News in Japan

Four news stories that I saw on the TV news today:

①　The Space Shuttle Discovery launched today for a 13-day mission. On board is the first astronaut that is also a Japanese mother…39 year old Naoko Yamazaki.

Naoko Yamazaki

She began her astronaut training in Japan ten years ago, but had to relocate to America in 2004 to continue her training. Her husband gave up his career in Japan when they moved to America so he could stay at home and raise their daughter.

②　Yesterday afternoon in Saga, Japan, a group of young children were playing near a concrete barrier at the ocean’s edge, when suddenly a four-year old boy fell into the water.
Without hesitation, his ten-year old older brother jumped into the water to save him.
Both boys were unconscious when they were pulled from the water by rescue workers.
The younger boy recovered but his older brother who tried to save him died at the hospital.

③　In Chiba, Japan yesterday, some cruel person removed the antlers of an eight year old goat at a farm.
The goat was found bleeding profusely from his head wounds and was shaking violently.
The farmer took him to a veterinarian who bandaged the animal’s head. But the poor goat is still shaking and is now terrified of people.

④　But some people can be nice to animals.
A sixteen-year old high school girl in Yamaguchi, Japan found a dog that had been hit by a car and left bleeding in the street.
She took the dog to an animal shelter. The doctors at the shelter helped the dog, but they told the girl that if the dog’s owner doesn’t claim it within two weeks, it would have to be put to sleep.

The girl had her friends help her make fliers to find the dog’s owner and she sent photos of the dog to everyone she knew via email and had them forward the email because she didn’t want to see the dog she just helped save be put to death.

Her hard work paid off. The owner of the dog saw one of her fliers and recognized her dog, “Ai-chan”. The owner said she had been searching frantically since her dog went missing.

The dog was rescued by her owner just in time. She was collected from the shelter on March 13…one day before she was scheduled to be put to sleep.

The girl (second from left) that found the dog and her friends showing the fliers they made.

The zoo…

As I mentioned in the post I wrote this morning (Click here to see it), the 上野動物園 (Ueno Zoo) offered free admission today. So my wife and daughters went there (I couldn’t go because I had to work…but they invited our eight-year-old niece who lives not too far from us to join them).

We expected it would be crowded there today, but it wasn’t too bad…probably because it was rainy for the past two days. But the weather was fine today.
They had a good time.

As I wasn’t there, my wife and daughters took all of these pictures.

Here’s the 北極熊 (Polar Bear):

And they happened to get to the アザラシ (sea lions) just in time to see two of them fighting:

The ゴリラ (gorilla) was wearing a tarp like a blanket.
Here he was picking his nose:

Another shot of him:

This is a バク (Tapir):

The Petting zoo portion of 上野動物園 (Ueno Zoo) has 鶏のメス (chickens), 鶏のオス (roosters), ヤギ (goats), 羊 (sheep), アヒル (ducks), and ネズミ (mice) (there used to be 豚 (pigs) there..but, it seems, they’ve been moved):

I like サイ (rhinoceros):

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上野動物園 (Ueno Zoo) is Japan’s first zoo. It opened on March 20, 1882.
It used to have パンダ (pandas), but the last one died in April 2008. China offered to lease more pandas to the zoo, but the Tokyo government decided the price was too steep. (You can read my post about the panda’s passing by clicking here.)