110627

Japan's Hiraizumi decided as World Heritage site

Kyodo

The Buddhist temples and landscape in the ancient town of Hiraizumi, Iwate Prefecture, in northeastern Japan, have won approval as a World Heritage cultural site at an ongoing UNESCO meeting in Paris, Japanese government officials said Saturday. Hiraizumi becomes Japan's 12th World Heritage cultural site, according to the decision by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's World Heritage Committee, and follows endorsement of the Ogasawara island chain in the Pacific south of Tokyo as the country's fourth natural heritage site. (Kyodo)

Tokyo, old and new

Japan Times

The bridge at Nihonbashi, a symbol of old Tokyo, has had a hard time in the modern age. A bridge was first built there in 1603, the first year of the shogunate in Edo, and the present stone bridge in the Meiji Era, in 1911. Still bearing the marks of the wartime firebombing of Tokyo by American forces in 1945, it is overshadowed by an expressway built directly overhead for the Tokyo Olympics of 1964 and by later high-rise buildings. In April, the 100th anniversary of the bridge was lost in the aftermath of the March 11 disaster. The new symbol of Tokyo, the Sky Tree tower, seems to be faring better. Although suffering a delay of two months due to disaster-related shortages, it will open not too long after schedule, in May of next year. (Japan Times)