The Emperor and the Empress made online visits to elementary and junior high schools in Kumamoto and Kagoshima prefectures on Wednesday, making up for visits to children's facilities that would ordinarily be scheduled around Children's Day on May 5.
During the sessions, the Imperial couple spoke remotely with eight students.
In a regular year, the couple will visit facilities for children in the Tokyo metropolitan area. But because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this time they remotely toured Takamori Chuo Elementary School in the town of Takamori, Kumamoto Prefecture, and Mishima Takeshima Gakuen, a combined elementary and junior high school in the village of Mishima on a remote island of Kagoshima Prefecture.
Speaking with students engaged in newspaper making, the Emperor and the Empress smiled as they asked such questions as whether the activities had changed the way the students read newspapers.
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