Transcript Document

Facts & Figures
Total area:
377,835 sq km - this ranks Japan 61st in the world in terms of total area.
Border countries:
Japan is an island with no land border countries. The nearest countries to
Japan are North Korea, South Korea, China and Russia. Population:
127,214,499 (July 2003 est.). This makes Japan the 9th most populated country
in the world.
Religion:
The two most popular religions in Japan are Shinto and Buddhism.
Shinto is the original religion of Japanese people and teaches a great respect
for nature. Shinto honours the sacred spirits of earth and heaven called Kami.
There is no founder of Shinto, nor are there sacred scriptures.
Buddhism (which originated in India) was brought to Japan in the 6th Century.
Buddhism focuses on reincarnation and the belief that all actions have an
impact on future lives.
States & Territories
Japan is made up of a thousand islands, most of which are incredibly small.
The vast majority of the population live on one of the 4 largest islands:
Hokkaido, Honshu (where most people live), Shikoku, and Kyushu. (For more
information on Geography, click here) Insert Link.
Japan is divided into 47 prefectures
Aichi, Akita, Aomori, Chiba, Ehime, Fukui, Fukuoka, Fukushima, Gifu, Gumma,
Hiroshima, Hokkaido, Hyogo, Ibaraki, Ishikawa, Iwate, Kagawa, Kagoshima,
Kanagawa, Kochi, Kumamoto, Kyoto, Mie, Miyagi, Miyazaki, Nagano,
Nagasaki, Nara, Niigata, Oita, Okayama, Okinawa, Osaka, Saga, Saitama,
Shiga, Shimane, Shizuoka, Tochigi, Tokushima, Tokyo, Tottori, Toyama,
Wakayama, Yamagata, Yamaguchi, Yamanashi
The major agricultural products include:
Rice, sugar beets, vegetables, fruit; pork, poultry, dairy products, eggs; fish
Japan 2005
Tokyo (東京,) literally, "eastern capital") is de facto capital of Japan
and home to the Japanese government and emperor. It is also the
nation's most populous urban area (12 million people, or about 10
percent of the country's population, live in the Tokyo metropolitan
area) and one of 47 prefectures of Japan.
Informally considered one of the major cities of the world, Tokyo has
over 8 million people living within its 23 wards, and during the
daytime, the population swells by over 2.5 million as workers and
students commute from adjacent areas. This effect is even more
pronounced in the three central wards of Chiyoda, Chuo, and Minato,
whose collective population is less than 300,000 at night, but over 2
million during the day.
Under Japanese law, Tokyo is designated as a "metropolis" rather
than a city, and its administrative structure is similar to that of
Japan's other prefectures. It consists of 23 special wards which once
comprised the city of Tokyo but are now self-governing
municipalities, as well as 26 cities , 5 towns, and 8 villages, each of
which has a local government. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government
is headed by a publicly-elected governor and metropolitan assembly,
located in the ward of Shinjuku.
Kyūshū (九州) is the third largest island of Japan
and most southerly and westerly of the four main
islands. An ancient name for Kyushu is Saikaido. It
is considered the birthplace of Japanese
civilization.
Population: 13.44 million (1995). Area: 35,640 km².
The island is mountainous, and Japan's largest
active volcano, Aso at 1592m, is on Kyushu. There
are many other signs of tectonic activity, including
numerous areas of hot springs. The most famous
of these are in Beppu, in the North East, and Aso,
in central Kyushu.
The Kyushu region includes the seven prefectures
on Kyushu - Fukuoka, Kagoshima, Kumamoto,
Miyazaki, Nagasaki, Oita, and Saga - together with
outlying Okinawa. The major city on the island is
Fukuoka - a port and major centre for heavy
industry. Kitakyushu and Omuta are also industrial
centres. Nagasaki is the main port.
Parts of Kyushu have a subtropical climate,
particularly the Miyazaki and Kagoshima regions.
Major agricultural products are rice, tea, tobacco,
sweet potatoes, and soy; silk is also widely
produced. The island is noted for various types of
porcelain e.g. Arita, Agano, Satsuma and Hizen.
Heavy industry is concentrated in the north around
Kitakyushu and Oita and includes chemicals and
metal processing.
The name Kyushu literally means nine (九)
provinces (州) and gets its meaning from the nine
ancient provinces that once made up the island.
These were Chikuzen, Chikugo, Hizen, Higo,
Buzen, Bungo, Hyuga, Satsuma, and Osumi. The
central government, behind the Meiji Emperor, in
1871 abolished this and the feudal system of
government and established prefectures (Haihan
Chiken) in their place.
Kyushu has many large cities - the largest of which is
Fukuoka, Japan's eighth largest city. Following it is
Kitakyushu, Japan's ninth most populous city, and also
Nagasaki, the second site of the atomic bomb which closed
World War II in 1945.
Money
Some of the older
Japanese money was
as large as you thumb
The Japanese money is called yen. At the time I was in
Japan the exchange rate was 1.08 per us dollar making the
rate easy to understand it came out about the same as our
rate with tax already added in
Beef in
Japan can
be very
expensive
and we ate
with spoons
and knives
but did not
have forks
Japanese Food
I wanted to cook a meal for my Japanese family at each
location so we picked out some packaged meals that would
have some American appeal and pack easily without
taking up to much room
Me and my host mother enjoyed eating
ice cream in a wide range of flavors
F
a
m
i
l
y
For the first 3
weeks I spent
in Tokyo at a
Nihongo class
learning to
speak and
write some of
the language
Nihongo
We had to go out into the public
and practice our Japanese
Labo Parties were at least once a
week . There was also a Labo camp
and a 2 day weekend Labo party.
At the Labo parties I had pins and food favors to give out. I also
showed them how to make macrame bracelets
I went to
Kokura
Castle on
one of the
sight seeing
trips in
Fukuoka
I also got to to to Space World and
Tokyo Disney Land
We went to a museum that showed the
history and life style of the early Japanese
culture
Interesting places in Japan
I also went to many parks and shrines
“Fukuoka Tower” was one of the locations we went to.
You could see forever.
While In Tokyo we went to the government
building and went up to the 54th. floor.
Things looked very small from up there
The buildings were all around and
the sky was always hazy
A lot of the transportation was by train but there were a lot of bicycles as well
This is the airplane we took
and returned on, it is a 777
I flew on 3 different airplanes,
each one was bigger than the
other and each trip was longer
than the other as well