(written 21 Jan) Sitting at the Osaka airport, early on Saturday, feeling good about all the work we did together this week. It’s been easy for me, despite the heavy schedule of 5 days of talks & presentations in 5 different cities because of the great planning by Green Map Japan and Aika, our liasion/interpretor. Highlights included:

Aichi EXPO reunion – moving on, expansions of 15 projects, 4 new maps
Kanazawa – tour of a beautiful garden with Kayano Chihara, Shin-san & a great group
Takaoka – major project in formation, involving students in several university departments, with the goal of a Japanese, Chinese (both kinds!) and English map for visitors
Kyoto – work with GM Japan, nice to stroll a bit too!
Osaka – planning the seeds for Green Maps in the Kansai region with Japan Design Society (wow, just a few days later, a digital Osaka Chuo Ward Green Map using Mixi social networking tools was started by Chikafumi Kawamoto of the Osaka Industrial Design Center!

Nice to meet so many wonderful friends, help projects get media and agency attention, and move forward on all these projects together! BTW both Aika & I traveled “climate neutral” via Native Energy’s wind energy development program!