991105kizu

November 5: A guest from remote Asahikawa　　　by Mie

On May 8-9 in 1997, I joined an Internet meeting OROPPAS held in Sapporo together with Mr. Takemoto of Hype Network Society Research. We were invited to the opening ceremony of the municipal network plaza in which a welcome meeting was held by the members of Aurora Net. In the meeting, we met Mr. Takehisa Kizu who came out all the way from remote Asahikawa City.

He is not only an active member of Aurora Net but also a member of our COARA with ID 2438. This time, he made a business trip to attend a special meeting in Fukuoka, and after that he came to Oita. I welcomed him at JR Oita station. His first impression of Oita was "Washingtonian palm trees were new for me."

We took a lunch at a restaurant on the top of Oasis 21-tower building, featuring its grand view of whole Oita. The weather was so fine that we could see Beppu City or Kunisaki peninsula, our destination on tomorrow.

One of is purpose of coming to Oita was to visit COARA office without fail. Before visiting there, he dropped in a PC shop to get additional memory for his digital camera.

He was greatly welcomed by the office members at COARA. Mr. Takemoto explained new movements of COARA by showing pamphlets. He met Mr. Kizu at Sapporo. The meeting was soon upped on "COARA Insider."

Mr. Ono, General Secretariat of COARA and Mr. Fujino shared their busy time to spend a short pleasant time talking about the connection between Aurora Net and COARA. Mr. Ono said "Please enjoy our Oita by looking around and taking tasty dishes." Sure, we will do so tomorrow.

We then visited to my home in Fujimigaoka community in the western suburbs of Oita City. We could see over to the sea from a height.

We looked pictures just taken a moment ago and talked about Hokkaido island. As Mr. Kizu is in the same generation with my husband, they hit it off well together with each other.

We will have a welcome party with interest COARA members tonight. On the way to downtown Oita, we dropped in a stone Buddha of Motomachi. Magaibutsu - engraved Stone Buddha images on a precipice - is very popular here in Oita, but it looked like unusual to him.

Those stone Buddha images are supposed to dating back to late Heian era, 12th century. As they were engraved on a soft tuff, they tend to be weathered away in a long time. Recently, a large-scale preservation shelter was constructed like this. Local residents nearby occasionally clean the place carefully and dedicate flowers to keep the images.

Well, this is Japanese restaurant Hashimoto, the site of the welcome party. Mr. Tanaka soon showed up. He is a COARA member and a member of Aurora net as well. They are very familiar with each other through the web talking.

Mr. Kizu sent to Mr. Tanaka two bottles of special distilled sake "Icehouse Overnight Drops", carefully produced by Takasago distillery of Asahikawa. Unrefined sake raw material is put in a cloth bag and is hung down in an icehouse in the sub-zero temperature and saturated humidity. The essence of sake then drops down naturally overnight. As the special sake is very sensitive to the temperature, it was sent in an ice boxed air parcel then stocked in a refrigerator of the restaurant.

At seven in the evening, the welcome party started. Mr. Tomoda, Mr. Sasaki, both of them are active sake-lovers, kindly arranged the party to welcome Mr. Kizu who also loves sake very much. The party takes a style of sake "tasting" by 12 members in all.

Mr. Tsuda runs an unusual liquor shop "Tashibu-no-sho" in Kunisaki. He selected some wonderful sakes from his special list and brought them here. In a moment after a welcome few words, bottles of sake are busy to cross the tables. All the people are happy with nice sakes and wonderful dishes that match the Japanese sake. Mr. Mori, right, was happy to taste salmon roe seasoned with soy. He seems to have "opened" his taste to Japanese sake, saying, "This is it!" Ms. Sato who is a member of COARA in remote Hokkaido sent me another unusual fish called Toba, literally meaning "winter leaf", a kind of smoked salmon. The present also appealed very much to the sake lovers tonight.

Tasty sake bottles soon dried up, from left Mr. Ohshima, Mr. Sasaki, Mr. Tanaka. Left picture is the master of the restaurant Hashimoto. He has very sensitive tongue. He tries the "Icehouse Overnight Drops", what was the impression? "Well, this is very 'fine', as I have expected as a sake from Hokkaido."

At the end of the party, we took we-were-there pictures arranging empty bottles of special sake. From left: Mr. Tanaka, Mr. Tomoda, and Mr. Kizu. The bottles are from left: Touichi from Saga prefecture, Icehouse Overnight Drops from Asahikawa, Gikyou-Yu from Aichi, Grand-Ginjo Senbatsuru of Oita, and Senbatsuru of Oita.

Gentlemen, say cheese, don't watch the bottles! From left, standing: Mr. Matsumura, Mr. Mori, Mie, Mr. Yuuki, and Mr. Eto. Mr. Ohshima still tries to drink the last drop. Front, from left: Mr. Tanaka, Mr. Tomoda, and Mr. Kizu.

After the party was over happy friends still lingering around hating to say good-bye and go home. It was a really pleasant party. All the COARA members, except me, met Mr. Kizu for the first time, but as we have been talking over the net and share the same taste like PC or sake, we could momentarily become familiar with at the first sight. Web is a wonderful world, indeed.

Grill Hashimoto: 2-6-24 Chuou-machi (old Aioi-machi) Oita City, Call:097-536-4597