I would like to share a video of “Cameron Michael”, “9-11 Tribute in Light”.
T.F
We would like to express our deepest sympathy to all those who passed away from the terrorist attacks.
