Old Friends, New Places

Back in the day, 1993 to be exact, I attended an intensive university program at the (unfortunately now defunct) Institute of German Studies in rural northern Minnesota.  It was a very small program, and all the students, faculty, and even staff together numbered fewer than 50 people.  Although it was a pretty tight-knit community, after all these years, I'm in touch with only a few of my classmates.  But some of them are better communicators than I am, and are better at social media and all that, and when I was planning this trip, one of them told me that one of our old crowd is living in Hirohsima.  Eric, along with his wonderful wife and beautiful little girl had us over to their home for an home-cooked, authentic Japanese, but specially for us vegetarian, feast.  We had the most fantastic time!  Eric met us at our hostel and led us on a brief bicycle tour of the city on the way to their apartment.  He pointed our several of the hidden gems of the city we certainly would have missed without him, and told us some more about the city's history.  He even took us to Sadako's school (see prior post about the paper cranes) and showed us the statue there, and pointed out her home.  Thank you for the wonderful hospitality and for bringing Hiroshima and Japan to life for us. 

 どうもありがとうございました

Thank you very much!