Japanese December 8, 2003: Maruyama Highland in Yabe town
	About 5:40 a.m. the moon still shines in the pitch black sky.
I caught the first bus service to downtown Oita. This is the waiting room of the bus stop. The time is still a little bit past six in the morning. A cup of hot coffee relieved me.
	The waiting room was opened recently. It looks good like this. I wait for the bus by reading books at the counter.
The bus for Kumamoto city starts at seven from Oita. The daybreak was on Ohno River Bridge. On the way to Kumamoto, one of my close friends of Oita GOF joined me.
	We arrived at Kumamoto and the members of Kumamoto branch take us to the destination by car. The car runs along Gohzu Lake famous for the rest place of wild birds in winter.
At Mifune IC, we joined other members from Fukuoka. Total seven people headed to Maruyama Highland.
	The observation deck of the park was really good to view around.
In the coldness of the Highland, such high frost columns grow out from the soil. The height will be 6-7 centimeters. It is very cold today.
	The wild landscape of the park. The cottage in the distance stands on "Klein Garten." The facility was designed to enjoy weekend gardening and community exchange by touching the life of plants and field.
This is the "Circle Park." The pass is paved with 1000 short logs of Japanese cypress. Lavender, azalea, and other flowers are planted around the cottage.
	The symbol tree is a Keyaki, a Japanese tree of the genus Zelkova. It will make cool shade in summer. It is very good to walk on the circle pavement by bare feet. The park was designed after European garden to cure Alzheimer’s patients by the combination concept of medicine and gardening.
We arrived at today's destination, "Love Community." The house was moved from a village in the mountain. It is repaired and maintained little by little.
	The seedlings of Lavender to be planted in coming spring.
We borrowed the kitchen and prepared lunch.
	Soon, the table was filled wonderful dishes like this.
We will borrow the house next summer to open an event for kids. We-were-there-picture at the entrance of the house.
	The view from the house is wonderful as well.
We were guided to Yabe town famous for stone canal called Tsujun made in Edo era. The irrigation water will be dropped down from the center to clean the canal.
	There are 48 falls in Yabe town, they say.
A big monument stands in front of a spa. It will be used in summer festival.
	We returned back to Kumamoto and caught a bus to Oita. The bare branches of gingko trees at Kumamoto Prefecture.
We arrived illuminated Oita late in the night. I made a big pleasant trip today.