Archive for 'Nikko' Category

resurrection of classic trains in Kinugawa

Tobu Railway announced  its project of  adopting classic trains in Kinugawa hot spring resort in Tochigi pref. in next summer 2017(http://www.tobu.co.jp/foreign/en/).

 

The types of planned trains are SL(steam locomotive) and DL(diesel locomotive). Those old types “retired” from service about 50years ago, but a lot of people still love those good oldies with nostalgic passions. Tobu decided to carry out this reinstatement in order to attract tourists to draw them in Kinugawa overcoming a bad image of the area caused by overflow of the river there last year ue to storms. the trains will run between Shimoimaichi station and Kinugaw-aonsen station (about 12.4km)on KinugawaLine. Each train will have capacity of about 400 passengers and 140 round travels a year at maximum.

 

Lighting-up of Nikko Toshogu

Nikko Toshogu shrine, the mausoleum of the Ieyasu Tokugawa, the first shogun of the Edo Shogunate started lighting-up service on the 30th.

This serivice of lighting up Toshogu, Rinnou-ji temple, and Futarasan shrine started 1995 and commemorating the 20th anniversary this time. And as it is also the 15th year of  the  registration of the  World Heritage site of those  Nikko religious fasilities. Therefore, this year they conducted a projection mapping show using  the stone torii-gate of Toshogu for the first. Last year during the service, 22,000 people visited those places in just three days.   This year the service is provided 18:00-21:00 everyday until Nov. 2nd. During the service, free walking tours in the areas of those facilities with guides  are available as well.

Visit Japan Travel Mart and JATA Toursim EXPO Japan 2014

Two huge international travel marts were held at Tokyo Bigsight in Tokyo. One was “Visit Japan Travel Mart 2014″(Sep.24-26)(http://www.vjtm.jp/) and the other was “JATA Toursim EXPO Japan2014″(Sep.25-28)(http://t-expo.jp/en/index.html).  

More than 310 foriegn buyers and about 390 Japanese sellers joined VJTM2014 and had passionate exchanges of information and ideas and hosted busines seccions.  Buyers from Asian countries were especially a lot and about the half of the Japanese sellers were municipalities or relating associations of such local governments.

On the other hand,  a lot of domestic and foreign sellers and buysers joined  JATA Tourism EXPO Japan 2014. Such participants were embassies, tourism bureaus, travel agents, food companies, municipalities, railroads, airlines, hotels. universities, guide associations and so forth.  The main targets were end users of travel services and a lot of  lay Japanese people visited there and the total number was 157,589.  Upon the opening of the event, an ward ceremony  of  good  services and efforts of related promotions was hosted and the Best Tourism Award was given to The Tourism Authority of Thailand and Embassy awards were for  Thailand and Mexico, the best transporatation award was for Japan Railways East, the domestic inbound award was for  the tourism department of Tokyo Metropolis, the publicity award was for a TV show of CXTV, and the chairperson special award was for Okinawa Convention Bureau. (http://t-expo.jp/en/program/cms.html)   I personally visited the two big events and collected a lot of interesting information and exchanged ideas with the participants, some of whom were my friends or those I sometimes work with. I enjoyed the delicious food provided by tourism- related restaurants and local specialities and impressed by the greatly enthusiastic atmosphere of energies of the expos as well.

“SHINOBIDO” being run at theaters

“SHINOBIDO”(/忍道), the special movie to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Edo Wonderland  Nikko (http://www.edowonderland.net/) is being shown at theaters. http://www.shinobido-movie.com/

The story is about a tragic love between a shinobi(or Ninjya) girl and a samurai warrior of her enemy, depicting energetic and lively actions and battles of shiboi and warriors.The mainpart is played by a young and popular actor named Aimi Satsukawa(/佐津川愛美), and a young shinobi girl who longs for her is played by Ayaka Kikuchi(/菊地あやか), a member of AKB48.

 

The work is produced by Edo Wonderland which usually provides live  action shows of ninjya performances of the ninjya actors there.  Some important parts in the movie are played by famous actors, such as Toshio Kurosawa(/黒沢年雄), Naoko Ken(/研ナオコ), Ryouichi Eki(/エキリョウイチ), Mayuko Iwasa(/岩佐真悠子), Hatsunori Hasegawa(/長谷川初範),and others.