UNite to Combat Climate Change - Ride Japan

 Latest Updates

March, 2010

Sho and I spoke at an event at the Consul-General of Japan's residence in NYC.  In a ceremony called kagamiwari, we used wooden mallets to break open a barrel of sake with the Ambassador.  Sho also won the grand prize drawing of a free business class ticket to Tokyo!  He was very excited!  Here is a picture.  The man with the envelope is the Executive Director of the Japan National Tourism Organization's (JNTO) NYC office.  He helped us plan the trip last year, and Sho & I spent the night at his parents' house in central Japan on our ride.  The women in kimonos work for JNTO.  The man to the right laughing is the Ambassador, and the little girl is a friend Sho made at the event.  Sho said that he will let me serve him orange juice while he sits in business class luxury...

February, 2010

The Japan National Tourism Organization started to publish a serialized account of the bike ride.  You can read it at: http://www.japantravelinfo.com/blog?p=1114

November 12, 2009

Sho and I gave a 30-minute presentation to about 500 elementary school students at the United Nations International School.  We talked about the UN's Billion Tree Campaign, read comments we received before the ride from people concerned about our well-being (and sanity), showed pictures of the food we ate and random places we slept, described how Sho defeated a sumo wrestler, flashed up press clippings about our ride from around the world, and shared some of Sho's "deep thoughts" that he came up with while biking 5 - 7 hours each day.  My favorite: "Why are bugs attracted to light, if it usually kills them?"  Hmmm...  The key take-away from our talk: "A kid can do a whole lot more than many people think!"  So, what are you waiting for?  Go out and create your own adventure!

September, 2009

On Tuesday, Sep 1, 2009, Sho and I took a bullet train from Kagoshima to Tokyo.  We were interviewed during the train ride by a journalist from the Yomiuri Newspaper, then were reunited with my wife, Eiko, and daughter, Saya, in Tokyo.  Here are pictures:

  

June 11, 2009:

Sho and I spoke at a World Environment Day celebration at the United Nations International School, sponsored by the UN Environment Programme.  Here's a 7-minute video from the event:

May 21, 2009:

Another way to support our ride is to make online purchases for items you want through the page we just created on SmartRaise.  Click here:

UNite to Combat Climate Change - Ride Japan SmartRaise Page

SmartRaise is a network of over 300 online stores that will donate a percentage of your purchases to our ride's tree-planting campaign.  

May 12, 2009: 

We created a flier to promote the ride.

May 5, 2009: Climate Heroes

The United Nations Environment Programme named us "Climate Heroes" for our efforts to use this ride to promote action on climate change and raise funds for the UN's tree planting campaign. See our profile at: UNEP Climate Heroes

April 28, 2009: Twitter

We started posting updates at www.twitter.com/japanbikeride.  Sign up to follow our Tweets!