Event info! "Interpreting Local Culture with the Culture-Information Literacy" in 14th Nov. 2009.

Since June 2009, Minamiawaji city and Kobe University has proceeded some research projects based on their "academic-local cooperation agreement."
In this 14th November 2009, the international conference "Interpreting Local Culture with the Culture-Information Literacy" will be held at Minamiawaji Mihara community hall, as one of the accomplishment reports of the research project.

The conference is consisted of two parts.  First part, morning session, is the Awaji traditional puppet show by the professional Awaji Ningyo-Za members, and Second part, afternoon session, is seminars about local culture.
This event is free of charge and not necessary to register, so please join in!

About myself, I'm going to join in this event as a staff of Kobe University.
So I'm looking forward to seeing you there!

--Event Program--
14th November, 2009
   at Minamiawaji Mihara community hall (map below)

 11:10-12:20  Traditional Puppet Show
 -break-
 13:40-14:30  Poster Presentation by Kobe University students
 14:30-14:45  Opening
 14:45-15:20  Seminar1 "Rethinking of Keisei Awa no Naruto"
                    by Janice KANEMITSU (Cornell University)
 15:20-15:55  Seminar2 "Rethinking of New Art of Public Entertainment"
                    by Ryoji SASAHARA (National Museum of Ethnology)
 15:55-16:30  Seminar3 "Psychology of Puppeteers "
                    by Narisuke UTSUKI (Kobe University)
 -break-
 16:45-17:45  Comments and Discussion
                    by Hiroki OKADA, Hajime MURAO (Kobe University)
 17:45          Closing


↓place of Minamiawaji Mihara community hall


大きな地図で見る

Daily news of Awaji area

When I visit any city in the first time, I always face difficulty to gain daily news of that area.  Fortunately, recently we can access that kind of information through the internet, even so sometimes it's difficult to find the appropriate local broadcast website.

About Awaji island, I strongly recommend "Kobe shinbun website"(Kobe newspaper company website) to find Awaji daily broadcasts.
"Kobe shinbun"(paper media), is one of the biggiest local newspaper in Japan, has one-hundred years history, has more than 5 million customers around Kansai area.  Awaji island is also covered area, so my family home and most of the neighborhoods have read as daily information collection.

On the website, there are daily news of each area in Hyogo Pref, some special reports, and local wether news.  But unfortunately , provides only in Japanese...

Kobe Shinbun has published the book of "20-century of Awaji Island"(『淡路の20世紀』).  If you can understand Japanese language, please check the following.

Munamiawaji publicly owned hotsprings!

Minamiawaji city is not famous for hotsprings, but there are a few publicly owned places as follows:

• Sunrise hotspring
• Sanyu hotspring
  
• Yutorikku hotspring
• Yupuru hotspring
• Uzuno-yu hotspring

I have ever been to "Sunrise", "Sanyu" and "Uzuno-yu".  Those are publicly owned, so that the usage charges are very cheap (around 500yen to 700yen).
More infomation about hotsprings in Awaji island, please check this website (but only in Japanese).


より大きな地図で Minamiawaji "ONSEN"(hotspring) Map を表示

Minamiawaji City council election in 25th Oct. 2009.

In this October, Minamiawaji city has the regular city council election. The last election, which was the first city council election after the municipal merger, had held 4 years ago, and 27 members have got seats in the coucil.
Unfortunately, I didn't and still don't have a voting right in Minamiawaji, so only I can do is to watch their activities from outsides.

Once I have checked their profile on the Minamiawaji city website, and I have been interested in the following data;

• average age : 62 years old (oldest: 84, youngest: 33)
• women rate : 3/27
• having own website: 5/27

Next time, I would like to check the records of the council !

Who is the Diet member from Minamiawaji?

Minamiawaji is designated the voting district no.9 of Hyogo Pref., and Mr. NISHIMURA Yasutoshi, from Liberal Democratic Party, has been elected as a lower house member at the last election (August, 2009).
You can check his profile in English on his website.

I was met him by accident at Minamiawaji during his election campaign.
He was energetic, talking much and looks nice. And after the election which the Democratic Party of Japan has got the historic win from LDP, Mr. NISHIMURA had tried to run for the LDP leader election. Unfortunately, he had lost this time, but I and Minamiawaji citizen expect him to be a leading politician in someday.

Search at Amazon.com of Mr.NISHIMURA's Books


↓photo with Mr.NISHIMURA (August, 2009)

shopping mall in Minamiawaji

Minamiawaji area has some big shopping malls.
Each shopping mall equips foods market, daily commodities, apparel for men, women and children, CDs/DVDs, books, home electronics and small cafe.
But it's not expected to be able to find books for specialists. If you want to find those technical or academic specialized books, I reccoment to go to Miyawaki book store located at Midori-cho area (next to Sumoto-city) in Minamiawaji..

Please check those shopping malls and book stores in the following map.


より大きな地図で Minamiawaji Shopping Mall を表示