I am trying to find my dear friend that moved to Okinawa in August of 2008.

Her name is Misa Stroh, Miyagi.

My name is Susan Kaufman and I live in NY USA. 

Does anyone know of a Bonsai School or Shop on Okinawa? If you do contact Mike Golab at mikego6194@msn.com   I'm planning to visit Okinawa in November and would like to take a class or two..

Mike golab

It has been a lifelong dream to become an Okinawa Taxi Driver that tours english speaking people.  My time on Okinawa was wonderful and still have relatives that live there.  I only wish I had the means to set up a business that could share the beautiful sights, history and culture of Okinawa.  Folks who are interested please respond.

Bill

BEIJING (AP) -- Satoshi Ishii won Japan's fourth gold medal as the Olympic judo competition ended Friday, defeating Uzbekhistan's Abdullo Tangriev in the men's over 100-kilogram division.

Ishii, making his Olympic debut, went ahead on points and held on to the bell as Tangriev fought a defensive match and failed to mount any serious offensives.

Ishii took the lead with a koka point, and nearly ended it with 1 minute, 30 seconds left when he executed a swee [...]

BEIJING (AP) -- Tong Wen of China came through with a big throw in the closing seconds to defeat Maki Tsukada of Japan and take the women's over 78-kilogram gold on the final day of the Olympic judo competition Friday.

Tsukada, the Athens champion, took the lead two minutes into the bout with a leg sweep that sent Tong to the mat. Tong, a three-time world champion who has beaten Tsukada repeatedly, took a koka point to narrow the gap. With just 16 seconds left, Tong [...]

The government will consider presenting swimmer Kosuke Kitajima with the People's Honor Award for his tremendous achievement of winning two gold medals in two consecutive Olympic Games, the top government spokesman said on Friday.

"Kitajima's performances were outstanding. As other (Japanese) athletes are also striving hard right now, we should look at giving out the award after all the events are over (at the Beijing Olympics)," Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Mac [...]

Controversial visits to Yasukuni Shrine by former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi while he was in office have made it difficult for his successors to pay visits to the shrine, say observers.

The move has forced Nippon Izokukai, a major group for the bereaved families of the war dead, to reconsider its campaign to urge an incumbent prime minister to pay an official visit to the shrine each year on Aug. 15 -- the anniversary of Japan's defeat in World War II.

NAGASAKI -- Six high school "peace ambassadors" will travel to the United Nations Europe headquarters in Geneva to present the signatures of about 80,000 people calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Three high school students from Nagasaki Prefecture left Nagasaki on Friday and will join three others from other prefectures in Fukuoka, where they will leave for Geneva on Saturday.

The six high school students will be accompanied by Sakue Shimohira [...]

Banned beef filet has been found among a batch of pork bones that a Tokyo-based trading company imported from Sweden, the government has announced. The product was not distributed on the market.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has banned the import of all products from the Skara factory of Scan AB in Sweden, which shipped the beef filet to Japan.

The ministry has asked the Swedish government to find out the cause of the blunder.

KYOTO -- Red pine trees in a national forest that were damaged after being eaten by weevils will be used for the annual Great Bonfire here, organizers say.

Firewood for the bonfire has traditionally been secured from a forest owned by members of a nonprofit organization (NPO) that organizes the event.

However, the number of mature trees that are suitable for burning has been decreasing.

After learning of a shortage of firewood, the local office o [...]

As Japan melts under the scorching summer heat, more youngsters on the streets of Tokyo have been reaching for American frozen yogurt to help cool off.

A string of America's West Coast-based frozen yogurt stores have opened in Tokyo this year and have been gaining in popularity with young people.

Golden Spoon, a major frozen yogurt chain in America, opened its first store in Japan in front of the Tokyo Midtown shopping complex in Roppongi in March, followe [...]

JapaNavi, a new Internet shopping portal created by Japan Post Service Co. and China Post, is set for launch on Monday in a new drive to expand the market for Japanese products in China.

The shopping site -- the first endeavor of its kind by Japan Post Service, and part of a tie-up between the two companies inked in July 2007 -- will offer products from Japanese companies including department stores Daimaru and Mitsukoshi, gift company Sanrio and baby wear chain Aka [...]

It is 63 years since the summer when Hiroshima and Nagasaki became fields of atomic destruction. Nations with nuclear power still flex their muscles; nuclear disarmament is, at most, a very distant possibility. Domestically, there have been some legal victories in the struggle to win compensation for all atomic bomb survivors, but the reality remains that the state is not ready to offer relief to all who need it.

The hibakusha of today live with the fear that the ex [...]

BEIJING -- Gymnast Kohei Uchimura captured the silver medal in the men's individual combination at the Beijing Olympics on Thursday, becoming the first Japanese medalist in the event in 24 years.

Uchimura, 19, achieved the feat in his first ever Olympics following Koji Gushiken, gold medalist in the event at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984 and the current manager of the Japanese men's gymnastics team.

Although Uchimura fell twice during the pommel ho [...]

SAPPORO -- Seiji Aochi, a bronze medalist ski jumper and member of the "Rising Sun Air Squadron" -- a trio of Japanese athletes who dominated the podium in the ski jump event at the Sapporo Winter Olympics -- has died of gastric cancer. He was 66.

Born in the western Hokkaido city of Otaru in June 1942, Aochi attended Meiji University before joining Snow Brand Milk Products Co.

At the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, he won a bronze medal with a jump of 70 [...]

TOKYO (AP) -- Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group said Thursday that there is no immediate change to its plans to fully acquire UnionBanCal but it is willing to negotiate after the U.S. bank rejected its buyout offer.

The largest Japanese bank, also known as MUFG, offered earlier this week to buy the remaining shares it doesn't already own in San Francisco-based UnionBanCal Corp. in a planned tender offer worth an estimated US$3 billion.

"We are willing to enga [...]

BEIJING (AP) -- The silver medal around Kohei Uchimura's neck might seem misplaced to many Japanese. They likely expected that Hiroyuki Tomita, the team's top all-around gymnast, would be the countryman up on the Olympics podium.

Tomita, the 2005 world champion, finished fourth, while his teenage teammate with little international experience wound up second to China's Yang Wei.

Although the margin between Yang and 19-year-old Uchimura was the gymnastics eq [...]

BEIJING (AP) -- Japan crashed out of the gold-medal contention in judo on Thursday after a disastrous preliminary round, with Athens Olympic champion Keiji Suzuki and 2007 world silver medalist Sae Nakazawa both losing their first fights.

Suzuki, moving down to 100-kilograms for Beijing, was thrown to an ippon loss against Mongolia's Tuvshinbayar Naidan, who grabbed his legs, lifted him off the mat and drove him down to his back.

The loss was another huge [...]

Koishi Kimi (80) is a grand old man of the comedy world in Kansai. What many people don't know -- because he doesn't talk about it much -- is that he is a survivor of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. "I don't like to talk about the bomb. I feel guilty towards the people who died. It seems inexcusable that I'm still alive." So confided Koishi after finally acceding to our request for an interview following a year of persuasion. Sixty-three years after the atomic bomb and h [...]

Experts largely attribute fencer Yuki Ota's clinching of a silver medal at the Beijing Olympics to a 500-day training camp at new facilities.

The fact that an athlete in a minor event won a medal as a result of an intensive training program has provided inspiration as to ways to train athletes for other minor events, say experts.

"We asked (businesses) for donations to finance his training by promising to clinch a medal. I thought I wouldn't be able to go [...]