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Yomiuri Shimbun
20-07-2025
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Award-Winning Noto Chefs Design JAL In-Flight Meals; Special Dishes Seek to Promote Region, Encourage Quake Recovery
KANAZAWA — Special dishes created by two chefs from the quake-stricken city of Nanao, Ishikawa Prefecture, are being served in economy and premium economy classes on Japan Airlines' international flights until the end of August. The project aims to promote food from the Noto region and raise awareness of the recovery efforts following the Noto Peninsula Earthquake. The two chefs are Toru Kawashima, 40, of Ipponsugi Kawashima, a Michelin-stared Japanese restaurant on Ipponsugi street, and Kyohei Kurokawa, 37, of Restaurant Blossom, a Western-style eatery in the Wakura Onsen area. Both have achieved outstanding results in RED U-35, one of the largest competitions for young chefs in Japan. Kawashima's chicken dish is topped with a white miso sauce and rice steamed in broth mixed with pickled greens, while Kurokawa's dish consists of a hamburger steak paired with mushroom butter rice.A total of about 420,000 of the meals are expected to be served, covering 33 daily flights traveling from Japan to North America, Europe, Australia, South Asia and Southeast Asia. 'I hope people enjoy the synergistic umami flavors,' Kawashima said. Kurokawa said, 'I hope the in-flight meals spark interest in Noto.'
Mint
02-07-2025
- Mint
'Verge of tears': Japan Airlines flight drops 26,000 feet mid-air, passengers recall panic
A Japan Airlines flight from Shanghai to Tokyo turned into a nightmare for passengers when the aircraft suddenly dropped nearly 26,000 feet mid-air, triggering a terrifying emergency, People reported. The incident occurred on Monday evening, June 30, aboard flight JL8696 (operated by Japan Airlines' low-cost arm Spring Japan), which had taken off from Shanghai Pudong Airport and was en route to Narita International Airport in Tokyo. According to reports from Kyodo News and the Associated Press, the Boeing 737 aircraft was carrying 191 people, including crew. At around 6:53 PM local time, the flight suffered a sudden drop in cabin pressure, forcing the plane to descend rapidly from 36,000 feet to just under 10,500 feet in ten minutes. Oxygen masks were automatically deployed, and passengers were instructed to use them immediately. In video footage from inside the cabin, visibly shaken passengers are seen wearing oxygen masks, some clutching their hands and others trying to stay calm. A flight attendant can be heard urging everyone to stay composed and follow safety instructions. 'I heard a muffled boom, and the next thing I knew, oxygen masks dropped from above. A flight attendant cried and shouted for everyone to wear their masks, saying there was a malfunction,' one passenger told the AP. Another said they were jolted awake when the masks fell and described being on the 'verge of tears.' In a particularly harrowing moment, one traveller even claimed to have written their will during the ordeal, fearing the worst. Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism later confirmed that an alert regarding a pressurisation system failure had been triggered mid-flight. The pilot declared an emergency and diverted the plane to Kansai International Airport in Osaka, where it landed safely at around 8:50 PM local time. Fortunately, no injuries were reported. Passengers were provided with hotel accommodation for the night and 15,000 yen (approximately ₹ 8,945) each in transportation compensation. Authorities have launched an investigation into the mechanical issue that caused the sudden drop in cabin pressure. Japan Airlines has not yet issued an official statement on the cause.
Japan Times
11-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Times
Japan's second city is hosting a $66 billion coming-out party
Osaka's World Expo opens to the public on Sunday, following years of negative headlines — from budget overruns and calls for its cancellation, to methane explosions and concerns over its bizarre, many-eyed Lovecraftian mascot. First held in London in 1851, world expos have been promoted as venues to bring nations together and foster global coordination. But for Japan's second city, this is a coming-out party, a $66 billion gamble showcasing its transformation into a region that's becoming a magnet for Asia's cash. It would be charitable to say even that it divides public opinion, though. A relentless drip of doom-mongering, from countries dropping out to towns boycotting it over safety fears, has soured public opinion. In surveys, some 70% say they're not interested, and even in Osaka, where locals love to one-up Tokyo, most were little fussed. Yet the gloomy predictions that have dogged the exhibition since it was awarded in 2018 haven't come to pass. After delays, the construction work has been largely completed and the narrative moved on to ticket sales. Organizers aim to attract about 28 million guests, but advance demand has been lackluster. But that skepticism will pass once the expo gets under way, as it always does. It can show that there's still a place for such grand affairs in 2025 — and that it can leave a legacy for a frequently overlooked region. I've experienced this hand-wringing before, when the 2005 Expo was held in Aichi. The last such event Japan hosted, there were similar concerns before it began, but it attracted more visitors than expected and even returned a modest profit. But go further back and even the 1970 Expo — also held in Osaka and now universally regarded fondly as a symbol of the postwar boom times — faced opposition. That included one protester who staged an eight-day hunger strike on the Tower of the Sun, artist Taro Okamoto's iconic symbol. The typically talkative Osaka taxi driver who ferried me to the 2025 venue on the man-made island of Yumeshima told me his family was swimming in tickets for this year's expo, with sponsors giving them away to employees to drum up support. Nonetheless, he expected public opinion would come around just as it had in 1970. As an elementary schooler at the time, his fondest memory was his first Kentucky Fried Chicken, which debuted in Japan at the extravaganza. There will be no KFC this time, though: We live in a different world, a smaller one where once-exotic foods are commonplace, international travel is widely available and you don't need to attend an expo to experience life in "faraway countries' like Czechia or Saudi Arabia, two of the nations with lavish pavilions. Indeed, some exhibits seemed rather lame for 2025: The static robots of the android-based Future of Life exhibition are no match for today's kung-fu kicking, machine-learning automatons, while Japan Airlines' flying car experience disappointingly featured no actual flying cars. But there is plenty to impress, especially the venue's centerpiece Grand Ring, the 2-kilometer roof and skywalk that's the largest wooden structure in the world. Indeed, the development of the area will be its legacy. Yumeshima began life as a project, commissioned with typical 1980's hubris, aiming to build a new city center in Osaka Bay on three artificial islands, a construction that was fueled by Osaka's claustrophobia. It was the smallest prefecture in the country until another man-made island, housing Kansai Airport, was completed in 1994. Yumeshima was intended to be home to 60,000 people. Instead, after the collapse of Japan's economic bubble, the islands ended up practically disused, dubbed a "bitter legacy' of the city's development, little more than a half-completed container terminal. Now, like the redevelopment of the city center, it can be a symbol of recovery. Lacking Tokyo's companies and tax revenue, Osaka has had to seek ways to differentiate itself, leaning into the weird and unconventional. The expo mascot Myaku-Myaku personifies this. Like many, I found the character and logo bizarre at first, but its unconventionality has grown on me. Osaka's risk-taking will be put to the test in Yumeshima's next project — Japan's first casino, the $8.7 billion resort by MGM Resorts International and Orix. After Japan sought to legalize casinos in the 2010s, Osaka went all-in to host one. While support in other regions has dried up due to public concern over gambling addiction, its resort is set to open in 2030. Much of the infrastructure developed for the expo will end up being used for foreign casino visitors. It's ironic that for all the talk of the future, expo sites are largely temporary: The city has yet to decide what will become of the venue, with proposals including building a stadium, a racing circuit or even housing. For an event that has the slogan of "designing future society,' it lacks long-term planning. And like the expo, expect the casino to generate negativity as its opening approaches. But I suspect those voices will fade. Foreign money is flowing in and as a historic center of merchants, Osaka seems better able to handle the headaches of tourism, so long as money is changing hands. Formerly vacant parts of the city are flourishing and white-elephant projects that once lay dormant, like Yumeshima, are being given new leases of life. The expo might indeed be an artifact of a different age and I expect this will be the last Japan will see of it for a while. But it gives a reason to look to the future. And perhaps that's what we need right now. Gearoid Reidy is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Japan and the Koreas.
