Word: hokkaido
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Japanese worried about their country's direction, the depressed city of Yubari on the northern island of Hokkaido provides an ominous worst-case scenario. Once a thriving coal-mining town of 130,000, Yubari has shrunk to 13,000 people, with 40% of them 65 years old or over. In the 1980s and '90s town officials tried to stanch the economic decline by borrowing hundreds of millions to remake the city as a tourist destination, only to fail miserably-as Yubari's shuttered amusement park, melon museum and robot museum testify. After racking up over $500 million in debt-roughly...
Tatsuro Sasaya lives by Newton's Third Law of Motion. "If people go one way, I go the other way," he says, which might be the only explanation for his decision to move back to his economically depressed hometown of Yubari on Japan's cold northern island of Hokkaido. When the 49-year-old Sasaya was growing up here, it was a thriving city of over 100,000 people, most working in the coalmines scattered throughout the surrounding mountains. But by the time Sasaya had left for college in Tokyo, the mines were closing and many of the townsfolk...
...KILLED. Mitsuhiro Morita, 35, Japanese crab fisherman, after a Russian patrol boat opened fire on his vessel in disputed waters northeast of the Japanese island of Hokkaido; in the Sea of Okhotsk. Russian officials claimed the ship's captain had illegally crossed into Russian territory, while Japan called the act "unacceptable" and demanded immediate compensation and the release of the vessel's remaining crew, who are being held by Russian authorities. The shooting is rooted in a 150-year-old row over the strategic, resource-rich Kuril Islands, which are claimed by both countries...
...Japan's most progressive zoo is not in Tokyo or any other modern conurbation. It's in Asahikawa on the island of Hokkaido, a quiet northern city of 360,000. Since 1997, the Asahiyama Zoo, tel: (81-166) 361104, has renovated nearly half of its animal exhibits in delightfully creative ways, designed to benefit the inhabitants as much as the visitors. Zoo director Masao Kosuge installed a water tube for the spotted seals, gave the panthers rock ledges to nestle on, and lets the king penguins out of their enclosure for a daily (albeit supervised) stroll through the zoo grounds...
...Japan: Niseko Higashiyama Prince Hotel On Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost (and snowiest) island, Niseko boasts some of the world's best powder skiing, with three diverse ski areas?plenty to keep skiers busy for a full week. The hotel, a comfortable modern complex at the base of the slopes, offers six-day lodging and meal packages for $1,350, including lift passes but not transportation...