From Hiroshima. I arrived in Osaka last night, and had the most wondeful dinner with Mr. Tetsumi Sato, and two of his associates, Tatsumi and Koji at "Loin", a teppan-yaki restaurant in the Shin-Hankyu Hotel. The chef was a master, we all had beef with vegetables, including matsutake mushroom, paired with some wonderful Chilian wine. We reminised about old times, and good friendships, and in particular remembered Dr. Barrett Scoville, a colleage we miss who passed on in a plane crash (he used to commute regularly from Connecticut to DC in his small plane).

I woke up early this morning, and took an early Shinkansen (bullet train) to Hiroshima, checking my bags at the hotel and finding a lovely Internet Cafe from which I'm writing this. I saved my Shinkansen ticket for Toran, and even took a photo of the train I rode for him. Love making my young friends happy. I'll have to post photos in retrospect when I'm back in the U.S.