The Many Splendors of Amami Oshima | Food & Travel | Trends in Japan | Web Japan
Close Kinsakubaru virgin forest. (C)Amami City

The Many Splendors of Amami Oshima | Food & Travel | Trends in Japan | Web Japan
Close Keihan. (C)Amami City

The Many Splendors of Amami Oshima | Food & Travel | Trends in Japan | Web Japan
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The Many Splendors of Amami Oshima | Food & Travel | Trends in Japan | Web Japan
Close Amami Oshima is surrounded by beautiful blue ocean. (C)Amami City

Snowball Fights - What's Cool - Kids Web Japan - Web Japan
Kids who live in cold places have always enjoyed making snowballs and having snowball fights (yuki-gassen in Japanese). Recently, rules for snowball fighting have been drawn up, and people are having snowball fights as a kind of team sport. In this sport, players throw snowballs at their opponents and try to capture their flag.

Little League - Monthly News - Archives - Kids Web Japan - Web Japan
Japan's Tokyo Kitasuna Little League beat America's Apopka National Little League (from Apopka, Florida) to win the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania on August 26. This was the fifth Japanese team to win the World Series.

Poetry - Monthly News - Archives - Kids Web Japan - Web Japan
On May 26, 17-year-old Mariko Wakabayashi of Yokkaichi High School, Mie Prefecture, became Japan's first Poetry Boxing Lightweight Champion.

Thumb Sumo - Monthly News - Archives - Kids Web Japan - Web Japan
Wanna beat adults and become a champion? Then you should become a thumb-sumo wrestler! Thumb sumo is just like real sumo, except that it’s played with just the thumbs.

Performance - Monthly News - Archives - Kids Web Japan - Web Japan
Exactly five months after the end of the soccer World Cup, which was hosted jointly by Japan and South Korea, another World Cup was held in Japan: the Daidogei World Cup in Shizuoka 2002 (Daidogei means "street performance" in Japanese). This World Cup brought together 123 competitors from 15 countries around the world. Instead of soccer players, they were made up of 77 teams of street entertainers, including jugglers, magicians, acrobats, and mime artists.

Skating - Monthly News - Archives - Kids Web Japan - Web Japan
Young Japanese skaters are raising the global standards for women's figure skating techniques, and at the same time raising Japan's hopes of winning a gold medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics to be held in Torino, Italy.

Shogi - Monthly News - Archives - Kids Web Japan - Web Japan
This news article features Ito Sae, a Japanese elementary school student who is training to be a professional shogi player. Shogi is a board game resembling chess. The article looks at the long road of practice and competition that lies ahead for Sae as she seeks to become the first female shogi player ever to gain entry to the professional ranks.

Horie - Monthly News - Archives - Kids Web Japan - Web Japan
Adventurer Ken'ichi Horie completed the first-ever solar-powered solo voyage across the Pacific Ocean on August 5, 1996, after 138 days at sea. The 57-year-old yachtsman arrived in Tokyo after sailing 16,000 kilometers (10,000 miles) from Ecuador in South America in a boat named Malt's Mermaid.

Tournament - Monthly News - Archives - Kids Web Japan - Web Japan
Robots from Australia, Japan, the United States, and seven other countries competed in Robo Cup 97, the first international soccer contest for robots, in late August in the city of Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture.

Rally - Monthly News - Archives - Kids Web Japan - Web Japan
Japanese driver Kenjiro Shinozuka won the nineteenth Dakar Rally when he and his co-driver Henri Magne crossed the finish line in first place on January 19. The race began in Dakar, Senegal, took drivers through sub-Saharan Niger, Mali, and Mauritania, and finished back in the West African state's capital.

Olympics - Monthly News - Archives - Kids Web Japan - Web Japan
With the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano coming up in February next year, many Olympic-related events are being held in the prefecture.

Olympic - Monthly News - Archives - Kids Web Japan - Web Japan
Women's soccer became an official Olympic sport at the Atlanta Games. To foster female soccer stars in Japan, the first national tournament for young female soccer players was held in March in Shizuoka Prefecture.

Football - Monthly News - Archives - Kids Web Japan - Web Japan
Spring and summer vacations are special times for school kids in the cities of Shimizu in Japan and Sungnam in South Korea--and not just because they don't have any school. Those are the times when teams of youngsters from the two cities play football (soccer) against each other to promote friendly ties and to improve the skills of the players.

Soccer - Monthly News - Archives - Kids Web Japan - Web Japan
In an effort to promote friendship among young soccer players in Japan and South Korea prior to the 2002 World Cup, which the two countries will be cohosting, a junior soccer meet was held in a suburb of Seoul, South Korea, on March 27 and 28.

Under-20 - Monthly News - Archives - Kids Web Japan - Web Japan
Japan's national team of soccer players under 20 years old turned in a surprisingly strong performance in April by capturing the silver medal in the World Youth Championship soccer tournament held in Lagos, Nigeria. This was the highest finish ever for Japan in any international-level soccer tournament.

Sydney - Monthly News - Archives - Kids Web Japan - Web Japan
Schools in the Australian state of New South Wales are each choosing one foreign country to make an in-depth study of and to root for during the Olympic Games in Sydney in September 2000. This is based on the successful "one school, nation" program held for the Olympic Winter Games in Nagano 1998, where each local school learned about and supported country.