Earthquake and hometown

Earthquake and hometown

Hi, how are you doing?

I stay in Oita in Kyushu Island in Japan now. Oita is my hometown.

I came back to Oita City from Jakarta last Tuesday.

As you may know, big earthquake hit Kumamoto area near Oita.

Some may not know the location. Oita is in south east island and one and half hour flight from Tokyo.

Map shows the places.

Big earthquake happened twice on 14^th and 16^th April.

Magnitudes were 6.5M and 7.3M, respectively. Because of this big earthquake, there are many damages around Kumamoto and Oita area. Bridge fell down, crack in the road, famous castle damaged and many houses also got damaged….News said today 67,000 refugees stay at public shelters or cars even after one week has passed since earthquake occurred. Also, they said tourists cancelled travel to Kyushu.

Yes, there are still some second earthquakes but it is getting less and less now.

Now I and all people in Kyushu hope earthquake will stop and back to normal daily life soon. What I can do for this is very limited but I just want to inform current situation to people reading this web site and introduce the place I stay now so that many tourists will visit my hometown after this earthquake stops. That will encourage these areas to revive from this disaster since one of the main industries here is tourism.

Incredible points in Oita

I have lived in Oita until 18 years old and sometimes I visit my home now. I can point out lots of great spot and foods here. Here are incredible three points in Oita

① Nature

Oita is surrounded by sea and mountains. You can see beautiful and incredible scene here like these.

Also, there are many natural hot springs. This is my favorite place. Hot spring outside with mountain views.
Beppu and Yufuin are famous for hot spring resorts. 

② Food

There are fresh and tasty foods here.

Fish, beef, chicken, mushrooms and so on.

This is fish I had today. It’s so fresh and still living.

③ Shy but kind people

People in Oita are very shy and not talkative especially to stranger. But once you can get acquainted with people here, they are very friendly and kind to you. Please talk with them when you come here. At first they may not talk with you for long time but with only a few words. But if you are in trouble or something, they will help you at any cost.

At the end of this post I want to introduce movie made by university students in Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU). APU is in Beppu city in Oita. It is very famous and unique university. They welcome about 3,000 students from more than 50 countries. 50% of students are from overseas. Japanese companies are recruiting these students because alumni here can speak Japanese and understand Japanese culture. This movie is made by students in APU. The theme is “promoting Oita”. I watched this again and again because the quality is nice and their taste (from non Japanese perspective) is interesting for me. To add, I can feel their love to Oita. Every time I watch this I am filled with heart warming feeling.

How was this post about earthquake and hometown?

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