insights from frontier Japan

I’m aboard a dolphin-watching boat as it heads to Funka Bay from the port of Muroran in central Hokkaido. A pod of dolphins with dorsal fins protruding from the surface of the water, swims slowly by. Suddenly, two or three dolphins increase their speed and jump high out of the water. Summer is the mating season for Pacific white-sided dolphins, and males try to attract females with their jumps.

　Flower-like illuminations in the night sky were enjoyed by city residents through the windows of approximately 500 vehicles that almost filled a special venue adjacent to the Mitara Muroran Michi-no-Eki (roadside station), where a “Drive-in Muroran Fireworks Display” was held on the night of March 20. As infections from the Coronavirus continue, participants got together in a bid to restore some vigor to the region.

A strong bread flour made from Hokkaido wheat called "Powder Snow", blended by the Muroran flour shop "ALNATURIA", was selected in the powders category for the FY 2020 "Gourmet Grand Prize", which awards products that have garnered popularity on Japan's largest online shopping website "Rakuten Ichiba". This was their second consecutive year to win.

Mystical misty landscapes like the ones depicted in the film ‘Moruerani no kiri no naka’, which was set in Muroran in central Hokkaido, could be seen at places around Muroran on the morning of March 12. From the Mt. Sokuryo Observatory Deck, a sea of white clouds could be seen spanning the Hakucho Bridge beneath the blue sky, as sea mists flowed from the bay in line with the terrain.

“Hirogari”, a microsatellite jointly developed by Muroran Institute of Technology and Osaka Prefecture University was aboard a privately funded American rocket that was launched from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in the state of Virginia in southern USA at 2:36 a.m. Japanese time on February 21.

The annual New Year’s Japanese sword striking ceremony was held at the Zuisen Sword Forge in the Japan Steel Works M & E, Inc. Muroran plant on the 4th. Fifteen executives from the steel works were present at the ceremony in which prayers were offered for safe operations during the year, amid high-pitched metallic sounds.

The Hokkaido Welfare Education Vocational School in Muroran City established an "Advanced Japanese Language Education Course" for foreign students starting in October.