11th Dragon Boat Race Competition in Kasumigaura City
Dragon boat race competition to take place this Sunday in Kasumigaura City.
11th Dragon boat race competition in Kasumigaura
When: July 1, Sunday, from 9:00 to 15:15
Where: Kasumigaura Lake in front of Ayumisaki Park in Kasumigaura City (Map)
It looks like this is a very serious competition unlike the kind of dragon boat race where participants decorate their boats for fun. Click here to see the picture from last year's competition.
Ayumisaki Park is a tiny park with a VERY tiny aquarium, but it still is a nice to place to spend your day. I see many sons and fathers fish while moms and other kids play in the park every time I go there. A castle-shaped local historical museum and a really good nature park for kids and families are within walking distance of Ayumisaki Park. The competition site (Ayumisaki Park) is about 30 to 40-minute drive from Tsukuba.
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NIES Summer Open House 2007
The National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) is holding its annual Summer Open House on July 21, 2007.
NIES holds an open house in the Spring that is aimed at people who are of high school age and above. The Summer Open House has no age limit. There are a number of things for children to do, so feel free to bring your kids along for a day of fun with science!
Fifteen facilities will be open and there will be scientists available at each of the buildings to explain their research. Topics include climate change, atmospheric pollution, chemical contamination of the environment, and the Asian environment.
Also...
- Talk (by video conference) to a NIES scientist who is currently stationed at the South Pole.
- See giant stag beetles and learn about invasive species.
- Touch some sharks from Tokyo Bay.
- Learn about the water and organisms in Tokyo Bay.
- Water taste test -- can you tell the difference between pure water, brand water, and tap water?
- How fast do you need to pedal to create electricity with a bicycle? Can you power a television with your legs?
- Look at your DNA under a microscope (limited number of participants)
- Go up 15m in a cherrypicking truck to see the heat produced by the things in the environment (using thermography)
- Stamp rally (presents to the first 3000 people to complete the rally)
There will also be English tours held at 10:30am and 2pm (with me as your host!).
Here are some pictures and a report from last year's event.
Location:
National Institute for Environmental Studies
Onogawa 16-2
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Jeff Nelson Worship Concert at Tsuchiura Megumi Church
We received a request to post the following information.
Jeff Nelson Worship Concert at Tsuchiura Megumi Church
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Doors open: 5:30 pm
Concert begins: 6:00 pm
489-1 Kami Takatsu, Tsuchiura-shi, Ibaraki-ken 300-0811, Japan
Tel: 029-822-2244
http://church-tmc.jp/
A bit about Jeff Nelson:
In 1987, Jeff recorded his first album in Nashville and learned a lot about the recording process from his producer and friend, Bryan Lenox. Back in Houston, Jeff started to arrange music tracks for other artists and help them record their projects. Now, Jeff has a recording studio in his home in Franklin, TN, and he continues to help artists record their songs and develop their talents.
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Japanese People Recommend Japanese Movies
The What Japan Thinks site translated a poll by DIMSDRIVE Research in which Japanese people were asked what Japanese movies they would recommend to foreigners.
The series of movies entitled "It’s Hard Being a Man" (男はつらいよ) was recommended the most by both men and women. I haven't seen it, but I have heard of it. In fact, I have only seen three of the top ten movies (Seven Samurai, My Neighbour Totoro, Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind) and I haven't even heard of four of them before (Love and Honour, Always - Sunset in the Third Street, Dororo, Death Note). And isn't Letters from Iwojima officially an American movie? Anyway, it looks like I have some movie watching to do!
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Read TsukuBlog Posts on Your Cellphone
By popular demand (okay, only two or three people demanded it, but it was a popular demand amongst those people!), TsukuBlog is now available to be read by cellular phone.
You can use the same address to read the blog on your computer or your cellphone: blog.alientimes.org.
If you don't want to enter the address manually, you can point your cellphone's bar code reader at the following QR code:
The first page is quite large, so you may run into a memory error. If that happens, just click "ok" and continue. You should still be able to see links to a large number of articles.
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