March 4, 2001: Internet coffee shop in Saeki City |
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Today, I will visit Saeki City together with my Internet friends. The cold wind blows from the west as was forecasted. I viewed Mt, Yufu from the bridge on my way to Bungo Kokubu railroad station. The mountain is hidden behind thick snow cloud, however. |
| Unexpectedly, I found a lot of horsetail shoots in the sunny spot on the riverbank. I was delighted because it has long been colder than usual this year. |  |
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I may be dyed yellow by the rape blossoms in the field. |
| Just twenty walk from home leads me to JR Bungo Kokubu station. There was a branch shrine of Bungo County in old days. Today, we have a municipal historical museum here. |  |
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A large building beyond the green shooting of wheat field stands still in the cold air. |
| A fairy-tale-like small yellow train arrived at the station. I will get on the train and head to Oita station to see my friends. |  |
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I met seven friends at Oita station and got on an express Sonic bound south. In the train, we pleasantly chatted over many topics like Internet, personal computer, and World Soccer game to be held in 2002 here in Oita City. |
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| We arrived at Saeki station and were welcomed by Mr. Inoue who drove down from nearby Usuki City. He is one of my Internet friends as well. Today, we met in order to discuss how we could boost up our community by using the Internet. From left, my husband Ken, Inoue, and Suyama. | |
| We will meet a group who is making efforts for revitalizing the community through the net. Mr. Inoue is one of the active members of the group. He will lead us to an Internet coffee shop called B-Town. |
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| The shop is a kind of integrated facility that serves for many kinds of computer works. Mr. Oda, left, is the representative of the shop. His pen name is Hayato Misumi. He runs the shop named Les Pilles that rents a booth 300 yen an hour with full use of the Internet. Mr. Kira, center in the right picture, explains the shop to Nakamura (left) from Oita. | |
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| This is a rental booth. On the wall are many books and documents open to the visitors. | |
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| Macintosh "museum" on left and the server room on the right. All the computers are Mac here. | |
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| Mr. Masui (right picture), the representative of the building enthusiastically talked his dream that stimulated us so much. Mr. Mori, Yamasaki, and Ms. Murakami discussed over many items with Mr. Masui. | |
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after the informative meeting, we then headed to Nishiki sushi bar near Saeki station. |
| The sushi bar features its huge and tasty materials on the rice ball. |  |
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all are happy with jumbo material sushi. |
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| Mr. Inoue struggles with a huge sushi. The size of fish meet is so large that requests repeated bites. Compare the size of egg sushi with a cigarette pack. The size of rice ball is normal as seen on the side. Two "plates" of egg sushi were share by eight people. Each of them was still enough to enjoy. | |
| after the lunch, we continued discussion over the aroma of coffee in a near by hotel. In the back train to Oita, we talked much about NPO or creating a homepage and so on. I have had a wonderful day today. Cold rain started to fall and it turned to snow in the evening. |
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| Report by Inoue | |