Hello, everybody.
This is John Hammond from the Hammond Cast Show on KYOU Radio, and we're in Osaka, Japan
today.
I'm very happy to be broadcasting to you with our good friends from Mayor Matsu's office
here in Osaka, and from the Office of Tourism, and we have our friends here, and Richard
Harris who is working with the mayor's office.
He recently moved over here from Chicago, and he's based here now.
So first I'm going to ask Richard what's happening here in Osaka these days.
We are Sister Cities.
This is the 35th anniversary of the Association of Sister Cities of Osaka and San Francisco,
so this is very appropriate that we're here for this event.
How are you doing today, Richard?
Oh, wonderful.
Great.
Glad you could make it.
Thank you.
So we have a couple of international musical events to talk about.
The first is the International Music Festival in Nakano Shima, which has the theme of piano
this year.
So we have quite a few events this weekend for that.
And the one that I'm particularly interested in about is this coming week with Yoko Nogue,
who is a jazz musician from Chicago, who is coming here as part of the 35th anniversary
of the Chicago and Osaka Sister Cities relations.
So she's doing an all Japan tour, but she'll be here in Osaka this coming week, so it's
going to be a wonderful show.
She's an amazing pianist.
Wow, great.
All right.
Well, that sounds fantastic.
And also, Mr. Fujita, how are you doing today, Mr. Fujita?
Fine, and welcome to Osaka.
Thank you very much.
It's a big honor to be here, and thank you for coming to greet us.
It's really a great pleasure.
So will you come and visit us in San Francisco sometime?
Some of them would like to visit San Francisco, and I'm in charge of the Sister Cities relationship.
And San Francisco is also Sister Cities, and Chicago is also Sister Cities.
And last year is the 50th anniversary of the Sister Cities relationship between San Francisco
and Osaka.
At that time, Mayor Nyu-Nyu-san came to Osaka, and our mayor visited San Francisco.
Oh, when?
And I myself, last month, I visited Chicago with Vice Mayor of Osaka, and I enjoyed Chicago
very much.
Super.
Well, we have also a connection with Chicago because I was born in Chicago, you know.
But this is the great circuit, so it's great that you had Mayor Gavin Newsom came here
last year, and we like him very much.
He's a good guy, so I think you have a great mayor here, and we have a good one there.
And we're very excited now, too.
We have a new president, elect Obama, and so we're very excited about that.
And the general opinion here in Osaka, you're happy also that we have Obama is now going
to be the new president, right?
So we're hoping that you will invite him here to Osaka, too.
I'm sure he'll be visiting you.
He gets around pretty good, you know?
There's a city in Japan actually called Obama.
Oh, really?
Interesting.
Wow.
I'm sure he's going to make a visit there at some point, too, or something else.
And very interestingly, our radio station, KYOU Radio, you were telling us that in Japanese
it has a meaning as well.
Yes, it means today in Japanese.
Wow.
Well, that's very appropriate, because we start out early in the morning, you know.
We come on the air at four o'clock in the morning.
So a lot of people are just waking up, and some are going to sleep.
So very often I always say, hello, everybody, wake up or go to sleep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so we have Mrs. Shinagawa over here.
How are you doing today, Mrs. Shinagawa?
Hi, fine.
I'm doing great.
Great.
Thank you.
All right.
Well, thank you for coming to greet us, and will you be coming to visit us in San Francisco,
you think?
Actually, I visited San Francisco last month.
Oh, wow.
I traveled there.
Super.
And so you enjoyed it?
Where did you visit there?
I took some tour.
I went to Murewood.
Oh, that's beautiful.
Yeah.
So you saw the redwoods and everything?
Yeah.
And then I also went to Napa Valley.
It's like they have the train program.
The wine train.
Wine train.
Yeah, wine train is good.
I loved it.
Yeah.
That's a beautiful thing.
I enjoyed the wine train tour.
It's a lot of fun, you know.
So I liked it.
And thank you for coming, Mr. Mariah.
Everything's okay?
Okay.
No.
I can speak English.
Yeah.
That's good, well.
Victor.
Yeah.
Say hello in Japanese to everybody in San Francisco.
Yeah.
Good day.
Good day.
Good day.
Good day.
Good day.
Good day.
Good day.
Good day.
Good day.
Good day.
Good day.
Good day.
And maybe you could translate for us.
Since we are from the tourism promotion section, so he said, please come to Japan to come Osaka
from San Francisco.
Oh, that's beautiful.
Wow.
That's fantastic.
All right.
Well, thank you very much and we're going to be playing some of the great music from
coming here from Osaka.
We have a very famous Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra that we want to feature some of their
music.
And I want to thank you for having us as your guest today.
And before we leave you with some music from Osaka and get out of here, I would like to
ask Richard what he could say to the listeners on KYOU radio.
Well, since KYOU is today in Japanese, I guess our today is your tomorrow.
KYOU, yay!
All right.
