This October (2009), the International Olympic Committee will announce which city is chosen to host the 2016 Olympic Games.
The four finalist cities are Tokyo, Japan; Chicago, USA; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Madrid, Spain.
I believe Tokyo should be chosen to host the games…Tokyo is safe and clean, the public transportation is extremely punctual and affordable, their is plenty of interesting places to see in the city, the food is excellent, and it’s a beautiful city.
Here is one of the official promotional videos for Tokyo’s campaign to win the 2016 Olympics host-city bid. Watch it and see why I love living here:
Tokyo Five 
I am rooting for Rio. The Olympics have never been in South America and I think that would be rather spiffy!
I do think, though, that Chicago is the most likely place. How can it be otherwise with Obama as president?
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Well, we’ll find out on October 2nd.
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I live just outside of Chicago and am torn.
Pros:
– great for the Chicago economy…which needs it desperately
– great for the Chicago international recognition
Cons:
– it’s going to be crowded
– it’s going to be traffic nightmares in a city that is already painfully congested
– Chicago can’t pay for what it’s supposed to NOW…but will somehow be able to pay for the Olympics
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Have you ever been to a city while it hosted an Olympic games?
It’s fun.
Yes, it’s more crowded…but that’s only for the short period that the Olympics is going. But the improvements made to the city will stay (ie: more train lines, arenas and other venues, etc).
If Chicago is chosen to host the games, you should volunteer as a guide or something…if Tokyo is the host, I may volunteer.
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Tokyo Five
Everyone has his or her memories or events they’ll never forget.
And I have experienced three events that hit me as wonder of wonders.
They are:
1 Tokyo Olympics (1964)
2 Apollo 11 landing on the Moon (1969)
3 Osaka EXPO’70 (1970)
45 years ago not many people owned a TV set here in Japan.
But we really wanted to see the Tokyo Olympics. Tokyo 5.
So a lot of people & my family ran to an electric appliance store at full speed to buy a TV set.
Everybody did so and therefore TV gadgets spread to almost every household all over Japan overnight.
Do you know Toyo no Majo (The Witches of the East)?
They are the Japanese volleyball players.
Their team took the gold medal at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
Judo & volleyball were officially introduced first in the programs at the Tokyo Games.
These are the numbers of gold medals each country obtained at Tokyo Olympics.
USA 36
USSR 30
Japan 16
Germany 10
Australia 6
Great Britain 4
France 1
Canada 1
The Shinkansen bullet train started running in this year (’64)
And to commemorate the Tokyo Olympiad, National Sports Day was enacted.
It was originally celebrated on October 10th because the opening ceremony of the event was on October 10th.
But in 2000 it was changed to the second Monday in October.
Now I hope Tokyo will be selected for the 2016 Olympics.
Doesn’t it make sense for Tokyo to have it once more after a long time of 52 years (more than half a century) ?
These are the Summer Olympics host cities for the last 30 years.
1976 Canada Montreal
1980 Soviet Union Moscow
1984 USA Los Angeles
1988 South Korea Seoul
1992 Spain Barcelona
1996 USA Atlanta
2000 Australia Sydney
2004 Greece Athens
2008 China Beijing
2012 UK London
2016 ?
The United States has had summer Olympics ４ times.
Isn’t it too greedy if the U.S. will have had the ５th time when Japan has only had it just once.
Wouldn’t the balance of co-existence be broken if the U.S. could always dominate everything and get away with too much ?
5 years after the Tokyo Olympics, a tremendous thing happened.
A man landed on the Moon.
I saw Apollo 11 on TV in 1969.
Commander Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon’s surface with his left foot first in the Sea of Tranquility.
He said,
“This is just a small step for a man but a giant leap for mankind.”
But there were no rabbits on the Moon (You know what I mean?)
The year after the moon landing, I saw the Moon Rock brought back from the Moon by Apollo 11 at Osaka EXPO’７０.
Osaka EXPO’７０ was a World’s Fair held in Osaka, Japan in 1970.
６４ million people visited the EXPO.
That is the greatest number of visitors ever in history.
The EXPO also featured demonstrations of first mobile phones.
I passed by Osaka Castle today, Tokyo 5,
There was a pantomimist near the Okawa River.
He dresses like a clown and he doesn’t move for 30 minutes.
And then he suddenly wiggles his hands and feet for about 20 seconds and stops moving again.
And then he becomes a statue once again and stands still for another 30 minutes.
I don’t know where he comes from.
He must be the person I saw 40 years ago on TV, landing on the Moon.
Osaka Sakura Festival was opened here today.
Many people were dancing japanese style.
It looks like a Bon Odori.
I felt as if summer had come.
See you, by Jiro Tanaka.
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>Apollo 11 landing on the Moon (1969)
I was born that year!
>Do you know Toyo no Majo (The Witches of the East)?
Judo & volleyball were officially introduced first in the programs at the Tokyo Games.
Actually, I have heard about the Japan women’s volleyball team getting Gold at the ’64 Olympics in Tokyo.
And I knew that Judo became an Olympic event at the ’64 games too (I didn’t know that Volleyball did too).
>Shinkansen bullet train started running in this year (’64)
Yes, the world’s first bullet-train was built in Japan for the 1964 Olympics.
And a new bullet-train connected Tokyo to Nagano for the 1998 Olympics in Nagano (my wife and I took that train to go to Nagano to see the Olympic town).
>And to commemorate the Tokyo Olympiad, National Sports Day was enacted.
Yes, I know. I wrote about that here:
http://www3.ocn.ne.jp/~tokyo5/faq.html#taiiku
>But in 2000 it was changed to the second Monday in October.
Yes, many Japanese holidays were changed that year.
>Isn’t it too greedy if the U.S. will have had the ５th time when Japan has only had it just once.
Well, I wouldn’t say “greedy”. It’s the IOC that decides the host-city, not America.
>Osaka Sakura Festival was opened here today.
Just now? The Sakura in Tokyo are already about gone!
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That was beautiful! Actually made me a little teary-eyed! I love Tokyo so much!
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>I love Tokyo so much!
Me, too!
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Super post, Need to mark it on Digg
Rufor
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Thank you.
Have you ever been to Tokyo?
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BTW, the International Olympic Committee is in Tokyo now to see this city’s bid for hosting the 2016 games.
They’re going to all four of the cities before they decide which one will be selected in October.
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If there’s an Earth by 2016 anyway. I wouldn’t mind the Summer Olympics going to Tokyo, it should be interesting. Also, I’m not imagining Chicago getting the games anytime soon. Yeah, like the place isnt crowded with jerks and tourists already. I apologize, it’s 2am where I live and I also happen to be a naturally rude New Yorker 🙂
I’ve written about Olympic Mascots over at my main blog here: http://galileo908.blogspot.com/2008/08/5-rings-of-subparity.html
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I just looked at that post on your blog.
Quite humorous! 🙂
I have a souvenir plate from the ’98 Olympics in Nagano with the mascots on it. I always thought the characters were odd looking…but I never realized that one is “Batman” (as you mentioned in your post)! 😉
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