insights from frontier Japan

Companies and organizations in the Okhotsk region are rushing to respond to The Plastic Resource Circulation Act, which will be enforced in April and aims to reduce the use of disposable plastic products such as forks, spoons and toothbrushes.

The success of Japan's women's curling team at the Beijing Winter Olympics has boosted tax revenues for the team's hometown in Hokkaido, northernmost Japan.

On February 20, the final day of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, Japan (Loco Solare) won silver medal in the Women’s Curling after losing 3-10 to Great Britain in the final. Despite failing to win its first gold medal, the team surpassed the bronze medal it won at the previous Olympics in PyeongChang, recording Japan’s best-ever result in the history of both men's and women's curling.

Amidst the onset of the Okhotsk region drift ice season, on January 25 the town of Tokoro within Kitami City was one of the areas to receive an inflow of drift ice into its offshore area. At Tokoro Jonan Beach, drift ice covers the entire expanse.

A combination of cold air in the sky and radiational cooling due to lack of cloud cover on December 19 resulted in 15 of the 22 observation points in the Okhotsk region recording the lowest temperatures of the season. Minus 18.7 degrees was recorded in the town of Bihoro, while mid-winter temperature in line with average temperatures in late January and early February were also recorded throughout the region.

Messages of congratulations flooded in from locals on December 18, the day after Loco Solare, the women’s curling team from the city of Kitami, beat Korea in the first play-off match of the pre-Olympic qualification event for the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, to qualify for their second consecutive Olympics.

The LED lighting project entitled "'Go, Kitami!' White Illumination for Support" started on December 1 at a small park in front of Kitami Red Cross Hospital in Eastern Hokkaido's Okhotsk region. Magical lighting spans the entire park expanse, and passers-by are stopping to gaze at it.

Employees of the Japan Airlines (JAL) group helped with the harvesting of grapes and the wine-making process at the BOSS AGRI winery in the city of Kitami. The JAL group employees visited as volunteers, as they did last year, to contribute to the community and discover local resources. A total of 31 employees who work at Memanbetsu and Haneda airports, participated for four days in October. During this time, six international-route ground staff from Haneda visited the winery to harvest ‘Kiyomai’ grapes and experience manual de-stemming work, which involves rubbing the grapes on metal nets to remove the stems from the bunches.

A blue and orange mosaic appeared in a field in the Kitami region, which boasts the largest onion production quantity in Japan. The color layout of that mosaic in the shape of a perfect square looks just like a QR code. The objects making up the mosaic are iron shipping storage units filled with approximately 1.3 tons of onions. Each unit is 120 centimeters long, 180 centimeters wide, and 130 centimeters tall. To preserve the dry conditions after harvest, they have been covered with two colors of water-resistant tarps.