Diving in Miyako Island

It's a blue sky and warm weather, which I expected on Miyako Island, but the weather was not excellent at the time.

Miyako Island is one of the islands in Okinawa, which is located in southern Japan. It takes around 4 hours via Okinawa from Tokyo by airplane. When I arrived there on 21st March, it was cloudy and a strong wind was blowing. It seemed that the temperature was the same as Tokyo, therefore I was still wearing the thick coat which I was wearing in Tokyo.

On the next day, it was still cold and the strong wind was blowing, but we went to the diving point by small boat. It was rolling so much that I almost got seasick. Once I dived under the sea, I forgot the cold weather and the seasickness. There was a white shore and a beautiful view stretching out in front of me. I saw a small crab, sharks and anemone fishes around corals. Although it was a great view around me, I couldn't enjoy it very well because it was very difficult for me to keep neutral buoyancy. I'm a beginner diver and I couldn't stop near the corals without touching them to see fishes.

Miyako Island might not be one of the world-famous diving spots although it is well known in Japan. As it is famous for great geographical features, we can enjoy them every season. Please come to dive here. If you cannot dive, it has very beautiful places for snorkeling as well.

Think about a referendum in Crimea

96.77 % people chose to support absorption into Russia after a referendum in Crimea.  When I heard the news, I thought that it should be all right if the people indeed desired to be one of the Russian countries as the majority of people speak the Russian language. However, I had a sense of discomfort with the actions of the Ukraine, Russia, the US and the EU and I looked into the Crimea situation to increase my knowledge.

Crimea is located in the southern Ukraine on the Black Sea and the majority of people speak  the Russian language. 58% of Russians, 24% of Ukrainians, and about 12% of Crimean Tatals stay in this area. Crimea has a terrible history, but now the racial conflicts have died down. They tolerate the diversity of racial or religious cultural groups and those ethnic groups maintain good corporation. However, politicians in the Ukraine are hopelessly corrupt and the economy of Crimea is not healthy as the Ukraine government doesn't care about the region, therefore, the people in Crimea are eager for having fair and equitable politics and for promoting economic growth. At first, this referendum is for choosing "independence from the Ukraine or not", but inconspicuously, this changed to "absorption into Russia or not". After this referendum, Russia intervened in the Crimea in order to protect the Russian Crimeans. Russian President Putin insisted that Crimea choose Russia and Russia has a responsibility to protect the Russian Crimeans who live in this region. However, the real aim of President Putin seems to be to protect a Black Sea fleet and natural resources around the Black Sea, which is an important area for Russia.

In reality, Crimea depends on the Ukraine for the water service and electricity. It might be difficult to keep the supply if Russia forces its economic power on the Ukraine. According to some articles, the people in Crimea really seek fair politics and economic growth and they seem not to agree with belonging to Russia. Moreover, the result of the referendum won't be able to be reliable. The Crimean Tatals boycotted the vote and also the people who are against belonging to Russia didn't go to vote. The figure of 96.77% makes it hard to think that the vote was held democratically and that cannot be logical as around 40% of people are not Russian.

After looking into the Crimea situation, I've felt that there is a political calculation between the Ukraine, Russia, the US and the EU, and it will be difficult to solve problems sooner. However, I really hope that this matter will be solved peacefully .

References;

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/02/27/to-understand-crimea-take-a-look-back-at-its-complicated-history/

http://synodos.jp/international/7603/4
http://www.seojapan.com/blog/ukraine
http://synodos.jp/international/7337

Spring has come in Japan

Tokyo had the first strong south wind of this year on 18th March. This is a signal that spring has come. Japanese people feel that the cold winter will be finished and the spring season has begun and also it's the signal that it won't be long before the cherry blossom blooms as the south wind brings us nice warm days.  

Last year, the first south wind blew on 1st March and the cherry trees were in full blossom on around 23rd March in Tokyo, which was sooner than usual.

According to blossom forecasts, for this year, the cherry trees will be in full blossom on around 30th March in Tokyo, which is almost the same as usual.

A comfortable season has come as Japan is still having cold days, but spring might be an unpleasant season for people who are troubled by pollen allergies.

The uses of Black Soybean Tea

I realized that green tea might affect my sleep.

I love green tea and I have a strong cup of green tea after dinner every day. I didn't think that it had an impact on my sleep, as I have had one since childhood.However, green tea has as high a content of caffeine as coffee has. Judging from my experience, I'm not good at handling caffeine, because I cannot sleep well when I drink coffee after 3:00 pm. Therefore, it might be a possibility that the tea affects my sleep, and I have recently come to drink black soybean tea instead of green tea. Since I stated drinking it, I feel that I can wake up feeling good in the mornings.

Black soybean tea is made from roast soy beans and it has a good roasted fragrance. A black soy-bean is a type of bean, which has traditionally been regarded as a health and beauty food in Japan. It doesn't contain caffeine and the good effect is that it promotes the circulation of blood making it fluent and clean. You can not only have it as tea but also you eat the soybeans after brewing the tea. This still has a good ingredient for health which a soy-bean itself doesn't have.

Paralympics and Olympics

When I was watching the news about the opening ceremony for the Sochi Paralympics, I was surprised that the opening ceremony for the Olympics and Paralympics were held separately and I hadn’t noticed at all before. I was wondering why there are two opening ceremonies, and the Olympics and Paralympics have been held as separate events even though both of them are the same international sporting event. They should be all together, but this doesn’t mean that handicapped and non-handicapped people should compete against each other.

I was searching the Internet and I found some reasons for holding the events separately. Firstly, the organizers are different - International Olympic Committee for the Olympics and International Paralympic Committee for the Paralympics; therefore, each committee makes its arrangements separately. The second reason seems to be that there is no room for all of the athletes to stay. If those players stay together, they would need more housing. Also, there doesn’t seem to be enough space for practicing.

However, I really hope that those events will be held together. Many people, who are not interested in the Paralympics like me, will become more interested and support the athletes. If the space is limited, they could divide the games into two parts, for instance, for the winter Olympics, the first part could be held for skiing or snowboarding and the second part could be skating. If it's impossible for the opening or closing ceremonies to be held together, they could hold it twice for those players who participate in each game, instead of dividing the athletes who participate in the Olympics or Paralympics. The event will be more fun and exciting.

I hope that the Olympics and Paralympics will be unified as one event in the future. If possible, I hope it is done by the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.