Largest giant salamander, 100, dies

The Japan Times reported that the largest giant salamander had died at the hot spring resort at Yubara in Maniwa. It died at the age of over 100 years old, said the local officials. This enormouse amphibian had been displayed to the public in 1971 at the giant salamander center in town. The local officials said that it probably died of old age. The estimate length of this salamander is approximately 1.6 meters and was said to weight about 60kg, however, some experts doubt that.

Osaka's Shinsaibashi to host Uniqlo's first flagship store in Japan

Regarding to The Japan Times, Fast Retailing Co., the company who runs the popular clothing Uniqlo, will open its first domestic flagship on October 1 at Osaka's Shinsaibashi district. Also, there are opening it at London, New York, Paris, and Shanghai. This Shinsaibashi outlet will provide the full range of clothing for women, men, and babies together with shoes and some other fashion items.

HMV Japan set to close flagship store in Tokyo

According to Breitbart, the news reported on August 22, Tokyo will close its flagship music store(HMV) on Sunday night at the well-known commercial district called Shibuya. The company suggested that it's shutting down for the reason that many customers are downloading music from the internet in the stage where it causes the store to fell on bad times. Regarding to the Recording Industry of Japan, the production volume of CDs reached its peak in 1998 which is 587.8 billion yen and it decrease since then.

Number of visitors to Tokyo Disneyland, DisneySea hits 500 million

In Chiba (Kyodo), the number of the visitors to Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea hit 500 nillion Friday. Megumi Soma, a 38 year old housewife who went through the entrance gate of the Disneyland at 10:21 a.m. with her family, was the lucky 500 millionth visitor. She received gifts such as a five year passport calid for both parks and a hotal voucher for five night at the Disney Ambassador Hotel. At the main entrancem she receiving the gifts and a flower bouquet . She said, "I was very surprise but I'm ectramely happy. I want to visit the amusement parks as much asz posiible with my family."

Japan's long season in the pink

The cold weather is continued into the late April 2010, the Cherry Blossom front. The progress of peak cherry blossom season is up in the Japan, has been un predictable this year. The Japan Meterological Agency had forecast the warm spring weather in late MArch would promote the flowering of cherry trees. However, the low temperatures came back in early Apirl and delayed the blossoms' peak nationwide. This year the flowers that usually fall after week of warm spring weather, stayed on the treea for over twice taht long.

Beauty and the heat make for scorching Aizu Tajima Gion Festival

Accordding to The Mainichi Daily News, Minamiaizu, Fukushima -- On July 23, some 100 participants, including to the 30 women dressed in colorful wedding kimono, marhed about 300 meters along a street in Minamiaizu for half an hour under the heat for praying a good luck and good harvests. This fastval has been more than 800 years of tradition, is designeted by the Japanese government as a significnt intangible fol cultural asset.

Gov't moves to include North Korean schools in Japan in subsidy program

Accrodding to The Mainichi Daily News, The goverment is taking step to include North Korean schools in Japan in its subsidy program fot high school education, it has been learned. The Minisyru of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology plans to think about the 10 pro-Pyongyang high school in Japan to decide whether to include then in the nation's free-tuition and subsidy program for senior high school students. Currently, some 1,800 students are attending North Korean high schools in the country. Those are all expected to meet the goverment's requirements for the subsidy program to recive from 118,800 yen to 237,600 yen per student per year, depends on their parents' income.