AHA MEDIA hopes to be able to welcome Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko of Japan to our area, the Vancouver Downtown Eastside ( DTES )

July 10, 2009 ahamedia Leave a comment Go to comments

During the upcoming ROYAL visit from Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko of Japan to our area, the Vancouver Downtown Eastside, we at AHA MEDIA will be hoping to be lucky and honored enough to be able to film and take photographs as we welcome the Royal couple to our neighborhood! 🙂

This will be a historical moment in time!! 🙂 What a great honor! 🙂

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Below is text from :

Rod Mickleburgh

Vancouver — From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail Last updated on Wednesday, Jul. 08, 2009 04:40PM EDT

It’s been a long time – if ever – since a prominent royal visited the city’s notorious Downtown Eastside, even in its former, more benign status as Skid Road.

But that’s where the 75-year-old Emperor of Japan and his 74-year-old wife will come calling during their three-day stop in Vancouver.

The rare royal foray into the area by a frail couple, from whom aides warn reporters to expect very, very slow movement, did not land on their agenda easily. It took weeks of intense, behind-the-scenes lobbying to overcome initial resistance to the idea of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko venturing through neighbourhoods few tourists see.

In the end, history won out. The streets of the Downtown Eastside were not always rife with the boarded-up businesses and daily horrors we see today. Once, this was the heart of Japantown, a thriving ethnic community every bit as significant as nearby Chinatown, before internment scattered the residents and delivered their businesses and possessions into the hands of others.

Please see the rest of the story at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/the-downtown-eastsides-royal-visitors/article1208588/