Happy Birthday to Panama!

Singer-songwriter Björk, the best-known Icelandic musician. *Photo from Wikipedia Icelandic National Day, celebrates the independence of Iceland from Kingdom of Denmark in 1944. According to the ancient manuscript, the settlement of Iceland began in the year 874 AD when the Norwegian chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson became the first permanent settler on the island. In the following centuries, Norwegians, and to a lesser extent other Scandinavians, emigrated to Iceland, bringing with them thralls of Gaelic origin. The island was governed as an independent commonwealth under the “Althing”, one of the world’s oldest functioning legislative assemblies. Following a period of civil strife, Iceland

Interviewed & written by Isao Tokuhashi & Tomomi Tada Mail to: itokuhashi@myeyestokyo.com   Camila Furuhata (Colombia) Colombian cuisine instructor (She’s been in Japan since ’96) My Eyes Tokyo brings you interviews with teachers from Niki’s Kitchen. It’s a cooking school in which foreigners teach their homeland dishes to Japanese people. The 7th interviewee is Camila Furuhata from Colombia, who is gentle and has a brilliant smile just like an angel. We were the ones who got healed by her smile and couldn’t help asking her kiddingly, “Can we stay here and have dinner tonight?” Then she told me with a big

Women in Bulgarian traditional costumes. *Photo from Wikipedia September 22 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire in 1908. The emergence of a unified Bulgarian state dates back to the establishment of the First Bulgarian Empire in 681 AD, which dominated most of the Balkans and functioned as a cultural hub for Slavs during the Middle Ages. With the downfall of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1396, its territories came under Ottoman rule for nearly five centuries. The Russo-Turkish War (1877–78) led to the formation of the Third Bulgarian State. The Treaty of San Stefano