Japan’s Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako arrived at an airport in Belgium on Saturday after completing their official visit to the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
Following a musical band performance, the Imperial couple were welcomed by Princess Elisabeth, first in line to the Belgian throne, together with an honor guard.<\/p>\n
It was the first time Princess Elisabeth had taken part in the reception of state guests.<\/p>\n
The Imperial couple shook hands and exchanged words with the princess.<\/p>\n
The Emperor and Empress then departed for the Royal Castle of Ciergnon in the south, which the royal family uses as a retreat.<\/p>\n
Japan’s Imperial family and Belgium’s royal family have enjoyed close ties for many years.<\/p>\n
The Imperial couple will stay at the castle until Monday.<\/p>\n
They will attend a welcome ceremony as state guests at the square in front of the Royal Palace in Brussels on Tuesday, and a banquet hosted by King Philippe and Queen Mathilde in the evening.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the Emperor is scheduled to visit a university that received support from Japan after its library was destroyed during World War One.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan’s Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako arrived at an airport in Belgium on Saturday after completing their official…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[740,7,721,4252,5599,144,5598,5602,5603,5604,5601,833,5600,5605,1593,1165],"class_list":["post-22516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-asia","tag-belgium","tag-biz","tag-japan","tag-japan-broadcasting-corporation","tag-news","tag-nhk","tag-nhk-world","tag-nhk-world-premium","tag-nhk-world-tv","tag-nhkworld","tag-nuclear","tag-public-broadcaster","tag-radio-japan","tag-tech","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116783084163077596","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}