Sports News

I’m not a big sports fan, but a few sports-related items were in the news recently. Some good and some bad news.

• Japanese professional wrestler, 山本尚文 (Naofumi Yamamoto), has just been hired by the American World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) company.He’ll begin his training in Florida this month.
• 浅尾美紀 (Miki Asao), the 17-year old younger sister of Japanese beach-volleyball star, 浅尾美和 (Miwa Asao) just died on Friday, 5 Sept 2008, from the serious head injuries she sustained when she was hit by a car while riding her bicycle last August 12th.
• The 2008 Paralympics Games will end today.
  As of this moment, China has the most medals and Japan is in 18th place with 24 medals (5 Gold, 12 Silver, and 7 Silver).

  All of the athletes, whether they won a medal or not, are stars!

  But, Japan’s fifth gold medal was won by 国枝慎吾 (Shingo Kunieda) for wheelchair tennis.

  

2008 Olympics

Today is August 8. The opening ceremony for the 2008 Summer Olympics in 北京 (Beijing, China) will commence today at 8:08PM (China Standard Time).

Maybe you’ve heard why it’s set to begin at such an unusual time. It’s because the number eight is lucky in China (and Japan, too). So the Chinese decided to start the ceremony at ’08年8月8日午後8時8分 (’08/8/8 8:08PM).

(By the way, in China the numbers four and seven are unlucky because they have the same pronunciation as the word for “death” in Chinese. In Japan, the numbers four and nine are unlucky because they sound like “death” and “pain” in Japanese, respectively.)

The Official Website of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing is here.

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The Food & Wine website just voted Tokyo as the number one restaurant city in the world.

Paris, New York, and London were numbers 2, 3, and 4 respectively.

Click here to see their entire top-ten list.

This is after the Michelin Guide gave more stars to restaurants in Tokyo than any other city in their 2008 edition.

Click here to read the Yahoo news report about it. (from Nov 2007)

Tokyo is a shining star in the world of cuisine…

Michelin Guides Director Jean-Luc Naret

新聞より

Yesterday I read the newspaper while I was riding the train.

A few stories made an impression on me (let me know if you’ve heard any of this news…and what you think!):

1. At the Six Flags amusement park in Georgia, USA, a 17-year old boy climbed two fences that surrounded the perimeter of a roller-coaster ride.
   He went in there to get his hat or something…and the roller coaster hit him and decapitated him!
   I was shocked to read this…but, then again, I’ve read quite a few stories about tragedies at amusement parks. That’s why I’m always hesitant to let my kids go to one with their friends (I let them go…but I’m always nervous about it).
2. Many countries are sending their Olympic teams to Japan to practice for the upcoming Olympics in 北京 (Beijing) rather than have them practice in 中国 (China).
   This is because, the newspaper said, many countries are concerned about air pollution, food safety, and political tension in China.
   Also, they said, Japan has good training facilities.
3. Tokyo is the largest city in the world. And it’s the most densely populated (Tokyo has 36 million people…nearly double the population of New York City. There are more people in Tokyo than in all of Canada!)
   But, despite Tokyo’s large population…this city was recently voted the third most livable city in the world by the London magazine Monocle!
   Copenhagen and Munich were voted first and second respectively…but those two cities have only just over one million people. Tokyo has nearly 36 times as many residents…but the magazine says Tokyo is “a big city getting the basics right”.
   The link to the Monocle magazine’s article is here (they require a paid subscription to read the entire article…but you can see the headline for free 😦 (whatever)).