URAYASU, Chiba Prefecture After countless challenges and difficulties since its opening, Tokyo Disneyland recently celebrated its 40th anniversary here with its unchanging ideas of offering heartfelt hospitality and thorough safety measures.
OKUMA, Fukushima Prefecture New adults here had something to cheer about for a change Oct. 16 when this town that co-hosts the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant held its first Coming-of-Age ceremony since the 2011 disaster.
Luminous paint displays an emergency evacuation route in darkness in Yamada, Iwate Prefecture. (Wataru Sekita)
YAMADA, Iwate Prefecture Emergency stairways in this coastal town are now coated in a special luminous paint to help guide residents to safety even after dark if disaster strikes.
The luminous paint can glow for more than 12 hours once it has captured sufficient sunlight or fluorescence.
The paint is the brainchild of Iwate Prefecture residents Yasushi Anazawa and Kenichi Sasaki, who both have bitter memories of the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami disaster.
Anazawa, 66, is a former researcher with the Iwate Industrial Research Institute in Morioka and Sasaki, 58, is president of a paint company in Ichinoseki, both in the prefecture.