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 Rob Gilhooly

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Rob Gilhooly
Rob Gilhooly is an award-winning British photographer and writer whose work has appeared in publications around the globe, including the Guardian and New Scientist. He was formerly a staff writer at the Japan Times and has contributed as a freelance since 2002. In 2004, he obtained an MA in journalism. His website can be found at www.japanphotojournalist.com
JAPAN
Apr 3, 2011
Crews driven by sense of mission
There is nothing remarkable about the Nissan minibus that pulls up in the tsunami-wrecked port of Onahama, Fukushima Prefecture. Nothing, that is, except its 21 passengers, who have come to be seen as heroes around the world.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2011
Tsunami-hit towns face dire future
OSHIKA, Miyagi Pref. — Survivors of the March 11 magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami are expressing reservations about returning to their homes, raising the prospect of already depopulated communities turning into ghost towns.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 27, 2011
Survivors strive to start picking up the pieces
A teenage boy is walking along the muddy road holding a rusty shovel, on which is perched what appears to be a notebook.
Japan Times
JAPAN / WEEK 3
Mar 20, 2011
'Nothing can prepare you to witness this'
It's a relatively minor incident that gets me. I'm at a gymnasium in central Ishinomaki photographing members of Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) as they unload dozens of corpses from a truck. Each is wrapped in blankets, some with flowery designs far too cheerful for this occasion.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 22, 2011
German braumeister puts Otaru brewery on map
While Japan's major breweries continue to report flat beer sales amid an ailing economy, there is one Hokkaido-based beer maker that's brewing up a storm.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 5, 2010
Niseko's real estate boom: Bigger picture in sight for local development
For some it was a flash in the pan, at best an experiment destined to fail, at worst a mini-bubble hyper-inflated by greedy "outsiders" with little interest other than the type accumulating in the bank.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 20, 2010
Artists push their own snow festival
Among the intricately carved sculptures at the Sapporo Snow Festival this year, three Dutch artists and a polar bear could be seen luring passersby with ribbon-wrapped blocks of compacted snow in an attempt to promote an alternative festival that makes better use of the city's most prominent resource....
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
May 14, 2006
Home and away
AUSTRALIA Respect brings harmony without being workaholic
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 29, 2005
70, and still a catch
A man in a cap and Wellington boots is holding a glistening metal pick in one hand, a small lump of flesh in the other. And he's beckoning me over.
Japan Times
Features
Jun 26, 2005
What price is heritage?
Landmark one day, parking lot the next -- that is the fate that seems about to befall an early 20th-century stone building in the heart of historic Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture.
Japan Times
Features
May 29, 2005
Tragedy and miracles on the same wave
COLOMBO -- In Sri Lanka, it seems everyone has a tsunami story to tell. Wherever you go, from Jaffna in the north, Tricomalee in the east, Kalutara in the west and Hambantota in the south, people recount near-miraculous escapes and tragic, life-changing episodes.
Japan Times
Features
May 29, 2005
Aftershocks in Sri Lanka
HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka As the sun sets on another sultry Sri Lankan day, a small crowd gathers outside tent No. 68, home of Thuwan Rashid Kaseer and his three children. The 45-year-old carpenter is well known in the southern town of Hambantota for his fine, emotion-filled voice, and this evening his song...
Japan Times
Features
May 29, 2005
Japanese NGO in unique role
KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka -- Eight-year-old Koushigan Sivapalasundaram's day begins at 4:30 a.m.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 27, 2002
Finds 'rewrite history'
SIEM REAP, Cambodia -- The recent unearthing of hundreds of Buddha statues at a temple in Cambodia's famed Angkor region has forced scholars to reassess theories regarding the final years of the Angkor civilization.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2002
Who's winning the 'coca war'?
LA PAZ, Bolivia — On a hot December afternoon last year, 150 farmers in Chimore, a town in the Chapare region of central Bolivia, unloaded bananas and pineapples onto the Santa Cruz-Cochabamba highway. There was no market in sight and even if there was, the goods were not for sale. Rather, they were...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2002
A cup of green tea in the jungle
OKINAWA, Bolivia — Shiko Asato is glued to the TV set as NHK news shows the highlights from a recent sumo tournament. His wife Shizuko sets out cups of green tea, a plate of manju bean-paste buns and a couple of cans of nicely chilled Japanese beer. It has, after all, been a scorcher in the jungle....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2002
'Gringo mayor' does local politics his way
PORONGO, Bolivia — Mike Bennett came to Bolivia 18 years ago looking for gold. And he found it. But as he searched the nation for the precious metal, the 46-year-old geologist from Staffordshire, England, also uncovered other treasures — Spanish, which he speaks fluently, a farm, two hotels and a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 5, 2002
Celebrate football's field of dreams
It's twenty minutes before England's opening World Cup game at Saitama Stadium and I'm sitting almost directly behind the goal, sacred posts that I'm hoping Michael Owen will tune his gold-plated radar into the moment he walks onto the pitch.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 12, 2002
Are local tracks up against the odds?
There is little glamor at Kawasaki Racetrack. Under grubby baseball caps, cigarettes and pencil stubs are jammed behind the ears of tense punters. The odor of ramen wafts along the betting slip-littered corridors and stairways under the stands.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 28, 2002
Stars & strikes: a revolution from above
Just 18 months after surrendering in the Pacific War, more than 3 million people throughout Japan were preparing to bring the shattered, hungry nation to a standstill.

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