What's New in May and June, 1998
Palo Alto trip (Toru)
From the end of April to the beginning of June, Toru had a business trip to Palo Alto to prepare things for his family. He stayed at hotels in long terms until he found the new house. During the week the graduation ceremony of Stanford University was held, as all the hotels in Palo Alto were booked for the family of the students, Toru had to stay at a hotel in San Mateo north of Palo Alto. Anyway, there are many peoples coming to Silicon Valley, it is difficult to find a reasonable house in reasonable rental fee. Actually it took about one month for him to find out the house. But the environments of the house is excellent(quiet and green, see the left photo), there is a big tree in the backyard (right) and squirrels come everyday. Every house in this area have sprinkler for the grass and gardiners visit once a week. It means the people in this area love the "green" .
At the back of Xerox Hillview Site where FX Palo Alto Laboratory is located, there is a posture like this.
In the north of Xerox Hillview Site, there is the famous Stanford University. This photo shows the "Oval" located in the center of university. The Oval is open to people and is crowded with families in weekends.
In United States, people go to Shopping Center to buy everything, which includes department stores and various stores. Stanford Shopping Center located in the site of Stanford University is beautiful, greenish and has several fountains in the walk.
Wine ＆ Art Festival (Toru)
Wine & Art Festivals are held in many cities of Sillicon Valley on the main street of its downtown with temporary closed to vehicular traffic. These photos show the one held in Mountain View, peoples enjoyed hearing musics(Left Photo) and looking handmade articles(Right Photo). Toru bought a miniature airplane model made by used cans and he hang it in his office.
Yosemite Valley (Toru)
Toru enjoyed Yosemite Valley with Japanese visitors. The scenary made by rocks, falls and trees may be familiar in Japan, but the scale is 10 times different. The upper-left photo showes Bridalweil Fall and the upper right photo showes Yosemite Fall. Comparison with the size of automobiles suggests how big the Yosemite fall is. It was much rain in this year, large amount of water was falling with big sounds. The lower-left photo was taken at the gate of "Curry Village" in which they have many canvases. They also gave warning to the guests that bears attack the car in which foods are left. The lower-right photo shows the 1 km tall big rock "El Captain".
Sports Day (Takeshi & Haruka)
While Toru made a trip to Palo Alto, the schools Takeshi and Haruka are going held their Sports Day. Takeshi's high school held it at the athletic ground of Hiratsuka-city(Left). Haruka attended a "centipede" race (between teams of runners with their legs linked together). Their sports day of the next year will be held in California.