Belgium Beer Weekend ＠Hibiya Park: July 29, 2022

 

I visited Belgium Beer Weekend event held in Hibiya Park, central Tokyo.

The event started in Japan in 2010. It is held in several cities in Japan, including Tokyo, Osaka, Yokohama, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka and others. The plans were irregular in the last three years because of Covid-19 infections.

Hibiya Park is in the center of Tokyo. It is only one bloc from the Imperial Palace.

It is surrounded by skyscrapers.

Large lawn ground as well as fountains are in the park. (See the top photo)

There are also many trees.

Getting into the event space was strictly restricted to prevent the Covid-19 infection. Only checked persons are allowed to go in.

More than 200 thousand cases are found on July 23 throughout the nation. The number stays over 200 thousand. More than 40 thousand cases were found on July 28 in Tokyo.

No restriction orders have been issued so far in Tokyo. Still, people started to avoid having large-scale gatherings in closed places, such as restaurants and drinking bars.

People at the beer festival site are in the open space. It was not difficult to imagine that some of they were talking about Covid-19.

 

 

Summer Sky: July 24-27, 2022

Tokyo is in summer.

The rainy season ended in the late June, the earliest in Japan’s postwar history. Then, the weather changed drastically in Tokyo and other parts of Japan.

Extremely hot days continues in the early July; heavy rainy days repeated in the middle of the month; and hot summer days returned in the late July.

The sky was beautiful in the last few days.

Various clouds are seen.

It was observed on July 24.

The cloud was quite different on July 27. (See the top photo)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Upper house election: July 10, 2022

  

Japan had an upper-house (House of Councilors) election on July 10.

It was the second nationwide election under PM Fumio Kishida’s regime. Kishida took office in early October in 2021 and the lower-house election was held later in the month. 

There are many issues and challenges Japan is facing – international relations and security policies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, economic policies, Covid-19, support for people who have been hit by Covid, the policies to increase payment for workers, climate change and energy policies including nuclear polices and many others.

Discussions on such important (and heavy) issues have not held much in the election campaign period (from June 22 to July 9). One-way appeals by each party have been made everywhere in the country.

The upper house has 248 seats. Half of the seats are elected every 3 years. 148 seats (74 seats in every 3 years) are elected by constituencies and 100 (50 in every 3 years) are elected in the national proportional representation system.

 In Tokyo, more than 30 candidates ran for 6 seats this year.

 Their posters were on the public-built election- poster board. (see also the top photo)

There are more than 40 thousand polling stations throughout the country. This is one of them.

People looked at the posters before entering the polling station.

 Former PM Shizo Abe was assassinated on July 8 in Nara prefecture during his election campaign. It was the first assassination of former PM in Japan after the World War 2.

The ruling parties – LDP and its junior partner Komeito – had a big win in the election. It was the 8^th consecutive wins in the nationwide elections for the ruling parties since 2012.