Thu. 1 May 1997

Today, we have had a guest, Mr. Don Plym from Arizona, U.S. Two years ago, he accessed my home page on the web and kindly sent me e-mail. Since then, we have become very close friends. He loves Japan very much and this is his third visit to my house. This evening, I prepared a dinner of vegetarian dishes consisting mainly of vegetables and tofu. After dinner, he kindly showed me some beautiful pictures of Arizona.

Tue. 6 May 1997

Mr. Don Plym, the guest from Arizona, is to leave today. We have enjoyed much with him. On the 2nd, we visited my husband's friend Mr. Oda. In last autumn, we attended a Japanese flute concert which fascinated Mr. Don was so deeply moved that he wanted to learn to play it. The Odas welcomed us with a beautiful Japanese flute he specially hand crafted for the guest from abroad. Mr. Don was really happy to be presented the flute. O the third, we went to Hakata to see a famous festival called "Dontaku", the biggest festival in Japan. We saw many pleasant parades of dancing teams at the gallery. Kimono costumes and Japanese traditional entertainment seemed very pleasant to the eyes of the foreign friend. On the 4th, we enjoyed chatting with our common friends the Miyases in the afternoon and the Uchidas in the evening. I deeply thanked Mr. Miyase who adjusted my troubled computer. O the 5th, we went to Oga herb garden in which I am now involved for preparation. Mr. Don was very pleased surrounded with his favorite herb plants. We went down to the private beach of the garden to enjoy walking on the shore by gathering the pretty shells of the clam. We came home with handful of herbs. In the evening, Mr. Don opened a cooking class. He taught me how to cook zucchini and pea dishes. They were very delicious. And this morning, we had to say good bye. My husband and I saw him off at a small local railroad station saying please come back again.

Thu. 8 May 1997

I was invited to the opening ceremony and following events of Sapporo network plaza "Oroppas." I attended them with Mr. Takemoto of Hyper Network Society Research. In Sapporo, trees have just started to shoot green leaves and the cherry blossoms was really beautiful, but it was very cold. I headed to the hall directly from Chitose airport to attend the commemorative speech. In the evening, a party was held to exchange with many attendants to get acquainted each other.

Fri. 9 May 1997

The opening forum of Sapporo Network Plaza "OROPPAS" was held today. I joined the panel discussion(part one: citizen community) titled "The network from the view point of women." All other panelists were of local residents such as Ms. Kudo who make business on the web, Ms. Tomiyama who makes important of mental problem, Ms. Shindo who eagerly try to make friends in her midst of children raising, and Ms. Nakamura who manages the web page of a group to support the children suffering from the heart disease. All of them have their own words to talk about themselves. Part two was business community in which Mr. Takemoto's attended. I took the video film of it for the video-on-demand program of COARA. After the meeting, we joined a pleasant exchange party with familiar members of Aurora Net in NN Union.

Sun. 11 May 1997

After all big works were over, I could make a small trip to Otaru by alone in my free time. I also had a delicious noodle "Rahmen" at the famed restaurants district. Now . It is drizzling today as well, I must leave Sapporo today. A friend of Mr. Takemoto picked us and kindly drove around here and there on the way down to Chitose airport. At the airport I again visited and made report of "Chitose city multimedia information center" on the fourth floor of the building before we got on board.

Mon. 19 May 1997

My computer, I bought two years ago, was finally run out because of too heavy use. The machine has occasionally showed strange behavior from the beginning of this month and suddenly frozen today. I am at a loss that I had no time to save out many files such as my home page and pictures. I took it to the shop for repair. I am still lucky because I purchased a new computer in advance. I am now making my home page with that new machine. Well, I have to use it elegantly, indeed.