{"id":28022,"date":"2012-11-26T00:00:58","date_gmt":"2012-11-26T04:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=28022"},"modified":"2012-11-26T00:00:58","modified_gmt":"2012-11-26T04:00:58","slug":"an-emperors-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2012\/11\/26\/an-emperors-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"An Emperor’s Visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by Benjamin Martin<\/strong><\/a>, a 5th year JET in Okinawa<\/a>, publisher of the blog MoreThingsJapanese.com<\/a><\/strong><\/em>\u00a0and author of the YA fantasy novel\u00a0<\/em>Samurai Awakening<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(Tuttle).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>On November 20, 2012 The Emperor of Japan Akihito and Empress Michiko visited\u00a0Kumejima<\/a>\u00a0as part of a four-day visit to Okinawa. \u00a0Preparations were long in the making<\/a>, but it was still extraordinary to see the spectacle of a visit lasting less than 5 hours. \u00a0Luckily, I was asked to help photograph on behalf of Kumejima Town and was able to stand with television and newspaper camera people in designated media areas.<\/p>\n

The Emperor and his wife arrived around 10:30 JST on a plane from Okinawa-honto. \u00a0Since Kume Island has only a small airport, they used a JAL Express plane instead of the usual flying fortress. \u00a0 There they greeted a group of students and dignitaries and then drove to the\u00a0Deep Sea Water Research\u00a0Institute<\/a>\u00a0to tour its grounds. \u00a0One of the major reasons for the visit is the proposed\u00a0OTEC power plant<\/a>. \u00a0Along the way Kumejima Townspeople greeted the Emperor by waving Japanese flags (a rarity in Okinawa), shouting “Thank you for coming” and “banzai!” \u00a0After the tour, the motorcade arrived at the Town Hall just before 13:00 to rest and talk with Mayor Taira. \u00a0There they discussed Kumejima’s many natural resources such as Kuruma-ebi, Umi-budo, and Deep Sea Water while eating lunch. \u00a0They talked so much they didn’t have time to finish!<\/p>\n

For more on the Emperor’s visit and plenty of pictures visit More Thing Japanese<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted by Benjamin Martin, a 5th year JET in Okinawa, publisher of the blog MoreThingsJapanese.com\u00a0and author of the YA fantasy novel\u00a0Samurai Awakening\u00a0(Tuttle). On November 20, 2012 The Emperor of Japan Akihito and Empress Michiko visited\u00a0Kumejima\u00a0as part of a four-day visit to Okinawa. \u00a0Preparations were long in the making, but it was still extraordinary to see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26,76,368,6],"tags":[810,191,811,785],"class_list":["post-28022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebrity","category-photography","category-traveltourism","category-writers","tag-emperor","tag-japan","tag-news","tag-okinawa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t