Wednesday November 5th

We toured City Hall and met with the deputy mayor (the mayor was in China) and the Brooch Machining Company which was owned by a Rotarian. They made very customized parts and must have had 50 million dollars worth of equipment. Lunch at a cafeteria and then a tour of the Chuunichi Shimbun Newspaper Publishing Company. We were there when we heard the news that Obama had been elected President. Before we left the building they were already publishing the newspaper with a picture of Obama on the front page. Besides the picture of Obama, the three things I could tell on the front page were that Obama is 47, CNN, and by the pictures in the weather forecast it is sunny weather. Humamatsu is a beautiful city with a mild climate, it doesn't snow and they have palm trees (always a good sign for the winter). We finished early so we waited two hours at the Grand Hotel and make some revisions to our PowerPoint presentation. Our second Welcoming Party had about forty guests which included the Presidents and Secretaries of eight Rotary Clubs, our host families (my host Tatsuyoshi could attend so his daugther Mariko and her mother who I just met for the first time (she has been visiting another daughter in Australia), three Past District Governors including Mr. Invi who served as Governor the same year as I did 1992-93, plus other district officials. We need to be very adaptable. The Japanese are very organized but we sometimes we are informed at the last minute. You need to extend greetings and introduce your team now for five minutes, it is time for your PowerPoint presentation use twenty minutes, now exchange district banners with the eight Rotary Club Presidents, now it is time for photos with families. Sometimes they are speaking in English and sometimes in Japanese. My laptop computer has not connected to the Internet since we have been in Japan. All my blogs have been late at night or very early in the morning (it is now 5:10 a.m). This morning I meet with a sixth grade class in Hamamatsu.
Always a gorilla
Kenchan
Ken