How Japan's Largest Earthquakes Really Felt | Tohoku (2011) Kobe (1995) ★ ONLY in JAPAN

 

Japan is a very active earthquake country and in Tokyo, the fire department is making sure residents are ready for the next one. They do that by simulating natural disasters and catastrophic situations so when they do occur, people will think more clearly and react quicker leading to lives saved.

Japanese Kids Can No Longer Get Halloween Candy From The Yakuza

 It's a sad day for children in Kobe as they'll no longer be able to trick or treat with the Yakuza thanks to the Hyogo prefectural government has voted to make it illegal for children to enter the compound of the Yamaguchi-gumi Japan's largest organize crime group. 

  The criminal organization has been handing out candy at Halloween at its Kobe HQ since 2013, beckoning kids to step inside the gates and onto the grounds of their complex with calls of “Happy Halloween!” and “Come on in and get your candy!” However, local children with a sweet tooth will have to get their fix elsewhere this year, as the Yamaguchi-gumi is now legally barred from giving sweets to trick-or-treaters.

This week the Prefectural Assembly of Hyogo, the prefecture Kobe is a part of, voted unanimously to revise the Organized Crime Exclusion Ordinances, adding provisions that make it illegal for a criminal organization to give gifts (monetary or otherwise) to minors, invite them onto the grounds of their facilities, or correspond with them. Exceptions are made for “legitimately justifiable reasons,” but handing out snacks in a blatant attempt to curry favor with young children doesn’t cut it, legislators say.

[4K / Rail View]Tokaido Line Rail View

[4K / Rail View]Tokaido Line Rail View

One could make this journey even longer if they started their trip in Kogohara Saitama or Kognei in Tochigi prefectures.   What's amazing about is that, while it isn't the shinkansen is the fact that one can take a regular commuter line train all the way to Kobe.

Japanese Wagyu Beef Experience: Beyond Kobe

Everyone has heard of Kobe Beef, the most famous beef in the world, but it's just one of many wagyu brands in Japan. In fact Japan has over 300 brands of beef, all with that amazing marbling and leanness you'd expect from premium graded A5 beef. Every 5 years, Japan holds the Wagyu Olympics and Tottori Wagyu won the "best beef" competition this year.

Disaster video game series resurrected with support from the Kobe Fire Department

The Zettai Zetsumei Toshi disaster survival video game series has been revived, and will be more realistic than ever before.

The Zettai Zetsumei Toshi (literally translated as “A City in Desperate Straits“) video game series created by developer Irem seeks to recreate the atmosphere and tension of survival immediately following a serious environmental disaster. The series debuted in 2002 on the PlayStation 2 with its first entry, set on a crumbling artificial island. The game, which was localized as Disaster Report in the US and in the PAL region as SOS: The Final Escape, featured survival gameplay from a third-person perspective, where you as the main protagonist must make your way off the island, utilizing whatever items you can loot from the debris, whilst making sure to stay hydrated by locating potable water, and helping NPCs on the way. With sudden deaths from falling construction and collapsing walkways continually interrupting gameplay, it’s a tense yet often frustrating experience, although it does feature kooky gameplay elements like being able to build your own raft and paint it with polka dots to float downriver to reach your objective

Kobe air raid survivor in letter to PM Abe: 'You really have no idea what war is'

"Do people in elite positions not understand the sadness felt by average people who have suffered during times of war?"
Kobe resident Asako Zaii, 87, has found that her feelings regarding the security legislation passed by the Lower House on the afternoon of July 16 are almost unbearable.
"Mr. Abe, you really have no idea what war is, do you?" her letter asked pointedly.
Zaii's history -- what she refers to as her "real experience with war" -- involved relentless bombing during U.S. military air raids in March 1945, which instantaneously turned the city streets of Kobe into a sea of fire.
She was 17 years old at the time. Wrapping herself in a futon for protection against the fist-sized sparks of fire flying all around her, she ran to seek safety.
Her house, which was located near a new district in Kobe's busiest area, burned down -- reducing to ashes the chest of goods that her parents had prepared for her to take with her when she left home to marry.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry testifying before Congress about his time in Vietnam:

When he came home, he protested against the war, and in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971, famously asked: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"