A Saturday with Miki-san

Miki-san flew from Japan to America for a week of business and shared a Saturday with us. James and Miki worked together for six years at Toyo Tanso USA and during that time they developed a friendship that spanned more than just work. We were able to get together with Miki, Mitsue, Sotoro and George many times to go boating, or have dinner and always had lots of fun and enjoyed our visits. We were sad when they moved back to Japan.

James, Matt, Katherine and myself met Miki-san and his friend Kiku-san at 'Salty's' a restuarant on the Columbia River for a magnificient all-you-can-eat buffet of seafood, beef and anything good you can imagine. It was fun to sit and talk about families, work and past memories. Miki-san said that everyone in Japan remembers James-san and what a wonderful engineer he is and misses him. Miki-san brought us beautiful gifts, Japanese table runners, purses and mirrors.

After lunch we drove to Multnomah Falls and hiked up the trail as far as the bridge.

We then drove back to our home for a short time where we sat and talked and looked at pictures.









Our day ended with a trip to Niketown in downtown Portland so that Miki-san might purchase some Nike shoes to take back to his sons in Japan. We have many friends in Japan; people James worked with and then moved back and people that James has met on his four trips he made to Japan while working at TTU. Miki-san and his family are such good friends and we hope to someday visit with his family in Japan as well as our other friends from that wonderful country.